London 2015 Day 15: Coffee and Craft Beer Co.

5/8/2015
London 2015 Day 15: Coffee and Craft Beer Co.

Thanks to my fancy new tupperware from yesterday, I made a salad and was able to bring in hummus and carrot dip! Success. A good day, and a break in the afternoon with Sonia to go wander and get a coffee. We went to a place called Notes and met a hilarious dude there making coffee under a canopy (to shelter from the ubiquitous rain) in a Church parking lot?! Fun and random, and he was rocking the standard LaMarzocco/Mazzer combo that us Blue Bottle fanatics know so well. Legit.

Tea time and biscuits again (different ones this time, of course), followed by an evening out with "the lads" at a place called Craft Beer Co. We had some great chats and it was good to get to know everyone better in that sort of setup. The guys asked me how the trip was going thusfar and the conversation, as you might suspect, turned towards Chips. "There's something very British about potatoes" one of the guys said, and this started a proper argument about whether Chips or Fries were superior. "I like Fries better than Chips" someone said, and to which another fellow responded swiftly "You're just wrong!" This is most certainly the strongest statement I've ever heard from a Brit, and rightly so :) I said "Wow, I've never heard a British person say that!" and everyone laughed. A great crowd and a hilarious conversation. Good times.

Craft Beer Co. actually had a pretty great Whisky selection too - I got a Laphroaig 15 and it was solid. They had Highland Park 25 and Ardbog, even! Expensive ones, but nice selection. Will have to go back there again later for Whisky :)

Down the road I grabbed some EXCELLENT chips -- definitely the best of the trip thusfar! I was also surprised you could just drink beers out on the street, on the sidewalk. This is totally normal and the expected pub experience, I was instructed. I guess pubs are all kinda small so people tend to filter out onto the street -- but even in the rain, it seemed?! Glad I was getting the true British experience in any case! Adding chips into the mix with the Beers and chilly evening weather was pretty much a total slam dunk.

The Kiwi fellow there told me about a pie place and got me hungry and thinking about wandering town for some late-night food, one of my favourite travel activities. (Food?! Are you seeing a trend here in what I blog about?!)

Anyhow, I wandered throughout SoHo and found a place called Herman ze German, and got a spicy beef sausage. This was pretty good at the time, but I regretted the greasiness as I continued my wandering. I eventually got to the pie place, but it was not very busy and looked either closed or kinda quiet. So I headed instead to a Pinxos place next door, which looked great... but I was impatient for more food and after waiting for a while I ditched and continued walking and wandering.

At some point I acquired an Elderflower drink and some Cream Crackers ("I'm cream crackered, Gromit!"), I think by wandering into a grocery store by Piccadilly. The wandering continued and late night exploration, but ultimately it started raining more and was time to subway back home. Random aimless Friday night London city wandering... success!