Tea Time in Wonderland

Posts Tagged ‘Brick lane’

Another rainy week-end ahead… Smile! Just take your umbrella on an adventure…

Here’s to put you in the mood:

- The Portobello Winter festival starts this wednesdau and will have thematic nights every Wednesday till Xmas

- Don’t forget to get prepared for those Xmas parties and meals: celebrate Thanksgiving!

Feeling better? Here’s for the week-end:

- Head for the new pop-ups before they blow away with the fashion wind… Nes-cafe @ Liberty and the famous Parisian Colette on Brick Lane

- Need your weekly dose of street art? Hoorray! Mutate opens its doors again @ Portobello.

- Even Damien Hirst is back @ the White Cube Gallery. It’s still time to see his No love lost @ the Wallace collection

- Spendid news pictures @ The Royal Festival Hall…

- Alternatively hum Only you @ Proud Chelsea… Great pics of a young Elvis.

- Kids will find happiness in Covent Garden – there will be a real reindeer to pat Saturday afternoon. Parents will probably prefer the amazing jewel exhibition that flashes magic lights under UVs…

You’ll find me @ the Secret Cinema… and having an underground afternoon tea. What’s YOUR program?

My notebook is full. So much going on, where to start this week-end?

- Feeling like breaking the routine? Funny knittin? Hoola-hooping? Try the alternative village fete on Southbank!Free!

- Rush and see the extraordinary/shocking Anish Kapoor @ the Royal Academy of Art (£1 reduction here)

- Travel through the Mexican civilisation with the Moctezuma exhibition @ the British Museum

- Pause @ the latest pop-up cafe, Central Perk, a copy of the one in Friends? Free!

- Love design? Redecorate and lighten your bank account with Tent @ the Truman Brewery

- Try the Wonderland exhibition, inspired by classical fairy tales @ the V&A childhood Museum with my daughter? Free!

- Celebrate Eid, the end of Ramadan @ Trafalgar square. Music, poetry, wonderful food, persian art exhibition… Free!

And on Sunday…

- Don’t miss the Pearlies parade @ the Coastermonger’s harvest festival! Marching band, colours, even donkeys… (be there at 13.00) Free!

- Aller feter le 10eme anniversaire de Regent St, ferme a la circulation pour l’occasion. Musique! Venez danser dans la rue!Gratuit!

Discover different kinds of apples @ Fenton House for their apple day (11.00-16.30). Wokshops for kids, demonstration, apple delicacies, mmmmh…. £2.50/adult, free for children

- Have a musical time with the Peace concert @ Trafalgar Square. Free!

- Feeling peckish? Try the Brick Lane Curry festival…

Root-master est ma meilleure adresse du moment.

Tombee dessus pas hasard, sans aucune fringale, je n’ai pas resiste longtemps a diner dans un double-decker bus – how sooooo London! L’ambiance de l’etage est fantastique, tabouret sur le cote, tout un coin installe de banquettes ideal pour les celebrations… Quelques bougies le soir, une sculpture de D*Face a l’exterieur, une vraie atmosphere. D’autant plus que ce bus a sillone les rues de la capital de 1967 a 1994.

Je n’ai pas ete decue. L’accueil a ete formidable, chaleureux, drole: j’ai ete soignee aux petits oignons.

La carte est vegetarienne. Intimides? Vraiment pas de quoi.  Je suis egalement bonne carnivore et ne resiste jamais a un appetissant steak saignant. Mais le root-master burger est une pure merveille, un fondant qui vous fait oublier qu’il ne contient pas un gramme de viande. Vous ne vous arreterz d’ailleurs pas un instant pour y reflechir! J’en ai pourtant goutes, des burgers. Des basiques, des delicieux, des chics, des graisseux, des fusion foods. Mais celui-la est hors-categorie. les potatoe wedges qui l’accompagnent sont d’un moelleux incomparable, salees juste ce qu’il faut. La sauce tomate a une texture formidable qui vous ferait presque lecher l’assiette. Accompagnez donc d’une limonade au gingembre, c’est le nirvana.

