London 2015 Day 17: Day-drinkin'
Today was a bit of a slower start after such a long day of exploring yesterday. I called Mom for Mother's Day and then made an omelet with some of the ingredients I had picked up yesterday at the market. Then some laundry, dishes and journal. So a nice slow start to the day.
Journal caught up and solid breakfast done, I headed off to go meet Sonia, Marko and Mohen at the Maltby St. Market in Bermondsie. The directions? "Go down an alleyway, near some train tracks..." it was definitely off the beaten path, in a great and local way. Started with an excellent flat white and a wander and tastes in teh market before meeting up with folks.
First stop was Monty's Deli for a "salt beef", which I learned is the same as a corned beef. I was going to get a half-sandwich. "Get the full sandwich, you're gonna need a good base", Marko instructed me. That was a good call.
After the "good base" (and it sure was good), let the day drinking begin! We started off at a tiny Gin distillery at the far end of the Maltby St. Market, which was stellar. I had a Rose soda and Gin and it was really really good. Definitely a spot worth going to.
From there we headed to a tiny craft brewery called Anspach & Hobday where I got a cream ale. It was LITERALLY a hole in the wall. So cool to be hanging out in London with folks that really know the local spots.
So began our city wandering. Instead of getting straight on the subway, we headed instead to walk over Tower Bridge which was very epic. Chatting lots and enjoying the great weather, we headed past the Tower of London. There was a Poppy exhibit that had just finished and would have been pretty epic.
We walked for a while and ultimately ended up taking a bus to one end of Camden, a different spot than I had been, and definitely renewed my appreciation for the Camden area after the not-so-amazing Camden Lock market the day before. We went to Edinboro Castle (an outdoor beer garden), and I had a "Cloudy Cider" which was excellent. It was time again to eat, so we got some light bites -- a kind of veggie croquette, salmon and bread, and a Scotch egg! The Scotch egg appeared to be wrapped in some sort of meat? I always thought it was just breading. Anyhow... good times and we stayed there for a while and enjoyed the weather.
The day continued back to the Euston area, where we went to another hole-in-the-wall spot that you would literally never find if you were a normal tourist without amazing locals taking you around. It was a Chinese place, and there was no English anywhere. Mohen ordered in Mandarin (have I mentioned that people I work with are good at everything?!?) super impressive indeed. I had something called a "Beef Munger" (?) some sort of beef hot-pocket burgery thing. It was good. Especially awesome was the Chinese Soup/Veggie Ramen, it was really spicy, and had great bok choy and tofu in it. I was very grateful to be taken to all these cool spots that I never would have found on my own (or perhaps had the courage to try).
One the way out the door, I swung around to see the nice sign for the restaurant, keen to make a note of the name of the place for my journal, and the sign was all in Chinese. "Hey, this place is so Chinese..." I "cleverly" said, in an attempt to ask someone to translate the name for me, and I totally ATE IT. The curb was really awkwardly angled and I did some sort of majestic front/side flip right onto the sidewalk. Embarassedly laughing at my own epic fail, Marko gave me a hand back up and I figured after a long day of day-drinkin' and a twisted ankle fail on a janky sidewalk, it was probably a good time to start heading home. :) haha, fail.
I subway'd back to Paddington and stopped by the M&S and Sainsbury's Local in there to get a few more snack and yoghurt for home. The Dark Knight was on TV, so that seemed like a good call at the time to stay up for a couple hours longer and watch it, crushing a bunch of snacks.
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