London Day 3: Changing of the Guard, Trafalgar Square, Borough Market, Covent Garden

London Day 3 - December 28, 2013

Palace guards heading in

Our third day in London was a little more structured and we were fortunate enough to have a couple of local "tour guides" join us. My niece Lauren had a friend, Kat, who she met in Madrid but who lives near London and my other niece Shyla had a friend, Sami, who happened to be in London visiting his girlfriend but who had also lived in London for a time while he went to school here. We wanted to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace so we arranged to meet them at "the fountain" at noon.

Buckingham Palace

That turned out to be a little tricky as it turned out every tourist in London also came to see the changing of the guard and we were roped off into certain sections to allow traffic, including the guards on their horses, through. There were so many people we didn't actually see the changing itself although we managed to catch them mounted up and heading towards Buckingham Palace in red robed glory. Fortunately we did miraculously locate Sami in the throng and went to Plan B to meet Kat at Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar Square 

Specifically, we met her (literally) at the blue rooster. According to Sami, artists compete to have their works displayed at Trafalgar Square for certain lengths of time and the current winner was whoever designed this rooster. It's very big and very blue and is an ideal landmark to meet someone by simply because you absolutely can't miss it at Trafalgar Square.

The foursome - but see the legs of the blue rooster at the center top of this pic?

The nice thing about having local folks to guide us around is they know where to go and what all the buildings and landmarks were that we were passing. Our walk included a peek in at Somerset House to watch the ice skaters as we made our way to the Thames and its myriad of bridges.

Somerset House with an ice skating rink outside

But the best place they told us about was Borough Market, underneath the bridge near London Bridge tube station. This place was great and exactly the kind of local market I like poking around in when I visit somewhere.

There were a lot of fresh food stalls from seafood and meats to breads and cheeses to fruits and vegetables. You can buy fresh produce as well as ready-to-eat foods cooked onsite. Or at least kept warm there and served hot.

It was a fun place to walk around and from there they took us to Covent Garden, also very crowded and filled with more tourists. No shopping for us but just people watching and walking. My biggest surprise was discovering a Shake Shack at Covent Garden. I thought they were only in New York City and I have very fond memories of trying my first Shake Shack burger on my last trip to Manhattan. I didn't try it here, only because we had already eaten at Borough Market but don't think I didn't consider it.

Covent Garden

Shake Shack at Covent Garden

 Like most of the central locations in London, Covent Garden was very crowded. We weren't in shopping mode so it was enough to mill around with the thousands of other people, see the sights and people watch. It was a great day filled with local color (or should I say "colour"?) and we had another fabulous time. Many thanks to Kat and Sami for showing us London through their experienced eyes.

Restaurant Review: The Windmill, London, England

The Windmill - dinner on December 27, 2013, 6-8 Mill St in the Marylebone and Piccadilly neighborhoods of London

We wanted "real British food" for dinner so we yelp'd shepherd's pie to see where good ones were served and The Windmill came up with glowing reviews. After walking around all afternoon, we arrived a little early for dinner (Londoners seem to eat late) so we sat around for a bit and enjoyed hot chocolate for me and coffee for my nieces.

The inside was small as are most London pubs but that always makes things cosy and a nice change from large, crowded places. We were getting used to small, crowded places instead :).

Shot from our table, this is as big as the room gets

But the size of the pub didn't matter, especially after our waitress passed out the menu once it was time to order and we perused their offerings. The Windmill has won the national championship for their Steak and Kidney Pie but their menu assured us their Steak and Mushroom Pie was the same thing except it didn't have kidneys so that's what my nieces opted to go with. I had a bite and it was delicious. The crust was flaky, the meat was tender and the sauce was tasty. I can see why they won the awards they did. You can get the meat pie with a side of "chips" or "mash" (mashed potatoes). They went for the chips.