Mon seul regret? De n’avoir vraiment plus eu faim pour la carte des desserts. Les filles a cote de moi vantaient les merites du Banana Cream Pie et je m’avoue intriguee par les Sweet Mumbai carrots – des carottes cuites lentement jusqu’a etre caramelisees et servies avec une creme a l’orange sanguine, des quartiers d’orange sanguines et des raisins secs imbibes de rhum. Je m’en leche deja les babines.

D’autant plus que les prix sont raisonnables: £6.5 pour le burger qui cale vraiment l’estomac. Les desserts sont entre £5 et £6.5.

Tout est cuisine a bord du bus -  l’equipe est d’ailleurs francaise! L’accent est mis sur l’ecologie – produits locaux, recyclage au maximum. Les plats a emporter sont d’ailleurs a base de mais et d’amidon de pomme de terre et se biodegradent en 180 jours tout rond.

Un seul mot: bravo!

Parents: l’etage n’est pas pense poussettes (ah, les transports en commun!) ni bebes. Vous pouvez par contre profiter des tables exterieures pour vous regaler. Un jour de soleil, c’est ideal, d’autant plus que les enfants peuvent jouer sur la place. Avec un enfant de 2-3 ans et +, n’hesitez pas a profiter de l’etage!Vous etes ici a quelques pas de Brick Lane et 5mn de la Spitafield City Farm. Et si les enfants sont fascines par ce bus, reprenez le metro et emmenez-les a Covent Garden decouvrir le London Transport Museum et sa collection de bus d’epoque…

Old Truman Brewery car park
Off Dray Walk,
London, E1 6QL
Metro/tube: Liverpool street
www.root-master.co.uk

Root-master is definitely my best address at the moment. I am going to bring all my visiting friends there!

I came accross it completely hasardly. I wasn’t hungry either but c’m'on, this is so iconic: I just couldn’t resist having dinner in a double decker bus! This one actually drove through the capital from 1967 to 1994 and is very atmospheric. Of course, you have to be on the first floor. Candles in the evening, stools on the side, a few tables, a whole corner turned into little sofas and just perfect for celebrations.

I wasn’t disappointed. Rarely have I had such a warm, funny, splendid welcome. They treated me as if I was a favoured regular.

The menu is entireley vegetarian. Intimidates? Don’t be. I’m a carnivore. I never resist a nice a steak. But the root-master burger is just out of this world, it litterally melts in your mouth. It’s so good you don’t even pause to wonder at the fact that there is not a gram of meat in it. And believe me, I have tested my share of burgers, basic, greasy, market ones to food fusion, quality, experimental, delicious, juicy ones. No, for me, this one is the best ever. And the potato wedges are splended too, lightly salted, tender. I wonder if they do extra servings of these? And do try the home made tomato sauce too -  what a lovely texture! I hesitated to lick it off the plate. With a ginger lemonade this was nirvana-like.

My only regret? I really, really wasn’t hungry enouh for a desert. The girls at the next table mentionned the Banana Cream pie as being amazing and I am truly intrigued by the Sweet Mumbai carrots -  slow cooked carrots with caramel served in a sangunello orange cream sauce,  with sanguinello oranges and rum soaked raisins. Sounds finger licking good!

Prices are very reasonable: £6.5 for a burger that is a real meal. Deserts are £5 et £6.5.

Everything is cooked on the ground floor of the bus -  and the team is French! That makes me real proud. They focus on being green too – local products, recycling, limiting waste. Take-out dinnerware is made of corn and potato starch and is biodegradable in 180 days.

An easy conclusion: bravo! Keep going!

Parents: the first floor is not for pushchairs (ah! Public transports!) not a baby. However, this is perfectly manageable with a 2-3 year old and +. You can also settle for th outside tables – sounds wonderful on a sunny day especially as the kids can run around on that place safely. You’re only a minute from Brick Lane and a 5 mn walk to the Spitafield City Farm. And if your kids prove fascinated by the bus, get the tube to Covent Garden and take them to the London Transport Museum with its collection of historic buses…