So why does the myth still exist in the States that British food is horrible? I’ve made it my personal mission to introduce every single one of my visitors to the wonders of London eating.  I’ve been lucky enough to have over  a dozen friends and family stop by the Hackney Hostel since I moved here and the tourist itinerary doesn’t involve Westminster Abbey or the British Museum. No, the most important sights of the trip are Borough Market for  toasted cheese sandwiches, Broadway Market for cupcakes and Ghanaian food and mushroom risotto, Gwilym’s coffee cart at Columbia Road Flower Market, Tayyabs for lamb chop and curried baby pumpkin feasting, the Breakfast Club for bacon butties (and mini-discos), the Brick Lane Upmarket for octopus balls and dulce de leche filled churros…and I’ll stop now because i’m getting very hungry.  Thankfully, every single one of my visitors cares about food just about as much as I do, which is probably a main reason we’re friends in the first place.  I don’t waste time with non-excitable eaters.

My friend Lex is one of these people.  She left just last week, after five straight days of talking about food, venturing off to procure food, deciding what to eat, eating, digesting, and then talking about what to eat next. In other words, my kind of girl. Oh yeah, and we cooked Chinese food for 20 strangers in my living room.  But although I always have to show off my favorite eating spots, the best part about visitors is opportunities to try new and exciting markets, cafes, and restaurants.

One happy new find is the Bedales Wine Bar, tucked into a tiny storefront in Spitalfields Market. It’s easy to overlook with the sprawling chains like Wagamama, Giraffe, and Leon taking up massive real estate, but we ducked into this charming  little  spot to get out of the rain and were happily surprised by excellent glasses of wine, a bowl of fresh bread from St. John and a board teeming with multiple varieties of cheese, pickles, olives, and a piquant little bowl of ratatouille.

Apparently you can purchase a bottle of wine and drink it there without the hefty restaurant markup…I’ll certainly return to prove that hypothesis (and eat more cheese…yum).

Another solid winner in our rapid-fire London food tour was the wooden-beamed, vintage-wallpapered, elk-skull-bedecked,  dreamy-design-geek-fantasy restaurant and bar The Elk in the Woods on Camden Passage in Islington. This miniscule  cobblestoned passageway is one of my favorite streets to show London visitors, both for its quaint historic charm and its abundance of tantalizing eateries.  We snacked on a potato and pancetta skillet with baked eggs, peppers, and tomatoes with toast…

…and a halloumi and hummous sandwich with grated carrots and beets, parsley, and olives.  I very much enjoy their use of assorted non-matching patterned tableware.

I try not to let any visitor leave London without joining me on a pilgrimage to my favorite Broadway Market, just up the street from our flat.  I also try not to let these visits conclude without at least one (or three) mini cupcakes from Violet Cupcakes.  After carefully considering our extensive eating options (there’s new Persian food which I must try next) Lex and I opted for the Heavenly Halloumi burger from The Veggie Table with a generous smoosh of onion jam on top, which smelled so good it  required an eyes-closed moment of silence and gratitude from Lex before biting into it.

This veggie burger, made of made of halloumi, carrots, zucchini, mint, and coriander,  is one of the best I’ve ever had and is surprisingly easy to make yourself. Makes you wonder why you ever put those unidentifiable-brown-defrosted-hockey-puck-soy-protein-things pretending to be meat in your mouth.  If you’re not going to eat meat, eat something that tastes like vegetables because, shockingly, vegetables are delicious.

Obviously, meat is also delicious. So we followed up the wholesome organic veggie burger with a triple meat sandwich from BanhMi11.  Yes, that’s actually what it’s called.  Stuffed with chicken, roast pork, pork pate, cucumber, red pepper, cilantro, and I don’t remember what else in a crunchy baguette, I’ve got to say it wasn’t the most amazing banh mi I’ve ever had, but quite enjoyable nonetheless.

Lastly, what foodie tour of London would be complete without attending the launch party of a brand new food and culture magazine in a stunning garage-warehouse complete with hanging ivy, bowls of roast lamb, and harp player? For The Love Of Life, indeed.

