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Ridley Road Market, Dalston

Ridley Road Market
Dalston E8

Date of Last Visit: Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Victim: Me

The Damage: None. That was the beauty of it.

The Background: I just spent a good 30 minutes fondling the goods at The Turkish Food Centre. To get TO the TFC, I had to walk through Ridley Road Market. It was almost so cool (as in awesome, not cold) that I refused to look or stop or stare. I wanted to save it for my walk back.

Because Ridley Road Market is fantastic, and there's not a Spanish tourist in sight. (I love Spain and its people and their cameras, which are often quite nice. But sometimes...) In Ridley Road, it's me and the tripe. Just the tripe. I have never seen so much tripe in my entire life. EVERY BUTCHER.

And these...I want to say they are goat...but I could be wrong...I seriously want to dare @hollowlegs and @eatlikeagirl to do something with these. And the tripe.

And then there was this couple, with their egg stall. An EGG STALL. I thought this was pretty awesome. I found this great write-up of the market, and they talk about the couple who run the egg stand and their eggs. Neat.

There was a lot of fish...

Apparently, they also have a 24-hour bagel shop that I missed. Mr. Bagel. I checked out the menu online (can't find it now) and still no salt bagels to be had. Damnit. Somebody hook me up. Please.

The Verdict: Just one more reason why I need to move to Dalston.

Turkish Food Centre, Dalston

Turkish Food Centre
89 Ridley Road
E8 2NP

Date of Last Visit: Saturday, May 17, 2009

The Victim: Myself

The Damage: £10

The Background: I really can't explain why I do the things I do. On Saturday morning, I woke up and said, "You know what I want to do today? I want to go to the Turkish Food Centre in Dalston." Luckily for me, there's a bus that picks me up right on my corner and takes me all the way up to the Dalston Kingsland Road Junction.

The Entrance: To get to the TFC, you have to walk through Ridley Road Market. More about that tomorrow. (Or maybe Monday. Depending on how I'm feeling.) I will say this...Ridley Road is awesome. And if you like tripe, you'll probably find it even more awesome.

Towards the end of Ridley Road, you'll come to the TFC. At first, I was a little disappointed. From the outside, it didn't look like much of anything. In fact, it sorta looked like the Turkish grocery on my corner. I could have just stayed at home.

But these feelings all gradually disappeared as I entered and made my way down the first aisle.

Behold, the hummus. And the tarmasalata. A huge-ass container of hummus = £4.29. Take that, Waitrose.

And then there was the olives and cheese guy, who was so sweet and picked me out some of his favorite black olives, along with a big block of Greek feta.

Onto the sweets!I bought some baklava, and to be truthful, it was a bit too wet for me. So I wouldn't recommend it.

But the bread...these photos don't do it justice. I couldn't get a good shot because there were all these people picking out their bread. But here's some, hot out of the oven.

And well, mindful of getting my daily fruit and veg requirement these days, I did spend some time looking at the green stuff. Lots of peppers. Didnt buy any though.

The Verdict: I hope the pictures speak for themselves. I need to hang out in Dalston more often. You too. In fact, the whole field trip had me looking at property in Dalston for days afterwards. Hmmm.

The Pembury Tavern

The Pembury Tavern
90 Amhurst Road, Hackney, E8 1JH
http://www.individualpubs.co.uk/pembury/

Date of Last Visit: Wednesday, December 17th

The Victims: Gerry, Ben, Matt, Carolyn

The Damage: £10

The Background: I've been wanting to go to The Pembury for ages. Because they have a lot of beer at The Pembury. Stonch has written about beer at The Pembury a number of times.

Luckily for me, Gerry has organized tickets for a Christmas pantomime at The Hackney Empire and The Pembury is a convenient meeting place beforehand.

The Entrance: The Pembury is large. It's a solid sort of place. There's nothing dainty here. There's also no one in the place at 6:30 on a Wednesday night, and for that, I'm grateful. As soon as the kitchen opens, we put in our food orders. We've already started making our way through their beer list.

The Service: The food takes FOREVER to arrive. This is bad. Because we seriously have to scarf it and run. We make it to the theatre with about three minutes to spare.

