Bangkok

Pictures from the Land of a Thousand Smiles.

Siam Square Night Market. On the weekends hundreds of stalls throng the covered spaces underneath the Siam Square BTS station Some people aren’t here for the shopping. They just want to get home.
The King is always watching. And what a fetching hat.Some of the small shopping streets off Siam SquareOn a boat ride down the Chao Phraya river. Recommended mode of transport to get to all the main attractions.Ferry point serving some of the city’s most notable tourist destinations3 Baht, one way, Wat ArunOn our way to the Royal Palace and surrounding temples, doing our real life temple run.Playing around with posed action shots. Gloria’s pants matching the architecture quite well.
Across the river from the Royal Palace, and the view from the highest Phrang of this temple complex we were in.Bangkok Chinatown 

Hampstead Heath and the Hampstead Creperie

77 Hampstead High Street
London NW3
Hampstead Tube Station, Northern Line

Took a gander down to Hampstead Heath at the start of a rather late spring. For tourists looking for some sight-seeing and who tire from shopping, Hampstead Heath is easily accessible by the Northern Line (exit at Hampstead), and is a pleasant 15 minute walk away from the station. Particularly worthwhile if the weather is pleasant that day.

After a long winter, the light coming through the trees in the Heath were particularly bewitching that day. Made me forget for a moment that I was living in one of the busiest cities on Earth   Signs of Spring peeking out from amidst the branches Golders Hill Park, with plenty of parents with hyperactive children and strollers in tow. 

I’ve heard plenty about the famous Hampstead Creperie (or La Crêperie de Hampstead for all you francophiles) from friends before, so this trip to Hampstead was pretty much a pretext for me and my housemate to go try it out for ourselves. The creperie was difficult to find. We had thought that because the creperie had a number assigned to it that we were looking for a visible brick-and-mortar shopfront along Hampstead High Street. On my part I take pride in my navigational skills and try not to ask for directions when I’m in tourist mode. Gloria, on the other hand, would attest to the view that I am one stubborn son of a gun, which in this particular case worked adversely against me. I must’ve walked past the shop at least three times before I realised, to my mortification, that what we were looking for all along was not a shop but a tiny, white, plastic-pre-fabricated booth situated in the afternoon shadow of a pub.

The shop is manned (or womanned, if you will) by a pair of hustling-bustling French ladies. Service runs like clockwork amidst a latticework of crisscrossing arms, tupperware and batter. Orders are taken in a fashion that would have made my parade sergeant major proud. Manners were immaculate though, replete with “pleases” and “thank yous” as you would expect from the French. I have never been barked at by a service worker but walked away feeling so good about it before.

The food, you ask? Brilliant. Nothing warms the cockles of my heart like a toasty crepe stuffed full of melted chocolate bits and banana slices. The batter is seared perfectly and leaves the heating plate nice and crispy. It is best to share the sweet crepes – portions are generous and one can only eat that much chocolate before feeling saturated.

No such problems with the savoury crepes though. The cheese, spinach, garlic and mushroom combination was a gorgeous mix of salty and tangy. All crepes are served in a specially designed paper card holder, which proved remarkably effective in keeping the mess to a minimal. The Hampstead Creperie is well worth making the trip for, and we can think of worse combinations than a nature walk and crepes to spend your day.

Song Que Cafe

134 Kingsland Rd
London E2 8DY
Open Weekdays12:00–3:00 pm, 5:30–11:00 pm
Open Saturday 12:00 – 11:00pm and Sundays to 10:30pm

… and it’s good to be back. We apologise to our readers for such a long lay-off from gastrographic. Life has been busy for us, and it has only been quite recently that we finally regained a measure of our time to get back into writing for fun!

Shoreditch Town Hall – walking up towards Kingsland Road from Old Street

The first entry of gastrographic was of this little gem of a cafe we found on our trip to Thailand a year and a half ago. It seems only apt that we kick start this rebirth with an entry on food from around the South East Asian region again. Having lived along the edges of East London for the past 3 years, Song Que Cafe along Kingsland Road has always been my go-to place for Vietnamese comfort food when the flat larder runs low and I can’t be arsed to cook in the evening. It is a wonder that we’ve never properly reviewed this place earlier.

Old Street installation, just across from Cay Tre

In terms of taste, Song Que has a special place in my heart for its fresh and ping-pong-ball bouncy Vietnamese summer rolls, crispy deep fried spring rolls and for having a bad-ass barbecued meat selection – smelling like it was smoked over a ghetto charcoal pit and charred to perfection. If one is at a loss as to what to order (the menu has over a hundred items in it), a summer roll starter and a dry rice noodle main topped with spring rolls and barbecued pork should give you a sampler of the wonderful things coming out of the Song Que kitchen. The pho is decent, but we prefer the soup and meatballs at fellow Shoreditch rival Cay Tre.

Vietnamese Summer Rolls – with prawns so good they go boing in your mouthWhatever you do, just stay away from the chicken chow mein. It’s not even a Vietnamese dish!

Dry Rice Noodles with Spring Rolls and Barbecued Pork

Food portions at Song Que are plentiful and prices are affordable. For that reason queues outside the restaurant can be long on Friday and weekend evenings as revellers spill over from the Hoxton drinking holes to grab a bite to eat. Service can be rushed and brusque (as with most Asian restaurants), so we don’t recommend lingering over your drinks once your plates are cleared. Some establishments are brilliant for that, but Song Que is more a “please eat our lovely food and then leave as soon as you can” kind of place.

Broadway Market

East London, Hackney
London E8 4PH
Saturday 9am – 5pm

Broadway Market is possibly my favourite place to hang out on Saturdays in London right now. I was first introduced to the place by a friend of mine, Julia, whose husband Jason runs the Merito Coffee mobile stall at the market (check out the Timeout review here and pay them a visit!) The place has a very indie vibe to it, and you come away with the feeling that the people who frequent the market are not your typical tourist types. They certainly dressed well – another friend observed half-jokingly that Broadway Market was a ‘hipster market in a hipster part of town’. I think he might be right.

Lucky Chip Burgers
Netil Market, Westgate Street
London Fields
London E8 3RL

Lucky Chip is burger nirvana served out of a mobile truck/van at Netil Market, a small offshoot about a hundred yards away from Broadway itself. The burger pictured below is the Kelly Lebrock (£7.50),  succulent hand-minced beef and streaky bacon on a bed of spinach, cream cheese, caramelised red onion and sandwiched between two soft white buns. It is one of the messiest, juiciest burgers I have ever eaten.

Violet
47 Wilton Way
London E8 3ED
http://www.violetcakes.com/about/

Violet comes highly recommended by Julia. It’s best known for their American style cupcakes. I didn’t manage to get any myself (I conveniently forgot to carry cash to a card-eschewing part of London, silly me) but I am inclined to believe a person who ordered her wedding cake from here. Plus, the cupcakes look gorgeous in the picture. In the artisan spirit of the market, all ingredients are organic and lovingly sourced. Violet has a stall in the market on Saturdays but also a permanent presence at Wilton Way.

“Even the people here are better looking.”

Broadway Market is quite close to where I live, so I’ll follow up with more pictures and food reports from time to time.