Oriental Delight

Hello friends,

today I present you a small store located in Chinatown (specifically Gerrard Street), between Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. This is one of the few stores of the street, which mainly consists of restaurants. There is also another store like this one close to this one, towards Tokyo Diner.

You'll mainly find food in this store, and in particular candies. This is probably just a regular store but if you're into Asian culture it's really nice, because all the candy wrapping is wonderful! I have to admit, lately I've been listening to and watching videos of Korean pop... Yes, yes, it's true. And it's AWESOME. So anything that reminds me of it is a plus.

That said, be careful and look at the expiration date on the products because a friend of mine bought some candy and some of it was expired! And so maybe you're thinking, so why the heck are you posting about this store? Well, because ...I guess not all of it is expired, and plus it's hard to find this kind of store in Spain, so... yeah. And, as I mentioned before, the wrapping and boxes have all these colorful drawings and it makes for a nice and simple gift. For instance, I like these:

As you can see they also have some "Hello Kitty" stuff so there's a bit for everyone (that is, everyone that is into these kinds of things). It might no be the best store in London, but it's in the city centre and around Chinatown, so if you're in the area it's nice if you want some pink and blue chewing gum or something...

By the way, I know I already posted about this but my brother and I just started posting recipes again on our cooking blog... We're going to try to update it as much as we can from now on! I still have to translate the last couple of recipes but most if it is already translated! Hopefully you'll find something you like. Enjoy!

Candy Cakes

First of all, I'm terribly sorry for the delay but I honestly suck at blogging. I'm not good at keeping up with this... but I'll do my best, so that you can have an extensive guide of London. I hope you had a fabulous, or should I say tremendous, time over Christmas and that January was a good month for you.

Now let's talk about this colorful store. In spite of the color combination including pastel green (let me say I -hate- pastel colors) that somewhat reminds me of Agatha Ruiz de la Prada (not very fond of her either), this place is worth checking out. And since there's more than one in London, you have no excuse.

Candy Cakes opened in 2006 with the intention of making unique and innovative cakes and the already mentioned cupcakes. And maybe they taste like your regular cupcake, but there are so many different colors that it definitely catches your eye. I must admit I still haven't tasted these cupcakes because I've never been really into turquoise cakes, but I did have a Nutella milkshake and it was awesome. Seriously. Usually when you find Nutella ice-creams or milkshakes they just taste like chocolate, but this one was amazing.

The shop you can see in these pictures also has a little terrasse (did I just make up that word?) and is in Monmouth Street, in Covent Garden, near the Leicester Square station.

You can find more information on their website, which I linked above, and as far as the prices are concerned... well, this is London we're talking about.

And in the next entry (which will hopefully be up before 2014) I'll talk about the Natural History Museum and post a thousand pictures, give or take. Peace out.

Stanfords

With this somewhat blurry picture, I introduce you to Stanfords. Stanfords is a big store devoted to traveling, and since I'm a huge fan of traveling, I had to talk about it. The store you can see on these pictures is the one located in Covent Garden, which opened in 1901.

Everything in this store is related to traveling: the literature section, maps, globes, the stationery, accessories and more.


On the ground floor you'll find maps and books about France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, travel literature, children books and games about traveling, movies and music. You can also find gifts such as shower curtains with maps on them, or special thumbtacks that you can put on maps on places you've visited. And, of course, there's my favorite corner, devoted to globes (quite pricey, though...):


Although if you want to see a really pricey globe, check this one, which is in the same floor but in the following room, and costs the not-to-be-despised sum of £8,999.


Right?? Let me get my checkbook.

On the floor you'll see a map of the world and at the back there's a café.

On the first floor you'll find maps of other European countries and international destinations. There are also very useful tools when it comes to traveling, such as first aid kits, knives, and stuff like that. On the floor there's a National Geographic map of the Himalayas. And if you look up you'll see a map of the solar system. Not bad, huh?

The basement is mostly devoted to England and London, of which a map covers the floor.


