Borough Market

Summer has finally arrived. This week, the weather has been sitting around the high teens to low 20s. But on Saturday, it was a beautiful 25 degrees, and best of all, Bern and I survived this crazy week and a half, and we get the weekend all to ourselves to relax. He was oncall the previous whole weekend, meaning he was working 12 days straight. Some days, he wouldn't get home till ten or 11 at night.

So we headed to the famous market, which is only 10 mins walk from our place. The hussle and bussle of the place really lifted our mood, and the produce that were sold (mainly food, wine and sweets) were truly amazing. If you are a lover of food (like I am), then this is a place not to miss when in London. My only advice would be to come mid morning as the crowd becomes quite unbearable by noon. Plus, you might have to queue for 15-30 mins to get food! But be warned, things are not cheap here.

So the tour of the market started with the Spanish store. Beautiful jamon being sliced off the bone, chillies and garlic everywhere, and the smell of chorizo sausages cooked on the barbie was so tantalising that we quickly purchased a chorizo burger. The burger was made of good sourdough patties and in it was a chorizo sausage cut in half, roasted Piquillo pepper and rocket. Simple, but quite yummy.

Not quite satiated after the burger, we found a Swiss store selling Raclette and Cheesy Toasted Sandwich. This sandwich was so cheesy and greasy, it made me a little bit sick. For 5 quids, better to stick with the chorizo burger.

For dessert, I would have loved to get a pastry/cake from one of the many pattiseries at the market, but that cheesy sandwich really ruined my appetite! I'll just have to come back another time. So instead, we bought two punnets of the juiciest English strawberries....

In this pic are the things we bought from the market. English asparagus is suppose to be the best in the world, and Bern has been going on and on about it, saying we really need to try it. That bunch of asparagus was 5 quids! (almost 10 Aussie dollars...which I thought was ridiculous). I also purchased some heirloom tomatoes, and that big ugly, knobbly-looking one was 2 quid on its own. The really tough thing about this market is that they do not label the prices well, so you do not really know how much it is until you get to the counter. I used the tomatoes to make a panzenella salad, which I will post the recipe shortly. The little package in the middle contains 50g of foie gras and black truffle pate, the best buy of the day. Truly indulgent, but so delicious.

The market also sells a variety of wild mushrooms. I was already thinking of a mushroom risotto when I took this pic, so watch out guys, there will definitely be a post on mushroom risotto soon. We both really enjoyed the market and would definitely go again.

The rest of afternoon was spent browsing at the British Museum which will be in another post. But the thing that caught my eye most was the English tea served at the museum cafe! Haha... I am so sad. Have a lovely weekend everyone!