Steak and Mushroom Pie

I was mostly preoccupied with my own "real British food" order of shepherd's pie. Shepherd's pie is typically made of ground lamb and vegetables in a gravy covered with a top crust of mashed potatoes. I've had okay shepherd's pie and bad shepherd's pie but this is the first time I've had great shepherd's pie. They broiled the top so it was almost partly burned but that didn't affect the taste. The topping was fluffy mashed potatoes with some melted cheese and the filling was superb. I'm not normally a fan of lamb but this was delicious. Not tough or greasy, just tender and flavorful. If anyone is in search of shepherd's pie worth remembering, I recommend the one at The Windmill.

Inside the Shepherd's Pie - this was so good

Although both dishes were hearty, naturally we had to get dessert as well. And in keeping with our British food theme, we went with the sticky toffee pudding. Sticky toffee pudding is more like a dense cake that's been steamed (it can also be baked) rather than what most Americans would consider a pudding. It's made with dates which I'm not a fan of so I don't make sticky toffee pudding or normally have it but since we were in London, that's what we had to have. Good thing too as this was also quite tasty. There weren't chunks of dates in it so I wonder if they pureed it instead or just chopped it really, really fine. But this was a good dense cake, a little lighter than pound cake but with the texture of a steamed cake, served warm with ice cream. One of my nieces enjoyed it so much I had trouble fending her off long enough to take a picture. We really are related, haha.

That brief moment when the sticky toffee pudding was in its entirety

The rapidly dwindling sticky toffee pudding I could barely capture in a shot

All in all, The Windmill was a great find. This is another place I highly recommend trying out for the pub experience and the food. I know it's a stereotype that there's no good food in London that isn't ethnic but The Windmill smashes that stereotype to bits.

Harrods Food Hall

Harrods Food Hall - visited December 27, 2013

Although being all girls and my nieces and I had to go to Harrods, it almost goes without saying that we never really intended to buy anything or to actually shop there. Far too expensive! For fun, one of my nieces checked the price of a menswear cashmere sweater and had us guess how much it was. We went up to 250 GBP before she informed us it was 680 GBP. Over $1100 for a sweater? Um, no thanks.

Fortunately, what we could afford was found in Harrods' Food Hall. Located on the street level/first floor, it's packed with people as well as different types of food. Think upscale farmers' market meets Whole Foods but housed inside Harrods.

So many different options to choose from! We hadn't planned on eating at Harrods as we had already had lunch at The Folly at this point and already had picked out our choice for dinner.

But since we were there, we each got something to take away for later. My nieces opted for a brie, sausage and cranberry meat pie. The individual-sized pies were 50% off and took up most of a length of a display case so presumably they were on sale because there were so many to sell, not that they were "day old".

Still being of the mindset to try local British food, I opted for the scones, a plain one and a chocolate one. C'mon, you can't go to London and not try a scone in some form. Although I didn't eat them until the next day, I thought both were pretty good. They would've been better warm but were still tasty. Surprisingly, I preferred the plain scone over the chocolate one. I didn't think the chocolate was necessary to the scone and the plain one allowed the butter flavor to come through better.

Chocolate scone in the bag

My nieces liked their brie, sausage and cranberry meat pie quite well even though they had it a day later as well. So much food, so little time....

Brie, Sausage and Cranberry Meat Pie from Harrods' Food Hall

If you're ever in London, I think Harrods' is worth a visit, even if you're not a shopper or don't want to spend hundreds of pounds on a cashmere sweater. It's an experience worth having, especially if you stop off at the Food Hall and get yourself a bite to eat.

Restaurant Review: The Folly, London, England

The Folly - lunch on December 27, 2013

The Folly
41 Gracechurch St
London EC3V OBT
0845 468 0102

Lunch was at a restaurant called The Folly which we discovered just by walking around far enough from the Tower of London so it wasn't a complete tourist trap. I liked the street address because it was on Gracechurch St which, as any Jane Austen fan knows from Pride & Prejudice is where the Gardiners lived when Jane went to stay with her aunt and uncle in London (yes, I'm having a geek moment). It was an address the Bingley sisters felt were beneath them but in modern day London (and outside of Austen's fictional world), it was fine.

Inside The Folly

We arrived a little after noon but the place was empty which at first was surprising because it was the lunch hour but it turns out that by London standards, that was a bit early for lunch and by the time we left after 1 pm, the place was quite packed.

