Hill & Szrok

Well, well, well. It's been a while since the last blog post, but here we go - all it took was a huge slab of steak to lure my camera out of the drawer and get the creative juices flowing.

I've recently moved into a flat just around the corner from Broadway Market, which happens to not only be my favourite weekend market in London, but also host to a collection of great bars and restaurants.

This one is particularly special though; by day it is a gorgeous old-fashioned Master Butcher, and by night it is a restaurant, or 'cookshop'.

The cookshop is an idea derived from the 15th Century, where shops that sold food would also cook it for their customers to try, serving it up a communal table with wine to match. Essentially the origin of today's restaurants.

I'd never heard of a cookshop before, but I am now a HUGE fan of this one. The menu changes daily (often posted on their Instagram  or Twitter), and is simple, quality meat at its best.

We started with chipolatas and a carafe of wine - the entrée of champions!

To follow we ordered an enormous wing rib and sirloin on the bone to share, along with a rib eye for Jake.  If I'm being completely honest I could hardly tell the difference between the two bone-in steaks, but for slightly more fat on the wing rib.

The beef was cooked perfectly rare, and was ridiculously good. I've had a fair few steaks in London now (thank you media lunches), and this one blew the others away. What's more, it was about half the price of most steakhouses with the whole meal coming to around £25 each. 

On the side we chose potatoes, grilled radicchio, and a tomato and basil salad to share. A refreshing change from the fries and bearnaise sauce that I gorge myself on at most steakhouses.

We were all stuffed and satisfied by the end of the meal, with poor Alice who doesn't eat much red meat almost needing to be carried home (she begged us, we laughed). But despite her food comatose, we agreed that it was definitely one of the best meals we had had in a while.

If you're in East London make sure you visit this one - they don't take bookings but there's usually not a long wait (if any) for a table.  Enjoy!

Burger & Lobster

Ahh, what a place. A place where the only choice you need to make is between burger and lobster. Indecisive, frantic, panic stricken menu readers like myself thrive in this environment, completely at ease, and smug with a sub 5 minute decision. 

I'll admit, there was a wave of food envy when the burger appeared, only to be heightened by the thought of missing out on a lobster roll too. But then, out comes an impressive grilled lobster - all for me. 

I was out with my team at work - but this was no place for workplace niceties. There was cracking, sucking, and all round messiness (note the bibs...).

The lobster was delicious, and accompanied with a rich boat of garlic butter, which I am ashamed (but also a little bit proud) to say that I completely polished off. The lobster portions aren't huge though- so if you're hungry I would opt for a burger.

Burger and Lobster is a classic London joint - somewhere I had been looking forward to visiting before I had even left New Zealand, and somewhere I will definitely be visiting again!

Cream Cafe + The Photographers Gallery

I'm working my way through a long list of cafes I want to visit in London, and slowly - very slowly ticking them off. This is another one in Shoreditch; a cool, light space hidden behind a huge corrugated door. 

We visited Cream Cafe at around 9.30am, which in Shoreditch is almost inhumanely early, and were first in the door.

The menu is short and simple, but executed with pride. I chose the feta, chilli, and tomato toast, while Alice had bircher muesli, and Allie chose the omelet.

The coffees were good, though not quite hot enough (an eternal London struggle), and the food on the counter looked delicious. Just look at that cake!

The cool thing about Cream is that there are often exhibitions in the neighbouring room, so you can pop your nose in and add a drop of culture to your breakfast. But, we had set our sights higher and jumped on a tube to the nightmare that is Oxford Street on a Saturday. No no, we weren't there for shopping (well, maybe a bit) - we were there to visit The Photographers Gallery.

London is full of amazing, free of charge, galleries and museums, which are the perfect way to spend a weekend. Even if you're walking around slightly clueless there is something soothing about an art gallery.

Albion Cafe

Breakfasts are a glorious thing. A time to sit and drink cup after cup of coffee, eat far too much food, and plan your adventures for the day. 

I was lucky enough to have James visit for a month, and we were out for breakfasts, lunches and dinnners for what felt like every meal. This one in particular was a lazy Sunday morning where we wandered through the sun dappled streets around the back of Shoreditch to Albion cafe on Redchurch Street.

We had a pot of coffee to share, and both devoured beans on toast. And when I say beans I mean the best baked beans I've ever had. I've got to give it to them, the English know good breakfasts.

Albion is a great, classic cafe that will definitely hit the spot when you're on the lookout for a good brekkie. They also have a whole lot of artisan food and freshly baked bread to buy and take home, basically combining my two great loves of food shopping and food eating in one fell swoop.

Som Saa

Tucked away behind London Fields is the best Thai I've had in London. It's called Som Saa, and it's the kind of place where you walk in and feel like you're turning up at a friends house...a really, really cool friends house. 

It's in a huge concrete space, with walls decorated with fairy lights and chefs cooking on grills outside. In summer the courtyard is full of tables with hungry diner enjoying the sun (something I'm yet to experience in London).

We started with prosecco and one of my favourite Som Saa dishes of charred squid in a tangy, spicy sauce.

The slew of starters continued with beef mince and betel leaves and a green papaya salad. The food here is SPICY- especially the papaya salad, so make sure you have a glass of prosecco handy.

The starters were followed by eggplant salad and pork curry and cute little individual bamboo baskets  for rice...much more than we needed but we did manage to polish it all off.