Sticky Toffee

sticky toffee pudding, originally uploaded by supafly.

The best thing about my second day in London may have been this sticky toffee pudding. I had heard of this dessert, but this was my first time trying it and my was it delicious! I got it while walking down Carnaby Street - a collection of tiny streets closed off to traffic (off of Regent and Oxford streets) that had many little boutiques and cafes.

I started out the day trying a different route to get down to Central London. I went by way of the Elephant and Castle tube stop. The station was surrounded by lots of cheap vendors selling t-shirts and bages for 99pence. I took the Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus and checked out the shopping.

My first stop was TopShop and Miss Selfridges. It was similar to shopping in Korea because there was just so much to choose from. There were multiple floors of clothes, shoes, and accessories by lots of different designers. If the prices had been in dollars instead of pounds it would have been comparable to H&M, but because of the exchange rate, I couldn't afford anything.

Next, I stopped by Muji and Uniqlo - two Japanese chains that haven't made their way to Chicago yet. Muji has a lot of great basic items, like toiletry items and office supplies. I bought a new notebook to record maps of all the places I was walking. (I've posted my notes on my custom google map - check it out.) Uniqlo is like the Japanese version of Old Navy. Therefore, it's a lot nicer, but still very basic. They had some cute jackets on sale - but again, the exchange rate kept me from buying anything.

I started to get hungry and made the mistake of buying a cheese and bacon (really ham) pasty at the Cornish Bake House. It wasn't so good and right afterwards I found lots of better alternatives. I mapped a lot of them in my notebook. The most ubiquitous are the sandwich shops "Eat" and "Pret a Manger." They both have lots of tasty sandwich options as well as salads, soups, and dessert. Cheaper but less interesting sandwiches are also available at local groceries (like Tesco and Sainsbury). There were also some Thai, Chinese, and Indian restaurants that had cheap takeaway boxes available. I met Marshall during his lunch break and he found tasty, cheap, and delicious lamb curry for takeaway (what they say instead of "carry out" or "take out").

Marshall confessed he didn't know where to go to get things close to his work (a building called "The Space.") So, after I met his two co-workers, I walked around Mortimer Street and mapped all the places he could eat (cheaper the better). I noticed the cheapest option were "sandwicherias" or "sandwich bars." I also learned that shoe repair shops also cut (copy) keys and got a copy made of our room key. It's one of those old fashioned "skeleton" type keys and was quite expensive to copy - it also took them an hour. While they did that, I discovered many resale or charity shops in the area (like thrift shops but all for some cause like OxFam or Rubella) and went in to look around. All the shops were very hot and stuffy but it was a good place to get used books as well as clothes for really cheap.

In the evening, I walked East on Peckham road and found a really cheap store, comparable to Aldi where I was able to get more groceries for a really cheap price. When I went to get a shopping cart, it took me a while to figure out I had to put down a one pound deposit in order to unlock it - a good way to encourage people to return their carts at the end!