And, the coffee wasn't the best coffee I've had by any means.
And there was no wifi.
So. Overall, not exactly my best visit to a coffee shop for elevenses. Maybe I went on an off day, but I'm not sure I would go back again.
Sometimes, all that is needed is a slice of cake and a hot bevvy. Especially for elevenses, and that's exactly what myself and my darling mother stopped off for at the Broca, in Brockley. Right opposite the train station, it is a brilliant stop off before scooting into the city, and I love the atmosphere of the coffee shop. It's a bit like strolling into a bohemian grandmother's living room - rugs and blankets strewn over mismatched comfy sofas and armchairs, kooky wall art and no two mugs are the same. Got to love a bit of quirk, I felt right at home. I punted for a soy latte (£2.50) and a slice of lemon and poppy seed cake (about £2.50 although I now can't remember...). I like soya milk as an alternative to regular milk, especially because the lattes at the Broca are generally made with full fat milk and that sloshes around in my stomach and is a bit...claggy, for want of a better word. Makes a change anyway. As enticing as the lemon and poppy seed cake looked, it was disappointing. Sure, it was zesty with lemon, but it was the cardinal sin of sponge cakes... DRY. It was an incredibly dry bake. The icing on the top added some relief, but unfortunately with a distinct lack of any kind of buttercream in the middle or something of that ilk, there was just a square of mediocre sponge on my plate. Disappointing to say the least.
And, the coffee wasn't the best coffee I've had by any means. And there was no wifi. So. Overall, not exactly my best visit to a coffee shop for elevenses. Maybe I went on an off day, but I'm not sure I would go back again.
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Being a fairly new Brixton inhabitant, I have yet to find my "local". I don't know where I want to go for a girly catch up dinner after a long old week because there is just, quite frankly, TOO MUCH CHOICE. After wandering around Brixton Village and Market Row for quite a considerable time, my friend and I settled upon Curry Ono, a little Japanese haven in Market Row. Japanese food isn't something I regularly think - shit son, I really must have me some Japanese food PRONTO. I like Asian flavours, but tend to gravitate towards dim sum or Thai. This for me was an initiation into Japanese cuisine. And I couldn't have been more pleased. This is sleek Japanese at its prime: Sleek interiors, set off with lots of lime green and wood. And chopsticks - no fork option on the table. I enjoy that those who can't use chop sticks have to ask specifically for a fork, because if I could eat all my meals with chopsticks I totally would. For delicious food, there was a delicious price: £8.50 got me a set menu which was extremely good value for money. Firstly was a miso soup - again not something I would ever really hanker after but was suprisingly full of flavour. So much so that I inhaled it before remembering to photograph the evidence. Oops. Spring onions made it have an acidic bite, whilst the tofu (something I had never eaten before!) was silky smooth. I took a bit of a gamble seeing as how I have never eaten tofu before of punting for the Teriyaki tofu rice salad as my main course: Tofu is an odd thing indeed. Odd in a nice way, a bit like that relative you have who spouts irrelevant shit at Christmas but you love to pieces. That's how I feel about tofu. If you've never had it before, its texture is unlike anything I have ever really had before, kind of smushy and silky and gelatinous simultaneous. But really nice? And it had been marinated in teriyaki, so was full of flavour. The teriyaki had kind of formed this tangy skin - I know I'm not making this sound at all appealing but it really was.
The sticky rice was, well, sticky rice. But great sticky rice. It stuck and held together, but you could still make out individual grains - it wasn't a stodgy mush of white gunk, put it that way. And I think I need to go on a Japanese salad making course because the accompanying salad was just out of this world. Zingy, zesty and with a fantastic mixture of textures - crunch, wet dressing and just fresh leaves. I mean as much as one can rave about a side salad, I'm raving about it. All in all, a success. I think what I like about Japanese cooking is that it is so fresh. It is light, not stodgy. It is healthy. And at Curry Ono, it is bloody cheap - as well as being delicious. Once again the mother dearest was in London, and once again I got treated to a lovely lunch - this time joined by fellow veggie friend of my darling mama's Sarah. Three veggies, one need for decent vegetarian food. This can sometimes be a bit of a conundrum, but my mama and Sarah knew where to go and it's a little place in Soho called Beatroot. Basically, you can sit in or out - we opted to mosey (which was actually a serious long trek of getting lost) to Golden Square to sit in the sunshine with our little boxes of goodness. The premise of Beatroot is that you can pick a size box you want and fill it to the brim with anything you like. And they have pretty much everything! I opted for a medium box (£6.20) and got: - Greek Salad (which kind of overpowered everything else I opted for and if I had made any mistake it was probably introducing this...) - Quinoa Taboullah - which was delicious and full of seeds, pulses and yumminess - Blanched broccoli - tossed in sesame seeds, and only blanched for a minute to retain all the nutrients - Some kind of beany salady thing - scrum - A wild rice with dried fruit salad thing - again, really fresh, really delicious I quite fancied a salad orientated box, mainly because it was a hot day and I fancied something cold and lighter. But don't let this fool you into thinking that Beatroot is a salad joint, oh no! They have an array of hot food too like stir fry, curry, lasagne, dauphinoise potatoes, stews... You name it. To quench my thirst, I wanted something cool and refreshing and I went for a Breeze juice (pear, apple, ginger and lemon) which was £3.80 for a large. Super zingy, super tasty, and just perfect for strolling through sunny London streets.