Here you'll see guides and books about England and London, and some old maps too!


The store is located on 12-14, Acre Street, and opens from 9h to 19h30, although you can see all that and more on their website!

Any Amount Of Books

Dear friends, I'm back home after a pretty cool year abroad, and really happy about it (though I do miss London). But I still have a lot of things to talk about here, so let's go.

We've already established (at least I have) that bookstores are the best thing ever, and if they're beautiful, then it's even better. In this case, we're not talking about the prettiest bookstore in London, but it's located in a very nice area (namely Charing Cross Road), where one can find many interesting (and often cheap) bookstores... and in this case, it is basically because Any Amount of Books is a second-hand bookshop.


This bookstore's catalog is available online on their website, but as I saw when I went there, they have a lot of different books from a huge variety of genres. I even found a couple of plays from my Modern British Theatre After '56 course (and for only 2 pounds!). Aside from having hundreds of second-hand books, they have books that are otherwise quite hard to find (although I don't suppose any of you are looking for rarities...) (but hey, who knows), and, what I found most odd and funny, leather books to decorate the house! So if you're looking to redecorate your house and want to emulate Dumbledore's office, this is the place to go (although beware! for each book costs between 10 and 15 pounds).


To sum it up, it's a pretty cool place. Also, they open from 10h30 to 21h30 every day, something quite uncommon in this city where everything usually closes around 18h!

P.S.: Since this is my blog... I will promote myself! A friend and I recently built a simple website to show my photography... You can check it out here. I hope you like it!

Koenig Books

Dear friends of the world wide web, today is a windy day and I am home listening to Seven Swans by Sufjan Stevens. Not bad!

Today I will talk about a nice bookstore located in Charing Cross Road, a street in the city centre full of pretty interesting shops and bookshops. Its name is "Koenig Books" (sadly the link is only in German) and you can find it on 80, Charing Cross Road. The nearest tube station is Leicester Square (so, for example, you could go browse through the books after you have lunch at Tokyo Diner...).


The store you see on the pictures is the one located near Charing Cross, but there is another one, the first one to open in London, in the Serpentine Gallery (although I've never been there), the closest tube stations being Lancaster Gate and South Kensigton (where you can find all the awesome museums, like the NHM, which I'll talk about in the future).

This library specializes in art, namely design, architecture, and photography, so if you're looking for literature, you'd better go to the second-hand bookstores found a few meters down the road (I will also talk about these in future entries). Anyway, it's a pretty cool store and you're sure to find interesting things. As for the prices, I'll tell you when I check them out, since the last time I went I didn't spend much time in it. I'm the best guide, I know.


And that's basically it. Charing Cross Road and the surrounding areas are awesome, so be sure to go when you visit London!

Tokyo Diner

Greetings companions; today, while listening to No Knife's Riot for Romance!, I will talk about Tokyo Diner.


This is one of my favorite restaurants in London. Ironically, it is located in Chinatown... the nearest tube station is Leicester Square, so as you can see it is in the center of the city. A road that is pretty close to the restaurant is Charing Cross, which is full of nice bookstores that I'll talk about in future entries.

Tokyo Diner is a little and cozy restaurant that also happens to be affordable. Besides, they don't ask for a tip, contrarily to most London restaurants. As for the food, I've only tried the chicken teriyaki or kara-age, the aubergines, and the plain rice, but it was excellent, really. I've been with a lot of friends and they all say it's really good (and they've ordered other things, like chicken katsu curry, sushi, etc.). Also, they give you free green tea. Not bad, right?

Here is a picture of a delicious chicken kara-age dish. In the background you can perfectly see (notice the irony, hilarious I know) chicken teriyaki, plain rice, and aubergines:


Awesome. If you don't like japanese food you can always order this dish, but if you do, there are plenty of great options, like sushi, sashimi, donburi, noodles, bento boxes, etc. You can download a pdf version of the menu here.

Santi and his tea.

I hope you get to go to this nice restaurant and you enjoy the food! I always do.