The Diner

In Curtain Road, in the Shoreditch area, is located the Diner, an American restaurant (or, well, diner) specialized in (obviously) burgers, pancakes, and more. In these photos I'll show you the one on Shoreditch, but there are more across the city (Camden, Soho, Islington...). 

Basically, it is a diner located on a very interesting area of London, and the restaurant itself is very cozy, especially if you seat in a booth next to the windows. There are vegetarian options aside from the regular hamburgers, and the price is alright, as you can see:

I also have to admit that I've never had a burger there so I can't really talk about its quality, but I did have some pancakes as per a friend's suggestion and they were very good. If you order the "high stack" you won't need to eat in months, seriously... or I mean, until dinner. Also, the waiters are very nice. My friend ordered some pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup, but since I don't really like those ingredients, I asked for some chocolate and got some Nutella! Amazing.

So yeah, I really recommend this place. And it's much nicer to go have a burger here (on in Byron, a small chain of burger restaurants that have one in Angel, and it is delicious; you can also go to Haché, in Camden - it is also very good) than in McDonald's. I'm tellin' ya.

Spitalfields Market

Hello friends. I recently found out about a pretty cool band called Cults, and I can't stop listening to this song. It's pure MAGIC.

Now let's talk about London. After mentioning it a couple (or hundred) of weeks ago, today I'm finally going to talk about the Spitalfields Market, an awesome market situated five minutes away from Brick Lane and Liverpool Street.


In this picture you can see a big part of the market. As you can see it basically consists of tons of stalls selling different things depending on the day. There are also shops surrounding these stalls in the red-brick buildings that are also worth checking out (there's a chocolate shop, a toy store, and more) and a great number of restaurants, so you can spend the whole day there. Well maybe not since it closes quite early in the afternoon. Anyway, I can't say much about these restaurants except that they look good, and that I ate at Wagamama, which is a chain of asian food that is quite good! Of course there is always the possibility of going further into Brick Lane and having lunch at independent restaurants.

As you can see on the website, the stalls change every day. From Monday to Wednesday only the shops are open; on Thursday the stalls sell antiques and vintage items; on Friday you'll find art and fashion; on Saturday there are only shops and on Sunday there is everything! On Thursday and Friday they open from 10h to 16h and on Sundays they open from 9h to 17h. I think the shops close a bit later, but I'd only go there for the stalls!


And obviously, my favorite day is Thursday. I love antiques. There's even a little stall where they sell cameras, film, and other items related to photography:


Basically, it's a must. As you can see there are a lot of interesting things to see and do in the Liverpool Street area. If you plan on going there I'd recommend you spend more than one day, especially seeing the closing times of most of the businesses.

Lastly, here is a picture of the market at night.

Café 1001

Dear friends, Yann Tiersen is awesome. I don't listen to him that much, but right now I'm living a highly emotive moment listening to "La valse d'Amélie" (the orchestral version).

But let's focus on Café 1001. This place, located in front of Rough Trade on Dry Walk (near Brick Lane and the Liverpool Street or Shoreditch tube stations), is a must. In order for you to (sort of) see it, here is a photograph that, although blurry, shows how cool this place is:


In these pictures you can see the top floor, or rather, the "mezzanine", but downstairs, as you enter the café (where you can buy the food) there are more tables. And I also believe that upstairs there is another room which is usually closed but that you can rent. I'm not sure, though. Personally the area I like the most is this "mezzanine", because it's very cozy, there's usually a good amount of people, the lighting is very nice, there's a little library, and there are tons of different and comfy sofas. There's also a tiny stage in a corner of the room where bands sometimes play live, but usually there's a DJ.


Another nice thing about this café is that the food is pretty good (I love the chocolate chip muffins), and you can enjoy it all day long until midnight (which is when the café closes). This is something very important to mention since lots of places close very early in this city. The big cafés like Starbucks, Eat or Prêt-à-Manger close around 20h. In fact I recently went to the Post Office to send some letters and it was closed at 18h. Which I think is a total JOKE. Anyway. The food is really good and there are vegan and vegetarian options, and they're all quite affordable. And when the warm weather is back, we'll go to the tables outside to have BAGELS. For example.

Lastly here are two pictures of total strangers that I post hoping they don't sue me. Please don't sue me. As you can see a lot of people bring their laptops, because there's free wifi. I don't see a reason no to go to Café 1001! (No they didn't pay me to talk about it) (Sadly). Peace.

Hunky Dory Vintage

On 226, Brick Lane, one can find the store pictured on this entry: Hunky Dory.

