Harrods: Home of the Food Porn

Again, the pictures above shall be explained in detail down below. (I'm too lazy to actually format them INTO the posts.)

Today was a late start. Some of the flatmates had gone to a concert last night and so were exhausted enough to sleep past 1pm or 2pm. Some had gone out clubbing. For my part, I was kept awake by odd music blasting outside my window until 4:30am, and this combined with a bad sleep schedule meant I didn't go to bed until 5am, with the sun well risen. I did wake up at 11am, but we didn't really form a plan or leave the flat until 2:30pm.

We decided to spend the day in Kensington, the rich district of London (well, one of them, but I'm thinking it's the most well known one). First up was the Victoria and Albert museum, which contained an overwhelming array of sculpture, carvings, and even building design. The museum focuses on design and art in more practical uses, it seems like, such as in pottery or in architecture. There were literally huge columns, monuments, graves, gates, and whole sides/parts of buildings contained within the museum. The whole place was extremely interesting but overwhelming, so we didn't see the whole thing. As with the British Museum, we'll need to go back (even though we have only a week left); luckily the museums are free.

Then we decided to go to Harrods. Now, I've been to Harrods before, but it was with family, and there's something about going with a group of like-minded/like-aged people that makes a huge difference. This difference being, we focused on the food sections. Particularly the chocolate section. I may have spent some money. On chocolate. And baked goods. Which is not typically what one goes to Harrods for, but I must say that if you must buy something in Harrods, you should go for the desserts. Because they are GOOD. Think luxury cupcakes and rows of chocolate truffles in every flavor imaginable.

What people usually think of when they think of Harrods is their equally huge selection of clothing, bags, perfume, and shoes, all designer, because at heart Harrods is supposed to be a high-end department store, even if it has turned into a monument/museum to every sort of purchasable thing imaginable/restaurant/supermarket/overwhelming place of overwhelmingly nice things.

I say all that because THEN we went to the clothing/shoes section. And designer was right. Harrods was having a sale but the sale prices were such that I could buy a plane ticket to London AND back to New York with that money. But still, the dresses on display were gorgeous in quite a few cases, and the shoes were...well...shoe porn. And I don't say that lightly; I'm not much of a person for fashion, but this was fashion porn at it's best.

The strangest thing was seeing people, not tourists but actual shoppers dropping hundreds to thousands of pounds (not dollars, POUNDS) on these luxury items. Feeling amazed and awed and also out of place, we snuck back to the place where we belonged, with the food. And only because it, too, was on sale.

I also got to have my first Indian food experience for dinner. I had chicken tikki and garlic naan, all of which was surprisingly good. I will have to try more Indian food in the future.

Now people are going out. I'm staying in and staying up. It's been a long day and I'm not quite sure what we'll do tomorrow, but I feel like it'll involve a lot of walking. If there's one consistency in London it's that there is a LOT of walking.

Food Porn: A Guide to British Food Thus Far

I've been told time and again that the English don't make good food. And with the exception of fish and chips, this is largely true. However, in a city as diverse as London there are plenty of good opportunities to find food worthy of inducing a 'foodgasm'.

Most places make a really good fish and chips. Particularly the chips pretty much never disappoint. Somehow the British also manage to make pretty good gourmet burgers, which are different to regular burgers and a bit more expensive but apparently worth it. Bangers and mash are also really good. I've yet to have a proper British breakfast.

For some reason the British also excel at making hot chocolate. Most places make it the right sipping temperature to prevent burning. The absolute best hot chocolate uses Cadbury's hot chocolate mix, but nearly every place I've been to has had an excellent presentation of the hot drink (as you shall see below, the best one I've come across).

Foreign food is also really good in London, especially because there are so many different nationalities of people living in the city. My favorite example of this is the crepe food truck that operates outside the entrance of the British museums. You can buy a crepe, sit outside the steps of the huge British Museum and take a bite of deliciousness while feeling smart at the same time.

Also really fantastic is the food in Chinatown, located near the theater district. Not only can you find a cheap meal, but it'll also be really good and really large. I had a vegetable noodles which tasted surprisingly fantastic.

Despite all the lovely food I've talked about, and the even more lovely pictures of food below, I'm not quite done food porn hunting in the city of London. Just today I had even more amazing food and took more pictures to remember it. There will be more food porn blogs in the future. But for now, enjoy these pictures.