London Blitz: Last Post of the Trip

Yes, we are back in Toronto now, but I wanted to post photos from our last day in London, Saturday March 26.  It was a cloudy day, and luckily only started to pour as we got to Heathrow Airport at around 4:00 p.m.

We left our luggage at The Hox and headed out late morning for a visit to Spitalfields Market and a walk along Brick Lane, both nearby.  There is a lot of interesting graffiti in the 'hood, as this was the original location where Bansky, the street artist, operated.

Street Art near our hotel

Lots of bright colours

Recent street art

As we walked down Shoreditch High Street, we had a great view of "The Gherkin"- the 40 storey futuristic office building designed by architect Norman Foster that opened in 2004 in the Financial district.

View of "The Gherkin"

We got to Old Spitalfields Market, which has had a market of one sort or another in this location for 350 years.  The permanent shops around the perimeter include a mix of very high end stores and restaurants along with some unique brands.  The inner market space has different stalls during part of each week.  Saturday was "Style market" which meant a range of clothing and jewellery stalls- some new and some vintage, mixed in with a few food stalls.  It was fun to wander about.  Lots of variety.

Clothing stalls in inner part of market building

Chaos- another stall

Great colours

Styln' in the market

Food stall in midst of clothes

We walked from Spitalfields Market to Brick Lane.  The intervening streets are lined with tall, shuttered Huguenot houses.  Beautiful buildings and very quiet streets.

Fabulous houses on small streets near Spitalfields Market

More interesting houses

We passed the Brick Lane Bookshop, one of many small businesses on the bustling street.  One Mosque tells the story of the immigration to this area.  The Mosque began as a Huguenot chapel (in 1572 many Huguenots settled here after fleeing France), then became a synagogue (there was massive Jewish immigration this area in the 1880s), and then in 1976 the synagogue became the Jamme Masjid Mosque.  The Brick Lane area is also becoming more gentrified.

Brick Lane Bookshop

We stopped at Brick Lane Beigel Bake to get a bagel with "salt meat" to eat on our flight back to Toronto.  The "bagels" are soft and different from both Montreal and New York bagels.  The salt meat is also something we hadn't had before.

Allan outside of Beigel Bake

Preparing our salt meat sandwich on bagel

After picking up the sandwich, we went back to Spitalfields Market to have a quick coffee at "The Department of Coffee and Social Affairs"-- a wonderful name for a coffee bar.

Former bureaucrat at "Department of Coffee and Social Affairs"

We then made our way a few streets away to Ottolenghi's newest restaurant (he has four in London), which opened a year ago.  We have so enjoyed his Jerusalem and Plenty More cookbooks, and thought we needed to check out at least one of his restaurants for lunch. The entrance had a display of the salads and desserts that were on offer.  Hot main courses were also available.  We decided to share three of the Ottolenghi salads and a bread tray.

Outside of restaurant

Salad display with ingredients listed

More salads

One of the salads we chose

We had three salads.  The first was a butterbean mash with pickled walnut, fried garlic, chilli and parsley; the second was spiced roasted baby potatoes and parsnip with mango salsa and coriander; and the third was cauliflower, kale and apple salad with whole grain mustard and mixed herbs.  All were excellent.

Inside of restaurant

Allan checking out the salads

Up close look at our three salads

About to dig in

Desserts at Ottolenghi

More goodies

Since most of the Ottolenghi treats had dairy, we decided to go for a coffee and treat at the Ozone Coffee Roasters cafe, where we had a great coffee a few days earlier.  The place was hopping.  We had a coffee and shared a piece of awesome vegan chocolate avocado cake.  Perfect ending to a whirlwind morning and a great lunch.

Ozone Coffee Roasters

Other side of coffee shop

Dessert

We took the Tube to Heathrow (just 4.10 £ one-way). Our flight departed at 6:00 p.m. London time.

The last photo of our blog is the salt meat sandwich that we had picked up earlier in the day on Brick Lane.  It was delicious and beat the airplane food hands down.

Photo of salt meat on bagel on our airplane tray.

The plane landed in Toronto at 10:00 p.m., about 20 minutes early.  We are still a bit jet-lagged, two days later.  We had a wonderful trip.  Again, thanks for travelling with us.