Cake & Ale

Days 5 & 6—Borough Market. Ohhhh, Borough Market. I don’t even have the words to describe the sensory feast that is this incredible outdoor market. We came here for lunch two days in a row, and my biggest regret is that we didn’t eat here EVERY day.

Our first taste (literally) was from a charcuterie stall with the most incredible variety of sausages. We tried everything from a wild venison salami to a delicious nduja, and picked out four or five that we wanted to buy -- but the clerk very nicely reminded us of US Customs regulations on bringing back food products and we had to walk away. 

Our next visit was to the cider booth. I left David there for a minute and asked him to pick one for us to share...I came back to three! Not that I minded at all. The ginger beer + cider (the cloudy one in the above photo) was probably one of the best things I had to drink on this trip, and I’m dying to recreate it at home. We actually visited them both days, because that ginger/cider concoction was THAT good.

For lunch on the first visit, we had to visit the famous Kappacasein stall and try the cheese toastie. A combination of cheddar, comté and Ogleshield cheeses, with leeks, garlic & onion on buttery grilled sourdough...I can’t do it justice. They also had raclette potatoes, which looked incredible, but I can only handle so much cheese:

A video posted by Jacqui Lane (@dammitjacqui) on May 21, 2015 at 7:57am PDT

On the second visit, we had the wild Scottish venison burger with caramelized onion, bacon jam & Gouda from the Furness Food Hut. Being from a family of hunters, I’ve eaten plenty of venison in my life but never anything quite like this -- incredibly juicy, tender and rich, I ate it while perched on the wall outside Southwark Cathedral. I think I still have a little spot of grease from where it dripped onto my jeans, but I don’t even care because it was THAT good. 

The salted caramel and honeycomb doughnut from Bread Ahead was probably the best doughnut I’ve ever had, and I am on a quest to replicate it. I could have eaten the caramel créme with a spoon! We also had the lightest, airest macarons from another bakery, but I can’t remember the name. I’m still daydreaming about all the food I didn’t get to try....

Day 5 was spent wandering around London and recovering from the go-go-go of the previous few days. We slept in a little, visited the shopping center near our hotel, had a quick lunch at Pret and visited a few cool pubs.

Day 2: After a quick breakfast at Pret a Manger, we were off to Hampton Court Palace, where we spent most of the day. It started off as dark & rainy (as most days did) but turned out to be an absolutely glorious day, weather-wise. The palace and grounds are huge, but so beautiful that we ended up exploring just about every corner, I think. One of my favorite areas was the wisteria tunnel, pictured above; the warm weather, singing birds and fragrant flowers came together to create an absolutely perfect spring moment.

All that walking (around 9 miles this day!) made us thirsty, of course, and since we skipped lunch we were absolutely starving by the time we left. We made our way to The Jack Horner on Tottenham Court Road, where we both ordered ale & pie flights -- three mini pies, three smaller ales. The pies were steak & ESB, chicken & ham hock and sweet potato, spinach and goat cheese. I was least excited about the sweet potato & spinach, but it turned out to be my favorite. The ales were all Fuller’s, of course, because this is a Fuller’s affiliated pub: ESB (paired with the steak), Honey Dew (paired with the chicken & ham) and London Pride (paired with the sweet potato).

After dinner, we made our way to The Craft Beer Co. in Covent Garden. It was super crowded (as is to be expected in that area!) but we managed to snag two stools by the window just as their occupants were leaving. 

In the UK, most pubs are affiliated with/owned by a specific brewery, and a few breweries tend to dominate -- Fuller’s, Samuel Smith, Greene King, Shepherd Neame to name a few. For the craft beer fan, this is obviously not an ideal setup; on the one hand, you want to go to the pubs for the historic character & charm, but on the other...you want really great beer. And really, really good beer generally isn’t going to be found at the chain pubs that dominate the scene. Freehouses -- pubs that aren’t owned by one of the major breweries -- do have a more diverse set of taps, but they are often still contracted to certain breweries and must dedicate a number of their taps to that brand.

However, despite being unavailable at most pubs, there’s still a thriving craft beer scene in London. The Craft Beer Co. is a smaller chain of craft beer bars (five or six locations) with a really fantastic beer list, featuring everything from local craft breweries to Belgian sours that are so coveted and hard to find here. The prices reflect the menu, with half pints averaging between £3-£5 (remember, the UK uses imperial measurements, so their pints are larger than we’re used to). I started off with the Salopian Lemon Dream, a weak, slightly citrusy blonde that was just average; nothing to write home about. David had The Sour Dry Hop, a sour from Anspach & Hobday, a London brewery; this was definitely tastier.

The next beer was on the pricier side -- around £12 for a full pint, IIRC, so we split it...but it didn’t disappoint. Oude Gueuze Tilquin à L'Ancienne from Gueuzerie Tilquin is a gueze -- a style created by blending different lambics and allowing them to age in the bottle -- and it packs a very tart punch. Probably good that we did half pints; it was delicious, but any more and I think I might have ended up with a stomachache.

Cake & Ale goes international! ...or should that be past tense, since we’re home now? We spent the last week in London & had a really fun time visiting a ton of nifty old pubs, as well as a couple of cool craft beer bars & some great breweries. 

We started out at the SweetWater Brewing Company in the Atlanta airport -- I know, I know, airport prices are ridiculous but we had a three hour layover to kill, so...I had a blueberry wheat ale that actually wasn’t bad (most fruity beers taste so artificial, but this was very, very lightly flavored) and David had a fantastic IPA whose name escapes me at the moment.

Our first stop, after a very tiring transatlantic flight that involved no sleep (despite my attempt, with the pretty cocktail above!), was Mabel’s Tavern, about a block from our hotel. We actually intended to go across the street to a coffee shop and load up on caffeine, but the sun was shining, it was noon and the open door was too inviting to pass up.

After that, we wandered over to Westminster in search of lunch & the Churchill War Rooms. Before we found either, we ducked into the Red Lion for another pint.

(I feel like this is a good time to remind y'all that most typical British beers are fairly weak compared to the American craft beer we're used to, so although it looks like we're drinking a lot before lunch, it's really not even enough to feel slightly tipsy.)

The Red Lion is a really neat pub on Parliament Square, if you're into British politics. It's a popular spot for MPs and (until the 1970s) many Prime Ministers as well. The current building is classic Victorian and really lovely. Unfortunately, due to the location, it was absolutely packed with tourists and we didn't get any inside shots.

After fortifying ourselves at the pub, we headed over to the Churchill War Rooms, and just in time as the sunshine turned to a cold grey rain.The War Rooms were pretty interesting, even for someone who isn’t all that into WWII (my tastes in history run toward the medieval). After CWR, we really needed to get some dinner as we hadn’t eaten a bite since our last meal on the plane, around 7 a.m. (which isn’t as bad as it sounds...Virgin Atlantic fed us ridiculously well, considering it’s plane food!). We popped into a pub on our way to the tube station, but it was also packed (right across from Trafalgar Square, no surprise). so we just had a few ciders and decided to head back to our room & order a pizza because we were totally exhausted at this point.

More to come later!

Jacqui

*Unless a beer is really notable, I won’t be calling it out by name or reviewing it. We did, however, check in everything (or nearly everything) on Untappd, so follow along there if you like!

David - Untappd