Young Pauline has just reminded me of the great street art around the City of London, so here’s some highlights of our epic (i.e. we got lost) walk from the Dispensary to the King’s Arms, where Sir Quinno was reunited with Sir Doris*.
Sadly I can’t identify the giant sculpture blocking your view of the Still & Star.
The little map below is indicative, as I’d directed Quinno halfway up the A11 to Bow before I realised we’d missed the turn to Brick Lane.
Suddenly realising we’d had beer but no food, Quinno found a hipster Perspex café in Hanbury Street, which looks like this on Street View.
Sadly, the Canvas is a “creative space” and therefore closing at 5pm.
Now, I realise that Brick Lane isn’t entirely short of fine dining options, but we couldn’t face a mixed grill each, even bargain priced.
We stopped for a coffee at Dark Sugars Cocoa House, where the chocolate shavings cost nearly as much as the flat white and contained more calories than the mixed grill.
It’s been a while since Quinno or I bimbled (?) up Brick Lane, a Thursday at 4pm being rather more pleasant than a Sunday morning. Some cracking distractions as you approach the old Trumans Brewery, now home to a market containing exactly nothing you may conceivably need.
We’d planned to go in the Pride of Spitalfields to see if the Pride was drinking well, as it normally is. But we’d somehow walked past it. It’s still be there next time.
So will Beigel Bake. If ever we were pleased to see an unassuming bakery, today was the day.
Chewy chopped herring bagels for £1.40 (NBSS 4). Still the best. Quinno was visibly moved.
Where now ? Brew Dog to the left of us, Casa Blue to the right.
We pressed on to E2.
*Don’t be too alarmed. One of these people is Welsh.
retiredmartin 
I have been to The Dispensary, now I’ve seen the map. Love that part of London.
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Yes, a lovely part of London – and all built when they had the sense to name streets after brewers, Hanbury Street and Buxton Street ( both off Brick Lane ) recognising Truman, Hanbury and Buxton which, having been established in 1666, was the oldest brewer’s beer I’ve drunk.
I vaguely remember a great curry house in Brick Lane but, with it being when I cycled round London rather than using the underground, that was about thirty years ago.
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It will still have the “Good Curry Guide 1988” sticker in the window ! Common view is the curry houses aren’t that great, lots of hawkers, but I’ve had good cheap food in formica caffs there.
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Who’s the fella with his hair on fire? I did think Ken Dodd, but the hair is too tidy. Good to see that someone has the measure of Greasy-Smogg; even if he does look rather like Neville Chamberlain.
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Don’t know Paul – does look a bit like Ken in the ’60s, doesn’t it ?
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Rik Mayall?
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I think you may be right. That smile.
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“Perspex”
And curvy!
“A light snack”
I like how the last bit is ‘a bottle of drink’. 🙂
“All you need”
Can’t say I’m impressed with their takeaway outside the entrance to the right. 😉
“Chewy chopped herring bagels for £1.40 (NBSS 4)”
Surely the 20p cheaper peanut butter bagel would have been chewier?
“Where now ? Brew Dog to the left of us, Casa Blue to the right.”
Or the Verge Bar directly opposite Casa Blue. 🙂
Cheers
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Somehow chopped herring goes better for bagels than spread.
Do you have bagels in Canada ? Do you have bread ?
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Canada is famous for it’s bread and wheat and it was only the Chorleywood process of making dough, developed in 1961 by the British Baking Industries Research Association based at Chorleywood, that enabled lower-protein British wheat to be more widely used thus reducing the import of wheat from Canada.
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“Do you have bagels in Canada ? Do you have bread ?”
Ahem:
“Canada is additionally one of the world’s largest suppliers of agricultural products; the Canadian Prairies are one of the most important global producers of wheat, canola, and other grains.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada
(search for ‘wheat’) 🙂
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Don’t get clever on me, Russ. Just because you have wheat and grain doesn’t mean you have bread.
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“Just because you have wheat and grain doesn’t mean you have bread.”
You got me there (it’s a fair cop).
Actually, after we ship a truck load of maple syrup to Mexico, they load the truck back up with bread to send back*
*flat of course so they can get more in. 🙂
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It was an honest question. I assume you eat very differently to the Yanks.
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“I assume you eat very differently to the Yanks.”
True. But then, Yanks eat very differently to Southerners, who eat very differently to those in the mid-west; while in Canada the west coast eats very differently to the east coast, and no one eats the same as those way oop north. 🙂
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I thought I’d seen the world, but this is my first hearing of chopped herring bagels. Makes me want to try them!
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Really ? Surprised by that. Thought fish in bagels quite common, perhaps more on east coast. I will investigate next month !
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Apart from scruffy take aways and tatty graffitti, I hope there’s some pubs left in the area.
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“Tatty” – wow, harsh Morten. A lot of bars, less so good pubs. Some spectacularly bad ones (ask BRAPA).
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