On a cold fresh morning, we made our way to the Old Spitalfields Market to meet with our guide Harry. First off, Harry took us to St Johns across the road for a bacon sanger. St Johns is owned by Fergus Henderson, a chef who is renowned for using every part of an animal in his dishes. Surprisingly, when we walked into St Johns....... the man himself was in the restaurant in his chefs gear (a rare sight these days with chefs who have created an empire and a name). This is a good sign !!! The bacon was delicious, tasty served with their house tomato jam. I do have a soft spot for good bacon......
Next up, we head off to The English Restaurant on Brushfield Street. This is a 17th Century heritage listed restaurant with church pews as dining booth seatings "straight out of Dickensian novels". This is where we had a gorgeously creamy bread and butter pud. Talk about an indulgent breakfast !!
From here Harry took us to a cheese shop, The House of Androuet...... mmm..... love English cheeses. If you like cheese, check this place out. It is on Lamb Street.
Now, you cannot be in the UK and not have fish n chips. Harry took us to Poppies in Hanbury Street. Its pretty good. The shop looked just like what you would expect a fish n chip place in London to look like. Men in white coats and hats, no deep fryer smells......... and they even give you a container of mushy peas to dip your chips into.
After all that walking about, its time to quench the thirst with a tasting of the english ale and cider at the " Pride of Spitalsfields". Although I enjoyed it, I still can't get use to warm beers. Apparently there is a resident cat at this pub who is famous. He has his own facebook page, twitter account with millions of followers. How about that !!
What comes to mind when I say Brick Lane? Curry of course. If you have ever been down this street during dinner time, you will know how daunting it is with curry house after curry house, touting for your business. It can get a bit overwhelming. Harry reckons the Aladin is the place for the best curry. We had a go at 3 curries - and they are pretty good. I still can't say they are the best though. But then, we are spoilt because of our friend Saif who is a Bangladeshi Australian and he cooks wicked curries.
The next spot is our favourite. Beigel Bake at the end of Brick Lane (towards Bethnal Green). Now this place is definitely worth talking about. It is a simple shop front with a massively long queue out the door. Their specialty, Salted beef (we know it as Corned Beef) served in a bagel with hot mustard and pickled gherkin. You can see a staff member by the window carving up these salted beef. It is lean, tender and moist. This place is open 24/7.......... I would quite happily replaced the good old late night Kebab for one of these back home anytime.
Our final food destination was a pizza joint call Pizza East. The restaurant is quite hip and stylish. We were served a slice of salted caramel tart with a nice cup of english tea to finish the tour. It was nice but again not much to write home about.
Although this tour was advertised as an eating tour. They do dabble in a bit of street arts and history. Harry pointed out all the Jonesy miniature sculptures as we walked down Brick Lane and adjoining streets. There was also a Banksy installation, due to the demands for his work, it had to be boxed inside a perspex box so no one would run off with them.
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