UK Day 7-8
Jan 11th, 2016 by Ashley
4/25 Mr. Awesome’s birthday! :D
I’ve always liked Covent Garden. Yes, it’s very touristy, but it’s still fun to relax and watch the street artists or check out cutesy shops. Mr. Awesome also indulged me and we spent quite a while in Radley to peruse the lovely items. I fell in love with the Radley design 4 years ago and always kind of regretted not getting anything.
The drizzle got worse as we decided to go look for a Boundary Dragon. The dragon at Temple Bar did not disappoint. (We walked pass the one at Farringdon without noticing it, and we had to retrace our step and found it in the middle of the street, a little to inconspicuous.) Dragon Map
Personally, I prefer cream tea over high tea. But it seems difficult to find a nice place for cream tea in London, and it’s Daniel’s birthday; it cannot be too shabby. The last time I was in London, I did some research and settled on Afternoon tea at the Capital hotel. It was intimate, quaint and delicious. Nothing but the best for the birthday boy!
This time, the tea room was packed. I guess everyone decided to take shelter and have a cup of tea in the miserable weather.
Friday evening, a handful of museums are open, and since afternoon tea (at 4) and dinner (at 10!) were both in Chelsea, we went to the whimsical Victoria & Albert museum to walk off the desserts. The museum at night was like a nightclub! Too bad that some of the exhibition area was closed.
The grand finale of the day is — Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. Dinner is the second restaurant run by Heston Brumenthal and it is specialize in British food, especially those were seemingly forgotten and little known by the world. The menu was researched by food historian and such, and the end product was surprisingly exotic.
To start, we have the famed meat fruit. It does live up to the hype and then some! I absolutely love the smoothness of the liver parfait paired with mandarin gelatin, which not only provides aesthetic pleasure but also create a balanced, delightful experience in the mouth. We followed it up with spiced pigeon and powdered duck breast.
4/26
2 days before we were to leave London for Vienna, I found out that a good friend of mine from grad school has moved to London (again!) I messaged him on Facebook right away and fortunately they don’t have plans for the Saturday and a impromptu lunch double date was settled.
But first, Wallace Collection awaits. Wallace Collection is a less known (by tourists) gallery that housed an impressive collection. I visited it a few times back in 2010 because I took Art History prior to going to UK and of course I had to see the arts that I studied in class in person.
Lunch was at The Shed, a restaurant we learned about from Esquire channel. I honestly didn’t remember what kind of food they serve and I was happily blown away. Check out the photos I took. It’s just half of what we ordered, but we were too busy eating!
As far as I remembered, we ordered 2 dished from cured meat, cuttlefish, beef cigars (Nelson’s favorite), pan fried goat cheese, lamb chips, pigeon, honeycumb crunchy!
What a way to say goodbye to London!
(to be added, pics: dragon, tea, V&A)