London: Welcome to franchised food!

Hey everyone! I hope you enjoyed my last update. After reading my Afternoon Tea update, my fiancé seems convinced that I have an addiction to cream since clotted cream was mentioned in every tea room I visited! Those three times were the only times I've ever had clotted cream. I swear! Cream from now on is my nemesis, okay? :) I gotta slim down to fit a nice wedding dress anyway!

I have three more updates left that will be on London. It's kind of a mish-mash of a lot of the places I visited during my twelve month stay there. From organising my three posts it seems like I ate out A LOT, but I did actually cook quite a bit! How else was I supposed to impress my fiancé? Heehee.  The first update will be focused on many of the UK-based franchised restaurants that you'll find, especially in London. The second update will look at an array of Asian restaurants in London and the third update is kind of other restaurants that didn't really fit in the first or second update. 

The Hummingbird Bakery

Okay it's not exactly a restaurant, but I feel like if you're gonna talk about London, you might as mention the Hummingbird Bakery. I shamefully tried quite a few cupcake stores while I was in London – sorry stomach – and Hummingbird easily beats the rest of them. I remember seeing a Hummingbird Bakery cookbook at my brother and sister-in-law's house and started to connect the dots one night during dinner when my flatmate, A, started talking about their cupcakes. My friend, Z, proceeded to invite me to go with her and her friend to the famous Portobello Markets and I just knew I had to make a trip since their flagship store is located around the market area. I ordered four cupcakes quite hastily (I recall Z telling me to "calm down" when it seemed like I was ordering the whole collection of cupcakes). For my stomach's sake, I shared all four amongst my two traveling companions and two of my flatmates during dinner. How little did I know that it was not going to my first and only visit. I don't even know how many times I visited either....yikes... There was also one store two minutes away from where I was flatting for three months. Those three months were tough. 

I've never had a bad cupcake from any of their stores simply because their cupcakes are moist and not dry, which is a common mistake for many cupcake places in London. If I'm going to recommend one, it would be the black bottom cupcake. It is sinfully good. Their carrot cupcake is very very decent too. Red velvet is also pretty good, but in general I find red velvet overrated as a cake flavour. Eh. The only one from the classic cupcake range that I never tried was the vanilla. But they also frequently change their limited cupcake range - every month they have a different theme with seven flavours attributed to a different day of the week. Yummy. Their other baked goods such as their whoopie pies and brownies are decent too. I remember sharing a frosted brownie with Z on the corner of Wardour Street (classy, right?) which was utterly sinful and yet so good. Never decided to order it again once I found out the recipe. The sugar content scared me and I like to try and remain awfully ignorant about things like this or else dramatic decisions like this happens...

Pizza Express

Sometimes it takes time to figure out whether you like something or not, and now I've come to the conclusion that I'm not exactly in love with pizza. Or maybe pizza franchises. Yeah, that must be it since I love making my own pizza (Jamie Oliver's dough recipe is gold by the way). Pizza Express is a huge franchise in the UK. Seriously, it's as if they're located on every corner. Anyway, four trips to Pizza Express and I don't get it. Sure their pizza is better than Pizza Hut, Dominos, or Papa Johns, but do I really want to spend £10-12 on a pizza? It's like the time I ordered the venison pizza at BCC in Auckland for $10 even though its normal price on any other day was about $30. I did try one of their pizzas that has a hole in the middle and is instead filled with salad, but the salad was barely dressed that it felt like I was eating grass. I think I just did one of those moves that you're not supposed to make - i.e. ordering salad at a fast food restaurant or ordering meat at a seafood specialty restaurant...

Café Rouge

My university campus was in such close proximity to many restaurants and cafés that you had the luxury to pick and choose. You didn't have to walk that far to get to Café Rougé and my friend F and I would choose this place as a default when we didn't want to go to X, Y or Z and wanted something quick. F's signature order was the croque monsieur, whereas I tried different things ranging from  mushrooms in a garlic and cream sauce with puff pastry to sausages and herb mash, depending on my mood. Never had a bad experience and service (in Kingsway) was always quick and efficient.

Las Iguanas

Las Iguanas is a Latin American franchise which I went to twice, once at Westfield Stratford for lunch and the other at Spitalfields for dinner. Based on both experiences, food is good but not great. Nothing special really. Their lunch deals are great value for money - I remember ordering the big burrito which was less than £7 and could barely finish it all. Though I didn't like the fact that they put the salsa, sour cream and guacamole on the top of the burrito. For dinner I decided to order the fish that was crumbed and marinated in coconut and chili, served with a side of sweet potato fries. I surprisingly enjoyed the dish, and so did my fiancé, M, who liked it a bit more than what he ordered. I don't actually remember what he ordered which probably means it wasn't exactly memorable.

