London Day 4 – Happy Birthday to me

After waking up to many birthday wishes and a Skype call from home, we celebrated my birthday by hitting the markets.

We started with Camden Markets, which were quite interesting to begin with, but then they seemed to be the same four or five shops repeated ad nauseum. There were some interesting Nepalese multi-coloured clothes which I liked, but they were the wrong shape for me, bajillions of goth-y shops with nice-looking corsets which had good busks and some spring steel (by the feel) to reinforce the lacing, but the merely spiral boning around the rest of the corset (too flimsy). Otherwise, lots of tshirts, souvenirs and belt buckle shops. Also random large horse statues!

We ate lunch here, fast food Mexican, overlooking the Camden Lock while sitting on Vespa seats (weird, yes) before having a quick look at some Doc Martens shops, then heading back onto the tube.

The next destination was to look at Tower Bridge and wander along the Thames to The Globe Theatre. The first part of this was easy – pretty hard to miss the Tower Bridge, really! The second part was complicated, partially because when we decided to walk over London Bridge to the other side of the Thames, the best bridge to return over was the Millennium Bridge.

One small note about the Millennium Bridge – it’s got open sides. We’ve talked about my fear of heights a bit before, right? What makes it worse – if I can see through the sides of whatever I’m walking across! Even so, the bridge was just wide enough and had enough decorative poles hanging off the side of it to make it manageable, even though I thought it wasn’t going to happen! A nice cupful of caramelised nuts at the beginning did help, I must admit.

Once we reached the other side, another challenge arose. The Globe was shut this weekend because of site works! What??? First the V&A closes the fashion exhibit, and now The Globe is closed, and on my birthday as well?? Argh! At least it’s open again next week, so I should hopefully be able to get there this trip. Phew.

Since the nearest tube station was near the Borough Market, we decided to wander up there and see what was happening. Although I don’t watch Market Kitchen religiously, it’s always fun to go somewhere you’ve seen on the telly, and it did always look like the markets had great food and drink!

We were pretty amazed at the wares being sold – from farm fresh “raw” milk, to cheese and home-cured sausages, to baked goods and mulled cider, we wandered with our mouths open. We tried the milk, I had some hot chai, some spiced mulled wine, and R tried a traditional pork pie. We saw gorgeously “food” themed ceramics and table linen from Richard Bramble, which was really eye-catching, but we didn’t think we could bring any more ceramic home without breaking some of it! As we were leaving, I spied Neal’s Yard Dairy, place of all good cheese. We tried a couple of different cheese and ended up buying some young brie and some slightly more aged Ardrahan, from Ireland. (Of course, not having a fridge in our hotel room means we’ve taken great pains to keep it cool, hanging the bag out the window from the window handles. Cross fingers that the squirrels we saw from the window earlier don’t take a liking to cheese!)

Since we were heading out to my birthday dinner at Pollen Street Social, it was time to head back to the hotel to freshen up.

Dinner was really, really lovely. I think it was the best dinner we’ve had on this trip, which is saying a lot! Not only is it a Michelin starred restaurant, it prides itself on “relaxed dining” – wear what you are comfortable in and eat what you want. Great, delicious, yummy food, attentive and friendly wait-staff and at least 2/3 of the clientele were wearing jeans. Gluten free was easy – R had let them know in advance so they’d organised GF bread and had made sure they could work with the menu.

We looked at the tasting menu, and while that was amazing, the two dishes we really liked on the a la carte menu weren’t included, so that was ruled out. We were started with an amuse bouche of olives and pork scratchings with two dips – a smoked cod and garlic, and a pear and vinegar. Delicious!

Then came our entrees. I chose the lightly smoked salmon, which was huge – the size of a respectable main course salmon fillet! It was barely smoked, and tasted close to sashimi, with a hint of smoke behind it. This was served with radish, creamed avocado and some little diced squares of something yummy. Deee-lish! R started with deer tartare, which he said was amazing as well.

We asked the sommelier to recommend wines for us, and she advised some whites for entree and reds for mains, as we were both having red meat.  It turns out her husband is Australian, so she was quite knowledgeable about Australian wines as well, which helped make us feel very at home.

The main meal for me was rack of lamb, which was divine, accompanied by aubergine and a few other yummy vegies. Really, really good, and the meat was melt-in-your-mouth good. R chose ox-cheek, which he was also in raptures about.

The dessert menu, while extensive, seemed more about cold dishes than a variety more suited to winter, but they were very delicious too. I had the “lemon meringue” which was lemon and lime meringue icecream. It tasted the way icecream cakes used to, back when they were more cream than “ice confection”! R’s rice pudding hit the spot too, and was much more suited to the season. We finished the meal with a serve of Jason Atherton’s chocolates, which were served from a large wooden box which opened out in layers like a fishing tackle or tool box! Lots of drama! And delicious, too, of course.

When we’d arrived the waitress gave me a key to a “special gift” at the end of the night, which was such a great idea. There was a bit of running around when we asked for the bill, because our waiter told us they had wanted to organise something gluten free for my goodbye gift, and they were SOOOO apologetic that they hadn’t organised a birthday cupcake for me to take home with me. (Hey, I was just happy they’d got bread!)  In the box we found “Breakfast on us”: two tiny little friands and a gourmet tea bag. What a lovely way to finish, and what a fabulous end to my birthday.