We were a bit knackered from traveling yesterday but I was chuffed that we finally made it to London. We left the flat in the morning and BLIMEY it was nippy.
Only been here a day and I’m already talking like a local! JK, I’m just taking the piss and I know I sound like a total bellend
I needed to start my first day in London with a hearty breakfast. My friend Chris recommended the Regency Cafe which has been in business since 1946. Definitely a small time diner where the locals went because the guy behind the counter knew the names of several of the customers so I think we were in the right place. I was so nervous queuing up to the counter as I didn’t want to say the wrong thing but I got an order of the English breakfast with eggs, rashers (back bacon), sausage, black pudding, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, and hash browns. He asked how much sugar I wanted in my coffee, I panicked, said 3 when I only wanted one, and the guy taking my order says “‘ ‘FREE?! OK MATE” and just heaps 3 spoon fulls in. He also stopped and yelled across the room to a to a middle aged dude on his laptop at a table who was done eating. “MATE ARE YOU DONE WITH THAT TABLE?” The guy said yah and picks up and leaves. This is such a different feel from Paris when our meals took over an hour and people just hung out as long as they wanted.
We took a few pictures at some sight seeing places that were within walking distance to burn off some of that breakfast.
After the photo session we walked over to a shopping district called Covent Gardens. Nothing really worth talking about except we did visit a food hall called Seven Dials. I had heard of this place from a youtube video I watched a few weeks before about a baker who had a creative twist on a traditional Chinese pineapple bun. I walked up to his stall where he was kind of slumped on his stool watching people walk by and introduced myself saying that I know him from youtube. His body language picked up on my energy and we had a really nice chat ending with me buying one of his aforementioned pineapple bun. It’s different because he put the filling from a coconut bun and put it in this one, it’s a 菠蘿包 with 雞尾包 filling inside.
Check out the video if you have a chance, the rest of the channel has some other really great content centering on Chinese food.
The rest of the market was really cool, it was ALL young people like ourselves…who are young…and not at all old. The most impressive food shop was called Pick and Cheese (great name) that had a conveyor belt seen at sushi restaurants but their plates had charcuterie and cheese.
