First time posting here so apologies in advance for any formatting issues. Super excited to have this community and thanks a bunch to Dominic for getting it going again - I remember visiting the old board years ago and was so bummed it was dormant.
I travel to London fairly regularly for work and I always try to get out and try something different each time by staying in a different part of the city. This time I was in Aldgate, just outside "the City" (financial district) proper, with good access to good East London spots like Spitalfields, Shoreditch, and Brick Lane.
I didn't take tons of pictures since I didn't know this would be back up and running! I'll be sure to provide more of visual portion of the feast next time.
Restaurants:
Highlights were Brick Lane Indian/Bangladeshi food and Michelin-starred Lyle's (always gotta include a special treat to end the trip).
Had lamb bhuna naga at Masala on Brick Lane. There is a worrying trend of East London Indian and Pakistani restaurants appending "award winning" and "voted best x..." to their names, which usually is not a great sign and means you're only months away from touts holding menus outside, but this place delivered. The lamb was tender but with just enough chew and funk to remind you it was lamb. Much spicier than expected, that kind of full body spice experience that's great every once in a while. As a bonus, it's open substantially later than most other London restaurants.
Had the tasting menu at Lyle's.
- IMG-3553.jpg (413.51 KiB) Viewed 1787 times
- IMG-3552.jpg (462.28 KiB) Viewed 1787 times
Salotto 31 - serviceable Italian place, went for a dinner with clients. Have a feeling that the bad reviews are due to the...idiosyncratic staff - they can seem standoffish or aloof but really warm up once you start speaking with them about the wine. Surprising selection of biodynamic, organic, and natural wines for what is otherwise a pretty standard place. Ordered boar ragu since it always seems to taste better in the UK. Real "City" place so felt kind of empty and dead at night.
Hohaki - ate in a hurry at this small Vietnamese spot right before they closed so I don't feel like I can do it justice. Menu seemed like it was mostly the classics.
Yuu Kitchen - disappointing Asian fusion, I should have known better. Too much sauce, everything was way too heavy and left no room for actually tasting the flavor of each ingredient.
Pubs:
Pride of Spitalfields - worked in a visit to one of my East London faves. Proper old-school 19th-century boozer, with wall-to-wall well-worn carpet, low ceilings, a disintegrating bar, slightly stale beer smell and a fat dog sitting on the floor. Go on a weekday so you can really soak it all in, it can get busy on the weekend. No website and one of the few classic London pubs not associated with Nicholson's or the other big pub chains.
The few others I visited aren't really worth noting.
Coffee:
Current Cafe - very few places in the States can execute a flat white at anything close to the level of an Australian or Kiwi place (you usually just get a latte with less milk, for whatever reason they can't nail the microfoam), but spots in London can come close. Food here was ok but the flat white was great. I ended up going back almost every day before heading off to my meetings. Great spot to sit outside and watch London's bankers coming and going to lunch.
- IMG-3534.jpg (357.05 KiB) Viewed 1962 times