It's a little shop that sells second-hand clothing. As you enter, on the left, you'll find men's clothing, and to the right, women's. The shop is small (it's basically what you see on the picture) so there isn't a huge variety of items, but the ones that they sell are pretty cool (which is not always the case in vintage shops) and affordable. I always thought second-hand clothes would be really cheap, but this year I've found out I was wrong. Of course a lot of things are not expensive at all, but the ones I like the most (such as corduroy blazers) are quite expensive! Anyway it's understandable, since what they sell is most of the time in very a good condition.

Personally, as I told you, I'm a fan of the men's blazers you'll find on the left and the little box full of bowties close to the window.


The staff is also very nice and the changing rooms are not too small. All in all, it's a cozy shop, and it is much more attractive than the other ones on that street (and there are a lot!).

Basically, if you like thrift shops and vintage clothes make sure you check Brick Lane and the surrounding area, especially Spitalfields Market (on Thursdays), but I'll talk about that in another post.

Peace!

Brick Lane Coffee

Dear Internauts of the new decade: today, June, 5, is a beautiful day and I turn 22. Just thought I'd let you know. And while I listen to Toundra, I introduce you to the Brick Lane Coffee.

Now that summer's on its way (although in London you never now), this café comes in handy as you can either go in to avoid the heat or stay outside to enjoy the sun.

Brick Lane Coffee is a really small café that is, as its name indicates, located on 157, Brick Lane. It seems that it used to go by another name as part of a chain of cafés that closed in 2009, but apart from the name change, the café is still pretty much the same.


On the inside, which, as I mentioned, is not especially big, you will find sofas, chairs and tables that are slightly KITSCH (at least when I went there they were), and there's usually quite a bit of people. The coffee is allegedly good, but I can't prove it since I'm not really into coffee. But I can tell you that the hot chocolate (with or without soy milk) is pretty good (and boiling, so be patient my friends). You can also find different kinds of sweets like muffins, cookies, etc. It may not be different than any other café, but I like that it's small and doesn't belong to a big chain. Also, it's in a really COOL area.


Maybe now that the weather's warmer you won't want a hot beverage, but I'm sure they have ice teas and stuff like that now. So there!

The Duke Of Uke

First of all: what kind of name is this? The Duke Of Uke!! Best name ever.

Hello readers. Today I will talk about this awesome little store near Liverpool Street.


When I talked about Rough Trade the other day, I mentioned how cool Brick Lane and the surrounding area was. And here's more proof. This shop is located on 22, Hansbury Street and is specialized in ukeleles (as you can see on the pictures...), or, as they say: "Duke of Uke is London's one and only Ukulele and Banjo Emporium". Indeed, my friends, not only do they sell ukeleles, but also banjos, mandolines, acoustic guitars, and more.


And it doesn't end here (of course). They also teach how to play ukelele, and set up gigs in the store or other venues of the city. They also have a studio where you can record or rehearse your music. Not bad. What's more, it is really close to Spitalfields (which is, by the way, a really cool market that I will talk about in the future). As you can see (or will see, when reading more entries of this blog) (peculiar word, "blog"), Liverpool Street is a great area of London.


You may not want to buy a ukelele or a banjo, but it's definitely worth seeing.

Rough Trade

Hello! Here is Rough Trade:


This store (also record label) is a MUST for all music fans. As you can see on the pictures above, they have a pretty wide range of vinyl records, sorted out by genre. There are also some record players on the store so you can listen to the records before you actually buy them. But it doesn't end there. There's also a little café in the entrance, with some chairs and tables, where you can have coffee (obviously), other beverages, and food.

And for those of you who are not real fans of vinyl records, you can always browse through the cd section:


Another really interesting thing about the store is that sometimes they hold "instores", small free shows where bands usually come to play songs from their newest record. For instance, in May 2007 Lucero played a few songs, or recently, on December 2009, Yo La Tengo played as well. Although places are limited, so what you need to do is come get a wristband (you have to check their site in order to know when to do it) or, if places are still available after there are no more wristbands, it's first-come, first-serve. Here is a picture of First Aid Kit playing an instore a few weeks ago:


There's also a really cool photobooth where you can have your pictures taken, it's one of the few left where all four pictures are different. The background is black and you have the logo of the store on the top left corner (left? right? don't really remember), but sadly it's 3 pounds. You have to change the three pounds for a token on the counter, and instert it once you are inside of the booth. I must insist that you read the instructions before you actually insert the coin (yeah, I didn't read them, I'm extremely smart), because if you don't then you'll have approximately 40 flashes on your face all of a sudden, and the result will be you with a weird face. Which may be what you're looking for, who knows!


The store you see on these pictures is the one located on the East of London (Liverpool Street, to be more exact). There's another store on the West, although I haven't been there (yet). Besides, this Rough Trade is right next to Brick Lane, an awesome street, so you can walk around and discover a lot of little nice stores and vintage shops.

You can check this link for more information about the store.


And that's pretty much it! I hope you like it. I certainly do.