Nordic Bakery

I love it when people introduce me to their favourite food places, it is the best kind of recommendation. At my new job, one of the girls and I discovered a similar fondness for cake and pastries - passing the time discussing what kind of delicious concoction we are going to have next. H had been telling me about a Nordic Bakery she had gone to, which had amazing cinnamon buns. Needless to say, I was hooked instantly - imagining large, blond men standing around needing dough on a snow covered hillside (okay my imagination got away from me a little). Located at 14 Golden Square W1F 9JF, Soho, it is actually an uber-cool, modern little place - with dark wood, bench style seating.

As the sign says, they specialise in dark rye bread open sandwiches and sweet sweet cinnamon buns, they have some other little biscuity cake things too. I looked it up and apparently the rye crispbread or reissumies, are baked in Finland, frozen and flown over. How’s that for authenticity? (Obviously a hefty carbon footprint, but we’ll ignore that) Featuring traditional Scandinavian and Finnish ingredients such as egg and anchovy, smoked salmon and gravadlax - it made me feel like I was holidaying in Europe for the day.

As I am not a huge fan of pickles and anchovies, we decided to skip straight for a coffee and a bun - despite my protestations about having not having something ‘proper’ for lunch. We chose one of the aforementioned sweet sweet cinnamon buns and salivated over its golden stickiness. I love the way everything comes on a little tray, it’s like being on an airplane with really tasty food.

The bun was so delicious, cinnamony and sticky, it tasted incredible - very decadent. The syrup was soft and gooey inside and caramalised on the bottom, unlike any cinnamon bun I had every tasted. The clever Nordic people also keep the basket of buns covered and with a heat plate underneath to maintain the moist, warm goodness.

Please excuse the blurryness of this last photo, clearly my camera was too overcome with cake envy to focus properly - it’s the mechanical equivalent of drooling. Anyway, that is the Nordic Bakery in Soho, definitely worth a visit.

The verdict: It will set you back about £2 for the bun and £1 “something” for the coffee. Quite reasonable for the area. I will be back!

making do

Status: Exhausted and hungry

Thinking: that when you are hungry, Sainsbury’s sushi is damn tasty!

what we ate

C had a steak sandwich with Chipotle ketchup, but the picture was blurry, so I won’t post it. His verdict was that it was perfectly cooked, the ketchup gave it a hint of spiciness and he would definitely order it again. I had a pitta pocket with salad, it was okay - bit messy, nothing special, wouldn’t really order it again.

We also had dessert, of course. Waffles with chocolate and strawberries, and chocolate dipped marshmallow and strawberries, with a coconut topping. Yum!

 

Camden Market Food Stalls

Everyone who knows me, knows how much I love food markets, even though they mostly cater to meat eaters, I still love going. The smells, the noise, the hustle and bustle - the free samples! In Cork, we have the English Market - where it is mostly butchers, but they have an incredible fresh seafood place and a place that sells olives and Mediterranean stuff. In Dublin, C and I frequented the Temple Bar Food Market often, where he ate burgers and hot dogs fried right in front of us, and I ate spinach and goats cheese spring rolls, crepes and waffles.

London is a fantastic place for food markets and I look forward to going to as many as I can find. We have already been to Borough Market, but it is Camden we hit up the most. Obviously, because we live right across from it. Today I took a few shots, to show why I love the place so much.

These ones have been taken inside, where it is mostly Chinese food, Indian and a cute little Sushi bar.

Chinese Stall

Mexican

 Moroccan

Indian

 Outside in the square,  it is really multicultural  here, with everything from English fudge to jerk chicken.

 Chinesey Dim Sum, noodley things

Not entirely sure what these people do, seems like juices and kind of potato ball things with different fillings.

 Caribbean

 Kebabs

 Sausage Stall, with a variety of sausages and fried potato stuff

 Pancakes

Have a seat! The sitting area has a nice atmosphere, people share tables and eat together. Until it rained, then we all got up and ran away.

sweet treats

I thought this stall at Camden Market deserved its own post. Offering chocolate dipped fruit, waffles with different toppings and brioche.

Good enough to eat!

I am totally in love with this new t- shirt I bought in Camden Market today, I was passing by a stall and zoned it on it. It kinda reminded me of the gorgeous designs over at Cakespy - it isn’t as nice as her designs, but it will do. I love the afternoon tea theme of it.

I’ll have to try not to lick myself when I am wearing it.

Marvellous Muffins

I recently started working in Carnaby Street, and while it isn’t fantastic for sandwiches, today I came across a little bakery shop - Candy Cakes. With pastries, macaroons and delightful cakes aplenty - what caught my eye and drew me into the shop were these rather garish concoctions. At a whopping £2.60 each, they are a bit too expensive for everyday eating. Good for special treats or gifts to friends. You will either love this gaudy icing or hate it- the licorice allsorts and sweeties on top are a nice touch. The yellow one has a lovely lemony base, but the chocolate one is a bit dry - also too big really for comfortable bites, try unhinging your jaw. The result, I don’t think I’d be buying them again - other than the colourful icing, they are nothing special really. The muffins come in a variety of colours and sweet toppings, pink, blue, green etc. Also Candy Cakes have a loyalty card, buy nine cakes and get the tenth free. I’ll be heading back for some of those delicious looking macaroons.

Back in the saddle again

After a week of non stop nausea, it was hard to ever imagine eating again. But, I perserved! All for the sake of the blog of course. Sunday we headed to Kensington High Street to do a bit of shopping and eating. We stopped in at Giraffe, after I saw they did all day breakfasts. I am a sucker for a good breakfast, be it a veggie fry up or a French toast extravaganza. I rarely actually eat breakfast at breakfast time, as I am never known to get up before twelve at the weekend. I ordered blueberry and banana pancakes and C got a Giraffe club sandwich, we also decided on a portion of nachos - not typically known to go with pancakes, but I am so over that idea.

Yes, they do taste as good as they look.

Go on, lick the plate!

a bad month of blogging

Eater’s Regret has been on somewhat of a hiatus the past few weeks, for a couple of reasons. One, my laptop, (which I liberated from a former employer who refused to pay me my wages…ever), died a horrible, but somewhat expected death. I was forced to order a new one from my other previous employer, Dell, and boy did it take a long time to get here. Too freaking long! After the inital, major Internet withdrawal symptoms, I went pretty much cold turkey and haven’t really missed it that much.

The second, far more nasty reason - food poisoning! How ironic I know, a food blogger with food poisoning. I took a trip home to Cork to see my family, before I started my very new, exciting job and was laid up for days with gut wrenching sickness. I had to fly home, sick as a dog, enduring screaming children and mid air turbulance. Let us also not forget, when I was away, Camden, my London home, suffered a horrendous fire. So after the train, the plane and the other train, our taxi from the station could only drop us part of the way home. The rest we walked, a day I shan’t forget quickly.

The result of the food poisnoning means that I ate practically nothing for a week, the concept of dining out is only coming back to me now. But it is back with a vengeance!