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.

Maltby Street Markets

It was Valentines Day in London, a perfect (albeit slightly rainy) day for a girls trip to the markets...So Alice and I hot-footed it to Maltby St. There are so many markets in London; big ones, small ones, busy ones, hidden ones - and this is fast turning into one of my favourites. 

It had only just gone 12 but we found ourselves wandering into a gin distillery called Jensen, a fairly stark but very cool little place where they will happily talk you through their range of gins and make you a hot cocktail to go. 

With nothing but gin under our belt it was time to head back to the stalls and find some food... and it was about now that Alice got hold of the camera.

So, stomachs rumbling we went straight for the cheese toasties - stilton, pear relish and bacon for me, and goats cheese, honey and rosemary for Alice.

Gooey, crispy, messy -  everything a good toastie should be. Also, coincidentally well matched with (some more) gin cocktails.

If you feel like some great food and checking out cool boutique distilleries and craft breweries head to Maltby Street Markets. It's just around the corner from Borough Markets but you have the luxury of not being trampled to death by tourists (although I'll admit we ended up going to Borough Markets on this day too!).