The Food: Parsnip soup for me. It's okay. It's very plain. I think it was advertised as being "spiced" parsnip soup. I can't taste much of anything. Eh.

The Verdict: I like The Pembury. I'm not so sure about the food, however.

Steak: Santa Maria del Buen Ayre

Buen Ayre
50 Broadway Market
E8 4QJ
Tel: 020 7275 9900

Date of Last Visit: Saturday, May 17

The Victim: K

The Damage: About £17 each

The Background: K is leaving me. She and A are going back to NY (Connecticut, actually) next weekend. I am DEVASTATED. I suggest a day out around town to some places K has never been before. We start at Broadway Market. Afterwards, we hit the British Museum for K's first and last look at the Rosetta Stone (my second), and then it's off to tea at Liberty and some fondling of Liberty's household goods. I do love fondling the goods at Liberty.

With such a big day out, sustenance is  necessity. K likes her steak. I'm glad we're in Broadway Market because of her affinity for steak and my affinity for going somewhere I've never been before so I can pump up my London food blog.

The Entrance: Everyone is speaking Spanish but us. We're the total gringos. To give K credit, she speaks some good Spanish. But she doesn't break it out. I was kinda hoping for that.

The Food: We order two small filets and some empanadas. I think the empanadas are good. Cozy. But I am not falling all over myself over them. The steak, on the other hand, is a masterpiece. And I'm not a steak eater. K proclaims it one of the best steaks she's had in the U.K., which is high praise. I also order a green salad, which ends up being  a waste because both steaks are served with green salad. (I wish someone had warned me of that.) The steaks were also accompanied by some lovely nice big chunky white beans. Yum.

The Nice Bit: They have a lovely outdoor patio at Buen Ayre. It was pouring rain when we were there, of course, but I'd come back just for that.

The Verdict: Nice. Would have been better with some Malbec. :)

A Saturday in Broadway Market

I was very much inspired by a recent post from Aidan Brooks, Trainee Chef, so I popped over to Broadway Market in Hackney this morning. I had hoped to embed the full Flickr slideshow for your viewing pleasure, but apparently you can't resize Flickr slideshows (default is 500 x 500 and my middle column is 400 and I'm not up for a site redesign at the moment). Check out the full show here.

Georgia, Republic Of: Little Georgia

2 Broadway Market
London E8 4PQ

Date of Last Visit: Friday, April 15

The Victims: Karen, Alex

The Damage: 25 GBP each

Karen had a long weekend for Patriots' Day (Paul Revere's kind, not W's) so hopped a flight to London. In search of something a little different, and in line with Alex's wandering (he just got back from Yemen), we headed off to Hackney for some Georgian food. This was my third trip to Little Georgia; you'd think that might mean "She must really like it," but I think what it really means is that I like Hackney! Particularly, I like the Belgian Bar up the road.

So--as with my prior trips to Little Georgia, we started out with some yummy warm bread with interesting Georgian cheese inside it. It was like a pita stuffed with cottage cheese, but it wasn't really cottage cheese. Very good. Then we got the mixed mezze...beans and carrots and beets and cheese. Interesting as well. Not so interesting was the pepper stuffed with myterious substance.

Sadly, they had no Georgian wine left--they had had a big party of Georgians earlier in the week, and they drank all of it--so we went with the house wine which our server told us was better anyhow. (She has been my server before. This trip, she took more of an interest in us and gave lots of tips and suggestions, which was great. I've definitely had her ignore us during prior trips, and had in fact prepared myself to sit around waiting all night!)

Entree-wise, I went with the eggplant and it was delicious. I love eggplant. I did not pay attention to what Alex and Karen ordered, but Alex in particular cleared his plate. We went through a second bottle of wine which I regretted completely the next morning.

The bathrooms are spotless and seemingly freshly painted. The decor is very open and airy...lots of windows out onto the street. When we arrived, it was empty save for one large table. By the time we left around 9:45, people were loitering outside.

The Verdict: The food is good. It's not the best I ever had, but there's something about it...maybe because it's "Georgian" and thus exotic and different. And the neighborhood--at least this little strip--is very cute, and The Dove down the road makes for a good stop before and/or after. So I'd suggest this as an "exploratory outing."