it's weird how trips creep up on you. the first couple days in london,

i couldn't even tell if i was in another country or just another city in the states.

and now that i'm back, i feel totally out of it, like i'd been gone so long,

to a far, far place.

discombobulated, we went to eat something clean & familiar at ashbox.

m's turkey on ciabatta, and my usual, perfectly-dressed tofu salad & salmon onigiri.

London Day 7

Leaving London...

feeling pretty fatigued from the trip (we're old!),

we just headed straight to paddington station where we were

due to pick up the heathrow express. hanging out in paddington

on praed street, is kind of like if i were to hang out near port authority

or penn station here. kind of touristy, transient kind of vibe there.

we opted for korean (who knew i'd be eating so much asian in london!)

lunch special at a korean-chinese restaurant.

we got bibimbap in hot stone bowl and a spicy pork over rice specials.

very yummy last meal in london.

then after a bad coffee at costa (what were we thinking),

we had another mediocre coffee at another coffee place.

one black and one white without (milk, no sugar).

then we boarded the train - save the wallet fiasco (i got picked

at paddington, having to call to cancel all my cards at the airport

before boarding - luckily i had all my passport/id/important things

separately!!), it was a very smooth, glitchless trip.

after landing at newark and sharing a cab into the city

with a brit bloke, we went to eat at great ny noodletown

and ordered two of these straight away :

i do love london, but i need more dark leafy greens, dammit!

ahhh so good to be home.

London Day 6

deciding that we had walked/biked wayyyy too much over the week,

we have decidedly started the day with some laze...

starting with a nearby & redundant breakfast at madeira star,

where we had our first dinner brekkie.

m got his usual fry up (smart) but i was getting weary of eggs

(and i can't eat sandwiches no more, thanks to GI), so i ordered

a prawn salad, without much thought - actually tons of ideas that

it'll be like this prawn salad.

instead it was cabbage filled, fishy smelling yuckfest. oh well.

after our late breakfast/lunch, we ambled onto the Tate Modern.

again we didn't try to see everything, just a couple floors of choice...

craving coffee & people watching (great combo, init?), we went to

monmouth coffee outside borough market, which i'd read rave reviews

about on yelp :

unfortunately, i thought it was not much different than my "white"

i had at cafes with my fryups. especially the one i had this morning up there.

oh i guess the price was twice as much.

later on, we met up with my friend yusuke & his girl one last time

(and elliot later on as well!), for a burger at byron in fancy chelsea.

full spread!

m's cheese burger with gruyere - i love how their norm is medium.

yuz's 'byron burger' - a bacon cheese burger.

ilaria's chicken burger.

and my embarrassingly-titled "skinny" burger.

since i can't eat bread, it's the bunless choice.

i hadn't had a burger in ages, but this was good!!

before ending the night with elliot and all of us in clamham

junction neighborhood later on, we got some frozen yogurt

at the chain store snog.

oh the brits and their inuendo-filled names!

a great last night in london.

London Day 5

our sunday started off meekly, foodwise, at the nearby cafe firozzi.

i got a nicoise tuna salad & m had a chicken panini.

both of them, including the coffee, were just ho-hum.

not bad though.

then we biked and walked over to the brewery/backyard market

on brick lane, where after walking around and people watching,

i got 2 little skewers from this korean food stall :

and m got a giant rib eye steak sandwich at an argentinian stall :

we walked up to shoreditch and at some "beigel" places,

i spotted new chunk of hot salt beef getting sliced up :

wowza.

another stop over at old shoreditch station for yummy

chocolate-sprinkled cappuccino and a kirin :

we also snacked on this goats yogurt and brownie (the best

gluten free brownie i've ever had - so good that i didn't get to

photograph it) :

so rich and delicious - almost too much for me.

we decided to go see norwegian wood, which had just opened in the UK

but not in the US (still) - hopped on the barclays bikes to islington,

where they were showing the film on upper street.

then realizing we had a few hours before the show, we decided to just bike

down to chinatown for dinner then catch a showing in covent garden.

after scouring options on gerard street, we settled on the cheapest

place - far east something.

hot & sour soup, mapo tofu (hilariously listed under vegetables)

and roasted pork/duck combo did us some good.

these were surprisingly delicious. although i could've eaten

some large dish of greens (yu choys or other), they didn't have

much greens available.

btw, the movie was AMAZING.

