When we woke up on day 6, we really just had one major goal- go to Borough Market. Borough Market is this legendary spot- narrow streets that twist and curve and chock full of little food booths, restaurants, and interesting nooks and crannies. We’d seen it from across the road the other night but hadn’t meandered through yet. When I did my study abroad here, ahem…30 years ago…., I remember thinking the food wasn’t good in England. But what’s funny about that was 1)I was a poor college student and 2) I lived in the shared house my university owned and we cooked and ate our meals at home because of #1. So really, what the heck did I know about it? I remember eating a lot of Sainsbury’s trail mix and tater tots. How unfair is it to be young and have a good shape while eating that crap on the regular? Damn. But, I digress.
Now, remember Emma’s husband, Chris? He’s got a high level role at an amazing bakery and baking school called Bread Ahead. They have a few locations in London and several in other countries- including a very large location in Borough Market. Chris said he would have a bag of goodies waiting for us and told us where to go and who to ask for. Amazing.
So, I decided we would take the tube because last night on the oh so very long Uber ride home, we came in a different way and I realized that there was a station like 7 blocks from the hotel. Geez. Our friends told us about an amazing app called CityMapper which literally tells you every which way you can go from a to b with the pricing and times. So, if I want to go from Hotel to Borough I start walking and then it’ll show all the steps by tube, or Uber, or bus, or whatever and keep updating in real time as you go. IT IS SO FREAKING AMAZING WHERE ARE THESE SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS AND HOW CAN I HIRE THEM? Of course, no WiFi, so I screenshotted the tube directions and off we went.
The other night when we rode the subway with Ashley, I became Biblically married to about 5 dudes and 3 women as it was so extremely congested that our bodies were smashed all together. I think that was the style back in the late 60s, but I didn’t plan for it and judging by the various smells, neither did everyone else. We were so relieved that this ride was much less crowded. We found seats immediately and rode comfortably all the way to “Monument.” We hopped off and CityMapper told us where to exit and where to walk as we headed to Borough.
As we walked over the London Bridge, there was Ashley! Standing there admiring the view up the Thames River of the London Tower Bridge. We had planned on meeting her at the market, so it wasn’t totally random to find her there but still fun. She had a couple of cool things to show us as we walked so we took a slight detour and ended up in a really cool atrium. We stopped to have a drink and enjoy the people watching.
From there, it was off to Borough- just maybe a 10 minute walk. We walked right to the Bread Ahead door that Chris mentioned. No one was in there so we looked around a minute and decided we’d try to go into the main bakery and then all the suddenly a woman appeared. I said, “Are you Molly?” She said, “No, Molly is in a meeting right now.” ‘Ok,” I said, “I’m Rachel. Chris and Emma Malec told me to stop in here.” Her eyes lit up! She said, “Oh yes!”
And then… she proceeded to give us a tour. And have a baker come give us a special demonstration of how they make their viral creme brûlée donuts. And then they gave us each one right away. And a box to go. And then she asked us what else we wanted and gave us everything we pointed out. For free. While there was a very long line of people waiting to buy goods! We felt like royalty! (The people weren’t waiting for us - we’re not that annoying!! There is just always a very long line there) Man, that was awesome! I had a phyllo pastry with pesto, feta, and tomatoes that was SOOOO GOOD. And, oh my word, that donut. Good heavens. What continues to delight me outside the US is that their sweets are so less sweet. I can actually eat them!
Emma told us about a cheese place we needed to try so we headed there next and tried a bunch of things. I bought a Brie for later. Then, we spotted a Spanish place and went in looking for Iberico and Jamon and we bought some of that for dinner. We realized we should have gotten a baguette at Bread Ahead but when we were there we hadn’t yet realized we were building our dinner basket! About then, we came around and found this insane Mac and cheese place that was pouring fresh pasta on top of a huge cheese wheel and stirring as it melted. Ash needed some of that and I promised I’d have a few bites!
The place was amazing and perfectly portioned. No American sized anything, which is great when you are trying to eat a bit of everything and not watch yourself get fatter while doing it! It was, however, quite crowded. We were told to get there early, but I was trying to get our laundry done and…that didn’t go as planned. Jason had a great idea which was to iron my still wet underwear to see if it would steam dry it and it worked! Thank goodness because I washed every single pair and I was not trying to walk around all day commando.
So, if you are going to go- don’t do your laundry at the Residence Inn in Kensington first because you will dry your clothes for 4 hours and they will still be wet and then you will hang them from every conceivable place in your room and leave the window open while hoping it wouldn’t rain sideways or a bird won’t fly in AND then you’ll arrive at Borough after the crowds. That said, the elevators were shocking good to me while I went up and down to the basement checking and feeling sad. I also met a cool lady from Dallas in the laundry room. Small world!
Anyway- about this time, Janine was done with work and she met us in the market. They had just a couple of hours before their flight back to Frankfurt so we took off in search of a cool place to sit and for Janine to have some lunch. Hilariously, we found a German place that was all underground and it seemed cool. It was all decorated like we’d decorate a German Biergarten in the US and I asked Janine and Ash if German looked like this and they laughed;)
After another good hang out session, they needed to head to the airport so we had our goodbye hugs and they took off for Heathrow and we waited for an Uber. We could have taken the tube home, but I didn’t feel like getting married again as it was now the evening commute AND the day before the massive soccer championship that was taking place at Wembley Stadium the next day and holy cow was the place getting overrun with fans!
We got back to the hotel somewhat early compared to the rest of the week. We enjoyed making dinner from the things we got at the market and having an earlier, quiet evening for our last night. Most of our clothes still weren’t dry- but we had all night and didn’t need to head to Heathrow until around 11 the next morning so I felt decent about the chances they would dry out!
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