Shoreditch Saturday

 Although I often moan about living in East London, it can actually be a pretty good place to live when you find the right things to do! Today me and Dima went for a long stroll around Bethnal Green/Shoreditch and had lots of fun :) 

Starting off with a walk around the beautiful park in Bethnal Green, practically outside my flat! It even has a tennis court *imagines self playing tennis in a fabulous tennis-skirt/matching racquets* except I can't play to save my life :( 

Cherry blossom trees - love these so much! 

Early morning frolick faces 

Our next stop was the Beigel Shop on Brick Lane. If you know about East London, you should know about this beigel shop. 

And... the one next to it. There are two 24-hour, cheap-as-chips bagel shops sitting next to eachother on the shoreditch-side of Brick Lane which conveniently, do incredible bagels!! (irrelevant matter: how strange does 'bagel/beigel' look written down?) 

 

Dima got the salt-beef one, which is around £3.50 but the others (pretty much every kind of bagel filling imaginable) are between £2-3. But salt-beef is best (with gherkins and mustard!). I satisfied myself with stealing bites of Dima's amazing food in a pathetic attempt of being healthy. The shops also sell a huge variety of pies, cakes and pastries so we also picked up a croissant and a red velvet cupcake - amazing! 

We also came across a shop on Bethnal Green road called Ekol Food Centre - and they had all my favourite healthy foods at super cheap prices!!! I was SO HAPPY to find the sweet coconut and vanilla propercorn flavour - I've been looking for it everywhere since they sent some to my agency and it. it. amazing. if you see it - get it! Only 109 calories per bag! 

Brick Lane is an amazing place to stroll, there is so much art everywhere! On Sundays its especially amazing, with vibrant market stalls filling the streets with every kind of food imaginable. 

Our final destination was BoxPark, next to Shoreditch High Street. I remembered about Dum Dum Doughnuts and crossed my fingers that they hadn't sold out... we were in luck! The owner was there and he told us about his mission to create 'the best doughnut ever' - I think he has definitely achieved this.

Their doughnuts are baked instead of fried so they are much healthier for you and use much less oil than other doughnuts! 

We went for a 'Zebra' - a crodoughnut, layers of croissant and doughnut pastry slotted perfectly together, with a chocolate buttercream on top...

and a Raspberry fondant one - both were absolutely incredible! After not eating anything 'bad' for so long, this was literally heaven :') 

as you can see by my face... 

also, random but BoxPark is actually a pretty great place just to sit and eat! They had a fairy-light room with beanbags... and a Caribbean room. As well as lots of London themed poems up on the walls to make you feel intelligent as you cram your (rather excellent) doughnut into your mouth! 

We went back and congratulated the owner of Dum Dum on achieving his mission to create the best doughnut - they were really reasonably priced as well (£3.50 for crodough and coffee) - a definite must do if you find yourself in the area! 

Foxcroft and Ginger

As I may have mentioned, I live in East London. Bar the trendiness of Shoreditch (where recently a cat cafe opened up. and it has a six week waiting list.) there isn't much going on here except Whitechapel market (definitely not a 'must see') and fried chicken shops. 

So when I saw that Foxcroft and Ginger was opening up next door, it was pretty much the highlight of my week (is that sad? yes). Unlike general 'to go to' places in London, which are largely based in Central and thus subject to serious space limitations, east London doesn't really have that problem. Once you get rid of a couple of seriously declining sports shops (fun fact: there are no womens sections in sports shops here!) and chicken shops that were definitely serving up poisoned pigeon, there is a lot of room to work with! This means one thing: no queues!! 

As you can see, there is a lot of space beautifully and naturally lit! They also have a very ambiguous upstairs section which I haven't ventured up to yet, but regardless, I am pretty sure that there will be a lack of depressing-standing-in-the-rain-crying queues here! They also don't rush you at all, providing the perfect place to go and study.

Ok. The FOOD.

I went with my friend when I saw their doors creak open for the first time, and we were a little bit too early for 'hot' food. Which left us with the devastating consolation of eating cake for breakfast! (being an adult is awesome). I can confirm to you all, that their cake is aaaaaaamazing. 

My vain attempt of being healthy consists of eating carrot cake (any cake before 9 is practically negative calories as you aren't really awake right?) 

Their coffee is also exceptionally good, which I have heard about. As a new joiner of coffee-society I haven't got enough background to tell you about the TaSteS and textures but I can tell you that it is good. (also, coffee is AMAZING in general - how have I only just properly discovered it!?) 

We managed to resist these croissants.. but they lookin goooood. Everyday when I walk past Foxcroft to go to university, I inevitably see a ginormous table filled with cakes and croissants inviting me in. 

They have now started serving proper food, hallelujah!! Their menu looks too good not to be! I was pleasantly suprised at a 'healthy' option of poached fruit with honey and yoghurt - it was amazing. A taste orgasm, so good that I think it probably tricked me and wasn't as healthy as I convinced myself it was. 

A sort of sick circle, of being on a diet is wanting to not see any unhealthy food completely, to avoid temptation... but still wanting to know how it tastes. Still wanting to know how this FRENCH FRIED BRIOCHE HAM AND CHEESE SANDWICH WITH HONEY MUSTARD SAUCE tasted in the flesh. So when I go out for food nowadays with people, I generally force them to get amazing food whilst I steal snippets of it and moan about how I miss chocolate/pasta/creme eggs/sugar. 

On this particular day I took Nicola for breakfast, and she is currently in study-hell. She gets quite stressed and this results in her losing her appetite (because she studies for 12 hours a day continuously!), therefore I generously helped her out and ate all of her breakfast when she couldn't deal with it. 

Thus I can confirm that the aforementioned sandwich is INCREDIBLE. It is probably most comparable to bacon and maple syrup - something that should be savoury but is deliciously sweet. And so gurrd. I managed to control myself and left a bit on the plate. Then I went to the gym :(( 

Thank you for coming, Foxcroft and Ginger. We are going to be good friends <3