Lunch for the three of us, with two drinks, came to about £25, which isn't too shabby (although a bit more than I would normally spend, granted). However, this little gem is worth it. The most exciting thing about Beatroot is, as Sarah rightly pointed out, that that vegetarian food here has flavour. It actually tastes of vegetarian food. So often, the options leave much to be desired, but with this range of fresh and zingy salads, warm and comforting hot dishes and knowing that everything is nutritious and delicious, well... I'm in veggie heaven. What to do on a gloriously sunny Wednesday spring afternoon? Why, go for a potter around Notting Hill Market of course! Going for a pootle round the market is lovely, having a good people watch, getting tempted by leather rucksacks and raiding charity shops is a wonderful way to while away a few hours of an afternoon.
However, Notting Hill is also home to a branch of The Hummingbird Bakery. You should all know by now, I bloody love to bake. I have baked things from The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook! Yet... I WAS A HUMMINGBIRD VIRGIN. Sacrilege. You walk in to a sea of pink (my favourite). Straight away I was overwhelmed. Too. Much. Choice. I didn't know what the bloody hell I was going to choose! It was a toss up between: 1) Biscuit bar (£2.50 take away - I think?! Can't 100% remember!) - a kind of fridge cake/tiffin thing 2) A whoopie pie (£3.25 take away) - something I'd never heard of before but kind of cookie/cake hybrid sandwiched together with buttercream or frosting. A bit crunchier that a cupcake. 3) Black bottom cupcake (£2.50 take away) - chocolate sponge cake with cheesecake baked into the middle with cream cheese frosting. Right. Nightmare. How to pick. Top Tip: Ask the staff to help you out! What would they recommend? Top Tip: Choose something you would never bake at home. I decided against the biscuit bar, because I can easily make those at home. It was between the whoopie pie and the black bottom cupcake. I asked the woman behind the counter (absolutely LOVELY lady) and she said as a chocaholic, she would go black bottom every time. Mmm. Tempted. But I'd never had a whoopie pie so... No. What put me off the whoopie pie was that they only had red velvet flavour. Red velvet is the most RIDICULOUS cake flavour. It is just vanilla/vague hint of choc sponge with cream cheese frosting. Dyed red. AKA dull. WINNER: black bottom cup cake! Taking this back with me on the tube in the cutest packaging I couldn't wait to tuck into this for my pudding. And boy was it worth it. I wish I had savoured it a bit more and not gobbled it up in 4 mouthfulls. The chocolate sponge was moist. The cheesecake filling tasted like melted rolos in the middle. There was a fucking FANTASTIC cake to frosting ratio and it was just... mmm decadent and smooth and sweet and yum. There's a reason why Hummingbird have got such a good rep. It's because they are good at what they do. Like, bloody good. Yeah - I think this cupcake hype is overrated (give me a slice of cake any day of the week). Yeah - I think red velvet is MOST DEFINITELY overrated. But I have to say, this black bottom cupcake was just bang on. Next time I'm going past a Hummingbird, I reckon I'm gonna pick up one of the following (yes, yes, alright I'm a bit obsessed and have been stalking their website): - slice of carrot cake - cheesecake brownie - chocolate and peanut butter whoopie pie - slice of pecan pie Oh. Fuck. Better ask the staff again. My love of dim sum is never ending. Literally, I could eat the stuff all day long. I have tried a few dim sum places, and have walked past Ping Pong on the Southbank many times, but never ventured in. Meeting my friend for lunch, I suggested we try it out and boy am I glad we did. The interior is very sleek, contemporary, modern... In a word, "trendy". And I love the fact that they don't give you an option but chopsticks when you sit down - that is totally how it should be. The waiting staff were incredibly helpful, as we explained it was our first visit and our waitress patiently explained this tick box menu system. I'm glad we followed her recommendation of looking at the set menus. As someone who is incredibly indecisive, being presented with a vast array of dim sum choices was almost enough for my head to explode. Both my friend and I settled on the set menu called Vegetarian Super 8, which was a mere £8. For this very reasonable price you got: - 2 x spicy vegetable dumplings - 2 x pak choi dumplings - 2 x spinach and mushroom dumplings - a vegetable rice bowl (mushrooms, vegetables and black bean sauce) - an iced lea of your choice Crazy good value for money if you ask me! I started off with the iced tea (which are normally about £3 by themselves!). Not knowing what to go for, I punted for strawberry and vanilla, which was just the right amount of sweet and very refreshing. My friend opted for passionfruit and lime which was also very nice and tangy. Next up came the rice bowls, which were absolutely divine. Sticky white rice with assorted veg on the top in a yummy sauce, you can't really go wrong. It worked really well with the hot chilli sauce which was on our table, and add a splash of soy and I was in heaven! Then the theatrical bit - I love it when they bring the steamers to the table! Opening up the lid and seeing this sumptuous dumplings inside makes me salivate just recalling it. My definite favourites were the spicy vegetable, they were just the right amount of hot and were so moist on the inside. I could pop these little dumplings in my mouth all day long! Tiny little parcels of perfection. All of this for £8 was incredibly reasonable and I was completely satisfied afterwards. Okay, so they added an annoying service charge to our bill which really gets my goat, but the service was good, efficient and the nicest thing was that we could stay and chat after we had finished eating - I hate those places which are determined to kick you out to steal your table back. Looking for a cheap lunch and fancy trying something a bit different? Definitely head to Ping Pong. And next time I go, I might stray from the set menus and try some more steamed parcel perfection...
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JessicaTwenty something living in London. Trying new things and hoping to inspire you to do the same. Archives
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