London Day 4

we got the barclay's bike share rentals, and biked over to

borough market - a huge green market & food market that

opens on weekends.

unfortunately most of the food stalls seemed way too crowded

(thanks to the beautiful, sunny weather) and not feeling like

fighting the crowd, we crossed borough high street to eat

something cheap and crummy at harper's :

yes, yet another full english breakfast. (this wasn't our last either).

after a funny exchange regarding top-up (refill) of the coffee,

which we didn't get anyway, we walked over london bridge,

then biked down to piccadilly to meet my old friend yusuke.

we walked through soho and covent garden, ending up at

tottenham square area, for korean food :

after rounds of japchae, haemultang, bibimbap, pork belly bbq, we were all happy.

ahh old friends!

after the spicy korean dinner, we went down to amorino gelateria

in soho to cool down our palate and stomachs.

here's yusuke's gelato cone - chocolate & pistachio bouquet.

i didn't get a picture of ours since we both just inhaled it,

but we got a delicious combo of stracciatella, pistachio, and chocolate.

mmmmm~

after, we took a long walk home through all the touristy historical landmarks :

piccadilly - trafalgar - big ben - westminster bridge, with a view of the tower bridge.

why not?

London Day 3

learning from yesterday's mistakes (with overpriced food!),

we went to chapel market area in islington and got a takeaway

thai/malaysian food (Thai An supermarket) and sat outside to eat.

the malaysian chicken curry was excellent, and the roast duck was

said to be hard to chew but rich and yummy as well.

then after walking north through islington, all the way up to dalston junction,

back down to shoreditch along kingsland (so brooklyn-y!),

we stopped for a pre-opening break at old shoreditch station.

a little too hip for my taste, but really excellent cappuccino there!

then after the opening (photos via), in fear of missing our last tube train,

we rushed to eat ANYTHING open around portobello road...

which turned out to be thai food again - at thai rice.

green papaya salad, tom yum soup, and green chicken curry.

this would mark 3rd curry for me already on this trip.

luckily, we made it back home before the last tube,

only to learn later that we could've just found a bus home.

(nyc kind of spoils you that way with 24 hour trains).

London Day 2

our second day in london, after getting some much needed z's,

we started walking toward and across the thames via the vauxhall bridge ,

into pimlico, ambling into belgravia around lunch time,

unfortunately for us thrift-eaters (very fancy neighborhood).

we stopped at baker & spice, craving something really fresh.

we got these avocado salad and prawn salad, with amazing coffees.

having been super lucky with cheap food the first day,

this meal felt quite expensive to us (over $30 US), though super yummy.

that is until... dinner time.

after finishing a simple wall mural at the gallery, we headed off to shoreditch,

walking through brick lane.

one of us was craving a burger, so we went into a place called the diner :

mushroom burger, onion rings, brekkie platter with greens,

cheesecake, coffee.

very american diner type food, which ended up costing us

about 3 times the price that these would cost here (even in NYC).

crazy! we felt like the biggest suckers - like some chumps

that go abroad and can't eat anything but american food,

even at a higher cost!!

yikes.

London Day 1

trip to london for a week for my show at london miles.

day 1 started with airplane food on virgin atlantic redeye.

chicken something with mashed somethings.

then our first meal off the airplane/airport express/tube

after dropping my paintings off at the gallery...

one of those "3 entrees with rice for £5" kind of deal place

on north end of portobello road, makan :

m got duck, fish and chicken in some kind of malay curry sauces.

very good.

i got a vegetarian platter - broccoli, eggplant and tofu curry :

i normally don't order eggplant (or aubergines over there)

but these were so good on an airplane-cramped body of ours.

then later in the afternoon, we dragged our jetlagged bodies around

the neighborhood we were staying in (vauxhall-ish), and found a place

nearly closing up (only around 5pm!), called madeira star cafe.

milk tea & white coffee without. so good.

then our full english breakfasts for dinner :

mine was a vegetarian version with mushrooms,

but i should've bit the bullet and gotten a proper meat one.

they know how to cook eggs just perfect overeasy there.

both of our second trip to London started in a hazy blur for the first couple days

of sleep-deprived, post-redeye state, not even noticing that we were actually in a foreign country. (we kept thinking we were just in some other city in the US).

now that i'm back home in NYC writing these and looking at photos,

i do realize that we were actually somewhere outside the country.

ha!