My nieces split the special of the day which didn't have a fancy name but was simply a spicy Asian noodle dish with seafood. I got the bangers and mash (we were in the UK, after all, but  the translation for anyone not familiar with the term is sausages and mashed potatoes) and we also ordered a side of potato and sweet potato wedges. The sausages in my order were pretty tasty and the gravy accompanying the mashed potatoes was delicious. My order was in a silver bowl with sides just a trifle too high and served on a wooden trencher which I thought was a cute way to serve and reminiscent of an earlier era when food really was eaten from trenchers.

Bangers and Mash

The wait staff at The Folly were very nice although we seemed to be waited on by several different people so I was never quite sure who was our server. One striking difference between London and US restaurants is they never hurry you along. Even though the restaurant was filling up and there were people standing waiting for a table, no one was pushing us out of there and it actually took us a few minutes to find someone to bring us our bill when we were ready to leave. I always feel bad lingering at a table when other people are waiting but no one who worked at the restaurant seemed too concerned about it. Nevertheless, we settled up and went on our way.

The potato wedges were rather large; the sweet potato wedges were better and smaller

I enjoyed the food and ambiance at the Folly and would definitely recommend it for anyone in the area.

London Day 2: Tower of London, Big Ben, Westminster, Leicester Square, Harrods & a Chocolatier

London, Day 2: December 27, 2013

Tower of London

Our second day in London was our first full day. We all managed to get a good amount of sleep to hopefully shake off enough of the jet lag for our first real foray into London. We deliberately hadn't made a lot of specific plans to be at certain places at certain times (it was vacation after all) but had a general idea of places to go, especially for my nieces who had never been to London before. I have but in recent years the trips have been all for work so I haven't played tourist in London in quite some time so I didn't mind retracing my steps to some of the tourist attractions since I could scarcely remember them the first time around.


Tower Bridge

Thanks to a good friend with connections, we were able to get passes to the Tower of London so that was our first tourist stop. The great thing about London is the ease of getting around everywhere via the DLR (Docklands Light Rail) and of course, the tube or the Underground. We learned to navigate both very quickly and my nieces were quite adept at whipping out their iphones and google mapping wherever we needed to go. We were met with heavy downpour almost as soon as we left the hotel and both the umbrellas we'd packed from the mild climate of California didn't last 2 minutes outside. Fortunately the rain didn't last long and the sun even dared to peek out while we were exploring the Tower of London.

Big Ben - majestic as always

Much of the rest of the day was spent literally walking everywhere. We covered a lot of ground on foot - from the Tower of London to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey to Leicester Square, Bond Street, and Piccadilly Circus. We did manage to find 2 good places for lunch and dinner that day but I'm going to write those up in separate posts as part of my continuing restaurant reviews so they don't get lost in my travel monologues. Plus I like the idea of finding them later for when I go back and/or if I want to recommend them to friends who'll be visiting the city as well.

My favorite landmark in London has always been and still remains Big Ben. I never get tired of seeing it, in person or in pictures. There's just something so stately about it. Westminster Abbey is no slouch either. My head probably swiveled around like an owl as I kept gazing at all the beautiful, stately architecture around me just as we walked all around London.

In continuing with our walking travels, as a stereotype, can three females go to London and not go to Harrods? I didn't think so. However, imagine Harrods with lots of both tourists and locals doing after-Christmas and winter shopping and you've got the madhouse pictured accurately. It wasn't even Boxing Day but come to think of it, I don't think I've ever been to Harrods where it hasn't been packed. I don't have a lot of pictures inside to show because I just couldn't get out of the way long enough to take out my camera and snap pictures that weren't blurry.

Until we got to the Food Hall, that is. I love the Food Hall at Harrods, enough so that I'm going to write it up separately so wait for it in a future post :).

But I will mention the chocolatier we happened upon whilst out walking. That's the beauty of simply walking from place to place or just walking around to see the area. You can happen upon all sorts of treasures. Such is the case with William Curley Patisserier and Chocolatier. Did you think I could walk past a shop like this and not go in? I won't disappoint you because I didn't.

