Weekend Cooking: What We Ate on Holidays - London

Well, what a week we have had in London! It's been more than 25 years since I was last in London, and whilst all the major tourist attractions still look the same, the city as a whole has definitely been evolving! I feel as though we managed to fit in a good mix of old and new.

We arrived in London very early last Friday morning feeling fairly fresh. I was quite surprised by how much sleep I got on the flight from South Africa. Normally I don't sleep much on planes but we bought a new type of travel pillow and it was much better. After a quick shower, we wandered around the area behind Kings Cross Station whilst we waited for my brother and sister in law (my husband's brother) to arrive from the Netherlands. We then spent the day basically on the tourist route on the hop-on-hop-off bus. Here is one site you might recognise.

My first foodie treat is one that I don't have a photo of. We were walking around the back of the Tower of London and everyone else decided to get hot dogs but I saw the cup of strawberries that looked so delicious I had to have them, especially seeing as you could get them smothered in chocolate. Can I tell you, those were the most strawberry tasting strawberries I have had in years. They were sweet and juicy, and much better than the strawberries we get a home, even at the height of their season.

We went and found our accommodation, and there could be only one thing for dinner - fish and chips! And they were really good! Especially sitting outside in the evening with a beer! We were very lucky weather wise and we were able to sit outside every time we wanted to. Given that we were in London for a week, we only had a slight drizzle on the last day. Otherwise, it was hot the whole time. 

The next day we started off by attending the changing of the guard at Horseguards with all it's pomp and ceremony. From there we wandered around a bit, and then we headed to the Imperial War Museum which was very interesting. On the way there, we saw this street which looked liked there could be some restaurants, and there were! We had found a street called Lower Marsh, which is just behind Waterloo station, and it had a heap of restaurants along it. There was music and a great vibe and we had some great pizza there..

This was the fuel that we needed for the final thing of the day - a spin around the London Eye! When I left the UK at the very end of 1999, the Eye was just being built and so it was one of the things I really wanted to do. 

On Monday, it was time to say farewell to my in-laws but not before we joined up with my step-daughter who has recently moved to the UK. The five of us had morning tea in a tiny cafe which is below Westminster. You access it through the Deans Yard and it was a really good find. t was quiet so we could easily catch up on everything that had happened since everyone last saw each other. I saw this cake and knew I wanted a piece, regardless of the flavour. In the end it was a mango coconut loaf with a lemon icing. 

We then wandered up to Buckingham Palace to say hi to the King, a then a quick dash to Harrods to look in their Christmas shop. I meant to drop into the food hall but by that time we were running out of time. 

Having said farewell to the in-laws, we then ventured to County Hall where we had Afternoon Tea in the library. I am going to do a separate post about this at some point, but here are just a couple of pictures until I get around to doing that.

The next day we left London and did a quick trip down to Brighton, because this is where my step- daughter is currently living. She will be moving back to London in a couple of months, but it was fun to go down there and see where she is living as well as taking a look at the Royal Pavillion. We also took a walk down the pier, and of course that meant more fish and chips. After saying a tearful farewell to B, we headed back to London. 

We had noticed earlier that there was a canal quite close to where we were staying. We should really have explored this a bit more earlier in the trip as there were some very interesting places in the area and it was named as one of the coolest areas in London not too long ago.  We ended up having dinner at a bar/restaurant right on the edge of the canal. 

Your eyes are not deceiving you. That is a burger using crumpets as the bun. It was a char sui pork burger and it was very tasty. Not sure that crumpets as a burger bun are going to catch on but it was very nice. 

Wednesday was the day that we used all the public transport types in London. We caught the Overground train to connect to the Underground train, to connect to the Docklands Light railway, which took us to the cable car over the Thames which was fun. From there we caught the bus to Greenwich to visit the National Maritime Museum. One of the offerings was this Garden Pea and Lemon cake, and you know what, it was pretty good.

From Greenwich we caught a tourist boat up to Westminster and then a river bus back a few stops as we were having dinner at the Swan, which is right next to the Globe theatre as we went to see A Comedy of Errors there. Years ago there used to be a pop up globe in Melbourne and we went to see a number of performances there, as well as one in Sydney, so going to see another one while we were in London was a must and it was so much fun. 

Given how many public transport options we took you wouldn't think that we would still need to walk 160000 steps on this day but we did. 

Our final day in London, we decided to go to Richmond, which is where they filmed some of Ted Lasso. It is also a town that sits right on the Thames, and has a long Royal history, although there isn't much left now. It was a very interesting town. While we were there I thought we might have been able to try some of the Ted's famous shortbread but alas no. Instead we tried this interesting concoction, which was advertised as London Cheesecake, although I have no idea why. There isn't a skerrick of cheese anywhere in it.

We had better success at Covent Garden where we had this delicious marittozo. Maritozzo are traditionally a breakfast dish in Rome, but this was next level. I actually really liked Covent Garden. Yes, it's touristy, but it was great. From there we walked to the British Museum, and then onto  our final destination - dinner at Sky Garden. It was a very fitting way to finish our time in London.

You may wonder why I am finishing with a picture of Cornflakes. When I returned home after living here for 5 years back in the late 1990's I was absolutely convinced that Cornflakes tasted different here than they do in Australia. So one of the things I had to do while I was here was taste them again. And I was right

Are we all London'd out yet? Probably not. There were a heap of places that we didn't get to visit, but when we travel we often find that we run out of time before we run out of things to do. We walked more than 100000 steps, we travelled all over the city using all the public transport things, we visited museums, we tried new things. I can definitely see us coming here again.

Now we are on our way to Scotland. Haggis here we come.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page