A (half) marathon lunch at Del'Aziz in Bermondsey

My flatmates are pretty keen on running, they've done quite a few 10ks but last weekend K stepped it up a notch with Nike's Run to the Beat half marathon on Sunday.

We went along to cheer her over the finish line and after watching probably a thousand identically dressed people pass us she eventually appeared and managed to high-five us all as she went past.

There were different levels of people taking part, some looked like they were hardly trying, some were limping and some were as red as beetroots, but it didn't seem to matter, each person was there to reach a different goal.

My favourite was a girl pulling her friend along by the hand and shouting "come on Becky, there's the finish line I can see it!"

Afterwards, we met up for lunch at Del'Aziz in Bermondsey Square. It's a great deli which does a good selection of food with a mediterranean twist such as burgers and breakfasts.

We all went for pittas, lamb, sausage and chicken which came with salad and yoghurt. We also ordered the Del'Aziz special fries which meant they were basically covered in garlic. Yum.

I ordered a large cappuccino to warm up after standing in the cold for so long but I didn't think it'd be as big as it was, it rivalled the Costa Coffee soup bowl mugs. It was huge.

K was fully intending on eating whatever she wanted on Sunday picked up a slice of plum tart from the selection of cakes at the front of the deli which looked absolutely amazing.

Lunch at the Photographers' Gallery London

On Saturday I had a few errands to run around the Oxford Street area but instead of grabbing a sandwich at a Pret or other such cafe I decided to stop by the newly opened Photographers' Gallery to see what they had to offer. I'd been for coffee before but they've also started doing hot savoury food too. This may seem like a surprise, given the name of this blog but I'm not a complete fan of lots of sugary things so I was really happy to see that as well as doing cakes, biscuits and brownies the Photographers' Gallery café now also has a selection of pastas and other dishes to be warmed up.

I went for the broccoli and mozzarella frittata which came with a very nicely sized salad and lemon vinaigrette for around four pounds. Sitting at the bar which runs around the corner of the building so that you can people watch through the big windows it's a little oasis from the chain restaurants and bustle of the crowds on Oxford and Carnaby Street which are very nearby. Another thing that was nice is that the cutlery was very nicely weighted - it may seem like a small thing but I'm quite fussy when it comes to it.

After the frittata I had a very nicely foamed cappuccino (my new coffee of choice) which came in a Lavazza mug. I'm never too sure about Lavazza coffee's mugs as I find they have very small handles but this one was one of the better ones.

Following lunch, I headed downstairs to browse the bookstore and see the book I've helped to edit over the last year, Occupy London by Ed Thompson. Occupy London is a photography book at heart with images taken from within the St Paul's camp but also includes essays and commentary about every stage of the movement from setting up camp to the final evictions and beyond.

Occupy London by photographer Ed Thompson is available from The Photographers' Gallery bookshop - you'll find it in a nice spot by the till next to The Selby's new book Edible Selby - or from Ed direct, contact him on Twitter

Just a little hiatus...

So I've not written about coffee or cake for a while, of course this doesn't mean I've not eaten any coffee or cake in that time, I've just been busy enjoying the coffee and cake.

Anyway, spurred on by some of my colleagues saying that I should start a food blog (unbeknownst to them that I actually have the shell of one already) because I talk about my individual tastes in food, places to eat it and the different quirks I have whilst eating it (I'm really not that fussy at all) I've decided to resurrect this blog and see how far I get.

This weekend has been particularly good for food so I thought now would be as good a time than any. Stay tuned.

Photo: Coffee cake and a latte at Daisies in the Park in Pinner on a Saturday in the sun this summer

The Breakfast Club - my not so guilty secret

I love breakfast, and I am more often than not caught saying that I could eat breakfast everyday, for every meal. So when D suggested that we go to The Breakfast Club for a Saturday morning catch up I was just so excited.

From the outside, The Breakfast Club in Spitalfields plays it cool. There is no flashy logo'd sign, just the clean white painted frontage with "today is going to be a good day" optimistically painted on it. You would pass this if you didn't know it was there. The only thing that gives it away is a large, train station-like clock, which has the name of TBC on its face and a glimpse of "Sex, Drugs and Bacon Rolls" written in neon on the inside wall.

Go through the door and it's packed, there's a queue of people waiting to be sat at the sanded down trestle-tables and ex-school-canteen chairs. There is definitely a club like atmosphere, you instantly know that everyone is here for one thing, that you are now part of that club and you all share the same guilty secret - except I totally don't feel guilty about it.

Looking at the menu, there's every kind of breakfast (obviously), it's so hard to choose because you know that, from the food coming out of the diner-style open kitchen, it will all not only look like it's out of a photo-shoot but it will taste amazing too. We went for American Breakfasts but had both decided after looking through only half the menu that we would have to come back again and try something else.

Whilst we waited for our food, we admired the design of the place - vintage, but not try hard - sipped at our wonderfully frothy coffees (me a latte and D a cappuccino) and discussed what we had been up to over the last couple of months. Good times.

When our Americans arrived they were just as good as we'd hoped. If The Breakfast Club did life-time membership, I'd be first on the list.

Where I win a trophy

For the second of my most summery explorations I have chosen a cup of coffee which came in a terribly seventies (but brilliant) glass cup and saucer. It is accompanied by the rose-bowl trophy and plate I received at my Tennis club's end of summer presentation barbecue. I think they go very well together.