The inside was cute and filled with lots of expensive chocolates, both packaged on the shelves for immediate purchase and in individual pieces behind the display cases. "Take away" prices are lower than dine-in so we opted for take away since we were still on our way to Harrods at the time and didn't want to stop.

We did manage a few minutes to sample a couple of products though: a Honey and Rosemary Truffle for my nieces which they said was really creamy. Although the honey tended to overpower the flavor of the truffle, they could also still taste the rosemary. I was offered a bite but I'm not a fan of either honey or rosemary so I passed.

Scottish Rosemary and Honey Truffle

Particularly since I had my own confection to sample and share: a hazelnet praline enrobed in milk chocolate. Think of it as a Ferrero Rocher on steroids. It was both crunchy and creamy goodness at the same time - yum.

Besides eating, we also walked around most of the day. I didn't bring my pedometer or fitbit but given the time we spent simply walking, I estimated we covered at least 4-5 miles, if not more. We caught the tube from the Tower of London to Westminster then from there walked to Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus, Harrods, Berkeley Square and Bond Street, doubling back a couple of times just enjoying the sights.

Fortunately the rain had stopped so we just had to bundle up in our coats, scarves, gloves and hats against the cold. It gets dark early in London in the winter so while it felt late, it wasn't, simply because the sun just isn't around long enough for a full "day". We managed to cover quite a bit of ground on our first full tourist day, sparse daylight notwithstanding. I love seeing London on foot, even in the cold.

London Day 1: Arrival and Docklands Bar & Grill

London - December 26, 2013 (Boxing Day)

Although I've been blogging "normally" for the past week and a half, I've actually been on vacation and periodically putting up posts I'd written before I left (good time to get through my backlog). In reality, I left for Europe on Christmas Day, taking one of my nieces with me to meet her sister in London. I'm nearly home again and my blog is going to be taken over for the next few weeks by my travel posts as I take a break from baking and assume people other than myself will also be trying to eat healthier and don't need the added temptation of more baking recipes for a little while. Not to worry though, I'm sure by February (if not sooner), I'll be back in the kitchen again. For now, here are my travel (and eating) adventures.....

After an 11-hour flight, we landed at Heathrow first and waited for my other niece to join us from her travels in Madrid. I've been to London quite a number of times before so I knew we could travel conveniently on the tube to get to our hotel. Our hotel was some distance from Heathrow, made a bit more challenging in that several lines on the tube were closed for planned maintenance (not so convenient but still faster and cheaper than a taxi from Heathrow) but after an hour and a half, we finally made it to where we were staying at the Crowne Plaza Docklands. I'd stayed in this area before on my last business trip to London and I'd gotten a good deal on the rooms from tripadvisor.com so it was only a minor inconvenience that it took so long to get there.

Fish and Chips (hold the mushy peas - I wasn't that jetlagged)

I rarely sleep on airplanes and this flight was no exception so I was pretty exhausted by the time we arrived and the niece who traveled with me was falling asleep sitting upright so for our first night, we kept it low key by having dinner at the Docklands Bar & Grill which was attached to the hotel. Since we were in the UK and I have a thing about trying the local food, I opted for the fish and chips. This was a riskier choice than you might think because that was one of the first things I had tried on my first-ever visit to London and it was the worst thing I'd ever eaten in Europe - greasy, limp, tasteless fish with the skin still on and soggy, greasy, over-salted fries. To be fair, I'd bought it from some hole-in-the-wall café at the time whereas this was a real restaurant so I thought it would be a safer choice.

Winter Salad

And so it was. The fish was fried crisp, somewhat greasy still but not overly so and the fries were done well, crisp on the outside, mealy on the inside. Phew. My nieces also enjoyed their orders: a winter salad with butternut squash soup and a "Chicken Supreme" which we weren't quite sure what was supreme about it but she said it was delicious.

Chicken Supreme

By the end of the dinner, my niece who I traveled with could barely keep her eyes open and I wasn't much better so I was ready to call it a night. Fortunately we weren't far from our hotel room since the Docklands Bar & Grill was in the hotel so it was time for shut eye so we could prepare for the real start of our trip the following day.