If you’re reading this and you haven’t been to visit yet, get your act together! I can’t drink all this wine and eat all this cheese by myself…or at least I shouldn’t. So save me from myself and come visit, okay? Bean, book some tickets already…

Bedales Wine Bar @ Spitalfields Market
12 Market St
London E1 6DT

The Elk In The Woods
39 Camden Passage
London N1 8EA

The Veggie Table and Banh Mi 11
@ Broadway Market
on Saturdays
from 10AM to 5PM

we’ve had a steady stream of friends and family rotating through the hackney hostel over the past month, which has meant many a fantastic food exploration throughout london. having some of my favorite people in town has been wonderful, not in the least when your houseguests bring you delicious treats straight from paris like these insanely decadent macaroons from the famous ladurée shop.  from the top:  salted caramel, chocolate, rose, and pistachio. amazing. thanks chris and ant!

of course, no visit to the hackney hostel is complete without visiting several markets. we made the absolutely essential saturday morning hangover stop at the toasted cheese stall at borough market, then hit up the usual suspects like scallops and bacon, fresh oysters, strawberries and cream, lamb burgers, halloumi veggie burgers, and all those old friends. a new discovery was the focacc-with-many-deliciously-unexpected-ingredients like the one i purchased with leeks, pine nuts, and ricotta. i’ve started experimenting with making focaccia, which i’ll post about someday, so it was inspiring to see all the inventive combinations. my most recent visitors – anthony, dan, and christine – show off my focaccia here. you can’t really see the bread, but you can see their excitable foodie delight (especially anthony’s).

later that day, dan and i went to the opening of the beautiful pavilion at the serpentine gallery thanks to his friend sam, part of the design team.  well done sam.

after our swanky gallery visit, dan and i went to a swanky dinner at a fabulous anglo-french restaurant called le cafe anglais.  now judging by the photo we may not look like we belong anywhere swanky, but believe me, we looked sharp.  sadly, i didn’t take any photos at the restaurant so you’ll have to use your imagination to envision dan’s rabbit rilletes with toast and pickled endives,  which was a cute little pot of cute little shredded rabbit cooked in fat until tender. we had to dig through about a quarter inch of solid fat to get to the deliciousness within. i had an amazing fish soup and then a gloucester old spot pork belly while dan had grilled plaice fillet with roasted tomatoes. i’ll most definitely be going back there.

sunday morning found us back at my usual weekend routine of columbia road flower market and brick lane upmarket, where i had the best okonomiyaki of my life. i may only have had four of these japanese cabbage-base pancakes in my life, but this one blew the rest out of the water. little bits of sweet corn, crunchy cabbage, tangy japanese sauce, and a crispy layer of fried cheesiness on top with a gentle sprinkling of dried seaweed. yes, it looks like a hot mess but it’s delicious. come visit me and i’ll show you.

ant, chris and i also filled our bellies with roast hog sandwiches with rocket and apple sauce and then sampled our way through indian wraps filled with spicy goat curry, arancini rice balls, just-made doughnuts, freshly battered fish and chips, and so much more.  i love how everything is made in front of you at the market – everything comes straight off the grill or straight out of the hot oil and goes right into your mouth.  i acknowledge may not be exactly a good thing for you, but it sure tastes good.

but the highlight of the freshly made treats? anthony’s churro, which came directly out of the hand-rotated churro-making machine (gotta get me one of those) and into the deep fryer. once out, it rolls like a happy puppy in a bed of cinnamon and sugar, then receives a direct injection with a crazy churro-injection machine, filling the empty churro with an insane mixture of half chocolate and half homemade dulce de leche in one decisive downward motion.  seriously, i don’t know who invented these wacky machines whose only purposes are to make hollow spiral churro tubes and then fill them with cavity-inducing gloppiness, but i applaude their ingenuity. that’s on the level of the cotton gin and the internet.  holy week’s-worth-of-calories-in-a-deep-fried-sugar-sprinkled-chocolate-filled-stick.  note the compromising photo of anthony on the right, before he succumbs to the incredibleness about to invade his mouth.

food tour from the hackney hostel over. coming soon, farm tour with a big ass pig and a decisively male donkey.