My Old Dutch

Let me tell you right now that I'm a sucker for pancake or crepe places. So I'm probably a bit biased. Every time I travel to Melbourne, a visit to Pancake Parlour is always needed. This place is no exception. Especially on Mondays when selected pancakes are £5 only. F told me about this place thanks to a friend that took her there, where a pancake is the size of a face x2 (seriously). I don't think I've ever quite finished one. If you make it past three-quarters, you are a warrior. The first time I ate there I tried the apple and cinnamon pancake with icecream as pictured (£7.50). I wish the apples had been cooked a bit more, but it didn't bother me too much. My go-to savoury pancake was the smoked salmon filling with mushrooms in a creamy dill sauce (£9.95). No complaints. A few other things I've tried have been the poffertjes (£4.95) which were simple yet delicious, nachos without beef mince (£4.95) which were nothing grand, and the 'my old dutch' belgian chocolate shake (£3.95) which was pretty good despite my teeth hurting from how COLD it was (caps lock is the only way to accurate way to reflect how cold it really was).

Côte

Unfortunately the last time I went to Côte, I went with three of my friends from my course and one happened to get food poisoning the same night she went back home. Whoops. F and I visited Côte a few times and sadly the last time I visited was the only time where I didn't enjoy it that much. We would usually order the two course lunch menu, which costs £11.70 at the Covent Garden location. It really depends on your location as some Côte restaurants charge less than £10 for the two course lunch special. Previous visits including courses of beef bourguignon and warm apple tart which were both really good, but then visits with courses like the steak frites (where my steak was so thin that it was supposed to be served pink instead of being served well done) and the creme caramel were disappointing.

Byron's Hamburgers

If I had to pick between a burger and a pizza, I would always pick a burger. I have no idea why I like them so much....I just do. I have so many different memories from Byron's seeing as I ate there quite a few times. I remember one time during study leave, I ate on my own for lunch and brought my version of The Little Prince to read while I waited for my burger (a gift thanks to M who was shocked that I had never read it before). One of the waiters came by my table and told me it was one of his favourite books and was similarly astonished that I had never read it before. Is the NZ education system failing here or what? (I'm joking. Kinda). Another memory I have was coming to Byron's with half of the people from my courseand being responsible for the bill by making sure everyone paid what they were supposed to (a responsibility that I never want again by the way).

Their burgers always come with a side of a sad pickle. I'm just glad they don't actually put it in the burger. I tend to usually get the classic (£6.75) or the cheese (£7.75), but the Byron is not too bad either (£9.25) despite its price. Their sides (such as the skin on chips, french fries, courgette fries, onion rings from £2.95-£3.25) can be really inconsistent as sometimes they can be a bit too greasy.

Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK)

Even though I like Byron's and think their service is much better, I actually prefer GBK a bit more. I don't know if it's because of their kiwi roots, but I do appreciate their variety of different burgers from their classic beef (£6.70) to the wild boar (£9.95). Plus their chunky fries (£3.25) are consistently not greasy, which is a plus. GBK introduced the kiwi burger (£8.95) to my fiancé, which he really enjoyed but is one burger I definitely won't touch! No way am I touching a burger with beetroot and pineapple. If you're a missing a bit of Kiwiana in your London life, they amazingly have cans of L&P available. I don't think I've really convinced anyone about its taste though (which is true since it doesn't really taste like much).

The Real Greek

I've only been here once on a whim with my fiancé, for reasons I can't explain. I don't really remember why we ended up here except that we decided to share a bunch of meze dishes. We ordered the tiropitakia (filo pastry parcels with a creamy leek, spinach and feta filling, £4.75), the grilled halloumi (£4.75), grilled calamari (£6.50) and the baba ganoush (£4.25). Baba ganoush confirmed that maybe I don't dislike eggplant/aubergine after all, and furthermore, this is where I was formally introduced to halloumi. While there was nothing spectacular about them grilling pieces of cheese on the grill, for about a month, my fiancé and I ended up having a habit of grilling lots of halloumi with my George Foreman grill. While the meze dishes were nothing spectacular, I think the baba ganoush and the filo parcels were unanimously the favourite dishes ordered.

Hope you enjoyed reading today's blog! Let's face it, we're slowly being hit in the face with franchise after franchise no matter where you live. So hopefully this update gives you a little bit of insight as to what franchised food is like in London. 

Next blog: Asian food in London