London "Must Shop" Recap

Not only is there a lot to see, do and eat in London, there is plenty of shopping to make a girl dizzy.  Our hotel was right off Piccadilly and a little back alley led out to Regent Street where the magic begins.  You can walk straight up Regent and if you're not too distracted by the other stores calling your name (Uniqlo! Zara! LK Bennett!), you will hit Oxford Circus which has (no kidding) four H&M and three Zara stores on this single street.  To B's chagrin, I wanted to go into all of them.  However for this blog post sake, I'll just recap the highlights.

If you're in London, you have to visit the mothership, Topshop.  It is 4 floors and packed full of awesome fashion.  I was particularly drawn to the lower floor which housed shoes (Swedish Hasbeens!  Kurt Geiger!) and items by local independent designers.

Liberty of London was by far my favorite department store to browse.  It is housed in a gorgeous historic building (what building in London isn't historic?) and the selection of designer bags and scarves (Alexander Wang! Mulberry!) was fabulous.  There is a whole section just for the famous Liberty prints and fabrics and I also adored the house goods and china section.

One of my favorite unique finds was completely by accident.  We were searching for the Jas MB store (it's not on Carnaby by the way) and happened upon Mor jewelry at 12 Ganton Street.  This jewelry line is made in Turkey and features gorgeous hand crafted organic looking pieces in silver, bronze and precious stones.  I got a really beautiful ring from there and it serves as a distinctive memento of our trip.

We spent Saturday afternoon at the famed Portabello Market.  Even though the crowd was crazy, it was fun to rummage through antiques and vintage offerings and try different snacks from the food vendors (fresh nutella crepes!). 

We walked through the vintage/antiques section and then the fresh flowers and fruit/vegetable market.  I wish we had more time (and energy) to make it to the Borough Market and the other market on Brick Lane.

Although I forgot to take pictures, I also want to do a special mention for a few outstanding department/grocery stores.  I always love visiting grocery stores in different countries and had a blast at Sainsbury's--their store brand chocolate is great and I filled my basket up with Cadbury goodies!  Marks and Spencer has an amazing food section as well and I particularly loved their trail mixes this time around along with their butter mints.  And finally Fortum & Mason was a grand experience with elegantly packaged clotted cream biscuits, tins of tea and coffee, and a staggering variety of fruit james and preserves.  Look out for the jam packed with tiny little strawberries!

Next post: Paris in a Day

London "Must Eat" Recap

Because we spent most of the time sight seeing and on the go, we'd either pick up something quick or eat at the club lounge at our hotel (free!).  So I'm sad to report that we did not get to sample the British version of fish n chips or Indian fare.  However, we did find some good eats and here are a few favorites...

Rasa Sayang is a great Malaysian-Singaporean restaurant in the heart of Chinatown--we loved it and ate there twice.

They had all the traditional food including chicken rice, roti canai 

(with curry on the side) and char kuay teow

We also tried Wagamama, a Japanese noodle house

The grilled fish lunch at John Lewis, a local department store, was especially memorable and a welcome oasis amidst the shopping at Oxford Circus

And of course, I was most excited about London because of tea time.  Scones and pastries galore were provided for us at the Le Meridien club lounge each day from 2-5pm.  B started to get suspicious when I'd suddenly have to go back to the hotel during those hours.

I did try to eat my weight in pastries and found a new favorite--raisin au pain.  This version has some sort of custard in between the layers to keep everything moist and extra delicious.  I would trade one slightly naughty puppy dog in exchange for a raisin au pain right now!

 

Next post: London "Must Shop" Recap

London

We made it! Today was filled with touristy things like seeing Big Ben, taking a ride on the London Eye, exploring the Tower of London, ogling the Crown Jewels and much more! As for food, we've had lots of tea, scones and clotted cream, Cornish pastries and fit in a Boots pharmacy run for some Cadbury chocolate.

Tomorrow we're off to Paris for the day! Hoping to eat my weight in croissants and baguettes!

London Calling

 B and I are taking sort of a spur of the moment trip to London in two weeks.  Thanks to FlyerTalk, I managed to score some great deals with airfare and hotel (which leaves more of the travel budget devoted to food!)

Though I've technically been to Europe before (if you count the Germany and Amsterdam airports), this will be my first time actually exploring this continent (B's too) and we're super excited!  We're thinking of taking the train to Paris for a day trip as well.  There seems to be so much to do in both cities it's hard to know where to start!

Here's my list so far:

To do in London and Paris

1. Obtain every type of Cadbury chocolate made in the UK
2. Eat my weight in croissants                                              
3. aaaaand that's as far as I got...                                         

 

Obviously I need some help--so... what are your must see, must do, and must eat recommendations for London and Paris?