My tennis club has very 'village hall' atmosphere and the membership is quite small, but the one thing they do well is barbecue - the two members who cook it actually went on a course, no burnt sausages here!


As a side note, in this photo you can also see my iPhone, which was robbed from me on this Monday evening just gone. Boohoo.

Jersey Holidays: beach hut mugs

So I haven't really said why or how I came to be on holiday in Jersey. Well it's a bit of a happy coincidence really, I got a free return flight for my Mum and me through Airmiles and we have some long time great family friends for somewhere to stay.

After a minor issue with our bags not arriving from London with our flight (they were dropped off the next morning), we took to the beach at the first opportunity.

The Son of our friends had a diving lesson at a nearby beach cove, so this gave us an opportunity to have a swim and drink a bit of coffee whilst overlooking the bay. I loved the mugs as they came in the colour of beach huts which was quite nice. Had a quick slice of millionaire's shortbread too.

Jersey Holidays: a coffee house, not a tea house

I seem to be in a house in which coffee is offered as its main drink, not tea: this makes me very happy.

How do I think this? They don't have a massive tin of Tetley waiting to make x number cups of tea, they have a nice box dispenser of Lyons one-cup coffee bags instead. And Lyon do make a very nice mug of coffee, perfect with my cornflakes this morning.

My tour of Great Britain: up a mountain in the CairnGorms

I could drink coffee anywhere, and climbing a mountain is no exception. I bought my coffee and a cozy crimson fleece (yes a fleece, it was cold, I had to make a sacrifice) at the mountain shop 637m up at the bottom of CairnGorm, (1245m high).

I later discovered CairnGorm not to be the highest mountain in the Cairngorms National Park - a fact which makes me slightly disappointed and wondering why we went to so much effort.

We walked the 10 km long, 1245m high route in five and a half hours, with lots of scenic snack and photo stops along the way.

There's not much else to say as the views are pretty breathtaking despite it not quite being the highest route in the area!

 

 

My tour of Great Britain: in the grounds of Cawdor Castle

On our first full day in Scotland, which was also N's birthday,  we decided to take in some of the history of the area and visit a Cawdor Castle which was a short drive from our caravan in Nairn.

It was beautifully bright and sunny but the wind had a cold kick to it in the morning, so we opted for looking around the house first.

It didn't look like a stuffy home that  nobody had touched for the last 50 years, each style had been piled upon the last with books stacked everywhere and personal photos of the family ranging from the sixties to the present day - the Dowager Countess of Cawdor still lives in the castle during the winter months.

We sat down for lunch by a tree with a pretty red bench next to it, although it was warmer now, there was still a cold nip in the air so the café selling hot drinks was welcome.

After lunch we walked around the castle gardens which put us even more in the mood for tea and birthday cake back at the caravan.

 

My tour of Great Britain: a Saturday morning in Bridgend

On Saturday morning after our first night in Bridgend I woke up early to book my Olympic tickets. I had left it to the last minute and was slightly paranoid that Tuesday would come and go and I'd forget all about them.

The quiet of the hotel at seven o'clock in the morning was very different to the party atmosphere at 12am the previous night. Eventually I found a waitress setting up the breakfast and ordered a coffee.

I sat in the bar on a big green sofa, the door to the decking outside was open with a fresh breeze was blowing through and the sun was shining outside.

My coffee came in a pot on a tray which allowed me to pour several cups and for it to keep warm whilst I studied which events I actually wanted to see at next years Olympics and which I was prepared to pay for!

My tour of Great Britain: the train from London to Bridgend

For the next 10 days I am on a tour of sorts around Great Britain. This morning I'm currently on a train heading to my first stop, Bridgend in Wales for Z from Universitiy's Hen Night. She lives in the North, so N (a friend from Uni also) and I are travelling separately from London.

We got to Paddington ahead of schedule so that we could go in search of breakfast. Paddington Station, like any other, is covered in those sub-standard coffee shops selling dried out croissants and coffee in horribly designed orange paper cups. We decided to leave the station and just around the corner on Craven Road we found Ef's.

Ef's is one of those Turkish café and sandwich bars that double up as your local kebab shop on the way home from a night out.

I ordered, a latte which came in a just the right size mug, with a saucer and a plate of sausage, egg and bacon; N ordered a tea which came with the teabag still soaking in one of those brown glass mugs and a sausage sandwich. It being quite a hot morning and after the wine we drank last night, I also ordered a Ribena and N a bottle of water. It all came to a reasonable price, which would have been at least double for what we had, had we stayed in the station.

The coffee after the night before.

No matter how late I get in the night before, all I need is a cup off coffee to put me to rights the next day. One such late night/early morning (whichever way you look at it) we all ended up back at N and D's house. They were then living in Shepherds Bush at the time and they didn't have much in the way of a good coffee - N's not a big hot drinks drinker - so C and I went in search of good coffee along Goldhawk Road.

This is where we came across Zippy's Diner. Love this place, walls covered in menus, photographs of the owner & selected 'famous' people and mirrors with small lamps at intervals down each wall, giving it a real cozy and well loved atmosphere. 

C and I sat in one of the little plastic red booths which ran down each side of the long room whilst we waited for the owner's wife to make our drinks as she chatted to one customer who was propping up the laminated wooden bar. It didn't look like the decor had changed for the last 20-30 years, but that didn't matter.

The coffee was good even if it did come in a polystyrene takeaway cup, but I can forgive that when it was such a comfort to sit in one of Zippy's booths. It's only a shame that N and D no longer live in the area, I have no excuse to go back there.