London, UK

Carrying on from my previous post... after visiting Finland we then went on to Christmas with my family in the UK! I wanted to combine the posts, but it might have been a bit of a mammoth read to have it all in one, so here is what I got up to (food wise) in London on my latest trip. I've been to a couple of these places before, but this time I was trying something new from them and some of these places were completely new to me altogether - so let's see what England had in store for me this time.

Ps. I miss how advanced the UK is in GF food and can only hope in 2019 that America takes some serious strides!

Pps. We watched Tottenham at Wembley on Boxing Day and they won 5-0! I celebrated with cider!

M&S

Hands up if you think Christmas belongs to the kings of mini foods - M&S? Yep, same. In America the only thing that really comes in a mini food is that of "sliders", everything else is just made to be bigger; but they're truly missing a trick because party food is life. This year I decided that we were going to have a mini foods night a couple of nights before Christmas day so my mum wouldn't have to cook and so I'd finally get to eat some bloody mini kievs!!! We had mini kievs (woooo), BBQ pork belly squares, asian chicken skewers, chicken lollipops, toad in the hole & mozzarella & pesto bites. I didn't try the chicken lollipops because I can be weird about chicken but everything else was incredibly great. The kievs were perfect & I've already saved some in my mum's freezer for my next visit - ha! The pork belly squares were ridiculously good and well, it was just the perfect start to Christmas. All hail M&S! (I also tried... their Christmas sandwich & loved it, although I still don't love mayonnaise... their chocolate twists, which aren't a patch on Beyond Bread but a great thing to be able to grab... & also their chocolate yule log, which was the perfect desert on Christmas day.) 

The Savoy Grill

Our first night in London was my brother-in-law's birthday & he's always wanted to go to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant so we booked in here & had a great time. As soon as I said I had an allergy, I was given GF bread rolls in-house-made (with my own personal butter) and was told what I could and could-not have on the menu. I asked if I could eat the chips and the manager went to the kitchen to check if the fryers were safe for me - and praise be, they were! And BOY am I happy they were. The steak was great and all, but the chips, THE CHIPS! I can't speak highly of them enough & if you ever get the chance to go there, make sure to firstly check they're ok to eat that day and secondly to order a few portions! I wish I had, had room to eat bowls of them. Absolutely amazing. I will say that the GF options were limited, which I was shocked about, but if you're happy to eat steak then this is a great fancy place to try. 

Pizza Express

Ahh old faithful, how I've missed thee. I know, I know there a lot of places that do GF pizza in London now, but Pizza Express is my childhood and until someone can make garlic butter like they do (for my crusts) then I'll remain in love with these guys. I ordered my absolute favourite - Pollo Ad Astra and added pepperoni (trust me it's a move you should make) and all was right with the world. Having not had this for over a year, I really enjoyed my pizza. As we were curious we also ordered a dish of the Spaghetti Bolognese and well, I was really disappointed. In the past year I guess they've changed up their pasta dishes (RIP rigatoni that I never got to have ) and replaced them with bog-standard GF penne and what seemed like a pretty uninspiring and lifeless bowl of food. I didn't enjoy it at all (even had fennel seeds in it!) and me & Caleb left knowing we would never try that again. Can anyone tell me why they did the change with the pasta? It seems they went from being overly encouraging of GF pasta to now just doing the bare minimum. Sad times.

Honest Burgers

Next on the list was something I'd be wanting to try for a LIFETIME! The Christmas special was still available at this time, but although a GF breaded deep fried cheese sounded great, I was a bit over Christmas food at this point, so I opted for The Tribute (beef, bacon, American cheese, burger sauce, mustard, pickles, onion and lettuce.) Me & Caleb actually shared it and that seemed more than enough at the time. Don't get me wrong, I could have easily eaten the whole thing, but it felt good to eat half and enjoy the chips. We also ordered the onion rings because all anyone ever posts about are their GF onion rings, but alas I didn't enjoy them as much as I had hoped due to there being...yep you guessed it... fennel in the batter. I don't know if I'm becoming more sensitive to it or if people are suddenly using it in everything, but fennel seems to be in everything these days and I'm not here for it. 

Beyond Bread

I finally had breakfast here! Caleb & I ordered two dishes that we shared between us and it was the perfect balance. We got the French Toast and the Smashed Avocado (with poached egg.) Both were indcredibly delicious. I had never had french toast before so it was a first for me and smearing ricotta along the top of it felt oh so good and the cinnamon sugar really helped top it off (although I could've probably had a bit more of that.) The egg with it's wonderfully orange yolk was glorious (when is eggs and avocado on toast ever bad?) and the rocket gave it a great peppery taste which meant that no seasoning was needed. The staff always seem mad at the world, but Beyond Bread know what they're doing when it comes to simple breakfast dishes. Of course I also ate a couple of their croissants (HOW do they get the lamination?), a slice of their chocolate yule log which was softer and more chocolatey that life itself and about 2 of the chocolate twists while I was around, but when in London. *shrugs shoulders*

Side note: When I went to Selfridges on my first trip to a Beyond Bread I also stopped by Borough 22 Donuts and bought two of their options and couldn't have been more disappointed. I don't like cake donuts at the best of times, but these were exceptionally heavy and didn't have the flavour to make up for it. I won't be trying them again and honestly I'm not sure what everyone else is trying if they recommend this place. 

Bird

The last on my list for this trip was Bird! In previous posts I've always spoken about my love for fried chicken (there's even a recipe for some ridiculously good chicken way back at the beginning of this blog) so it's no suprise I'd wanted to try this for some time too. We headed to the one in Camden as it was closest to where we were staying & wow it was wildly busy, but we managed to side step some Europeans and get seated. The waitress had to bring over a print out to tell me what I could & couldn't eat which I was surprised about because as they make GF chicken, I would have thought their staff would've been clued up on celiacs. Anyways, I ordered the chicken tenders with coleslaw and fries. I couldn't have the halloumi because they have apparently changed their recipe for that & now it's not GF panko. Infact the menu was different to their website, so pre-planning didn't go well, BUT the chicken - OH the chicken! Was SO delicious and crispy and I couldn't even tell it was GF. The coleslaw was the perfect accompaniment and although I couldn't have a lot of the sauces on the menu, I stuck to my trusty ketchup & was happy enough. It's a shame they've changed stuff on the menu to be less GF friendly as that seems a step backwards, but as long as the chicken doesn't change then I'll be a happy lady. It is still definitely worth a visit, even if you can't have the fried cheese! 

What a trip! AND I'm back there in 2 weeks to watch my husband play Wembley - his band, Beartooth is supporting a band called Architects there & so I'm flying back to join in on the fun! If there's anywhere else you think I need to hit when I'm back let me know. I think I'm going to head to The Vurger Co & also back to where I grew up in Hackney to check out Broadway Market - finally! Hope everyone had a great Christmas. I always get really sad when it's over, but so much to look forward to this year, I'm in full go mode!