Sweet London

When planning my trip to London, I did not plan on eating so many sweets or pastries.

Who knew that PAUL Patisserie was going to be lurking around every corner!

Sonya and I arrive in London and got to the flat

we were staying at in the morning. We had an overnight flight so sleep took precedence over food. Once we

napped and were heading out for

the day we were on a quest to eat lunch at a proper fish & chips shop. Our hostess

Nancy suggested we try a place that sounded like it was right around the corner. I was

really eager to try the authentic food so we walked a bit further out of the way than was necessary. The one good thing was that Sonya's bank was on the block that were on searching for the fish & chip place. At this point I was STARVING & about to have a low blood sugar meltdown so I told Sonya that I would be right back & I ran across the street to PAUL & got a mini chocolate croissant & a vanilla macaroon. My first bite of London food was of the vanilla macaroon & that was the moment that my love affair (sometimes hate) with PAUL was started up again.

I had forgotten about PAUL (Ft. Lauderdale FL location) for 2 reasons, one being I thought it was just some cute French patisserie that was only in the Sawgrass mills outlet mall & I did not try the famous macaroon when I was there (I know crazy).
The other reason (this makes 3) which was subliminal that I wanted to forget about PAUL is because that is the name of my ex boyfriend who I was trying to put out of my mind.

Since I stumbled upon PAUL the first day we were in town, I assumed we would have to make special trips back to PAUL to get a bite of heaven before the trip was over. Boy was I wrong, everywhere Sonya & I went we saw PAUL. Apparently, there are many PAUL'S all over the city of London. I think that the only way to describe how many PAUL'S there are in London is to say that it is like trying to find a Starbucks in NYC meaning they are literally everywhere & you do not have to look it up in the directory. Well when we finally got to the Marleybone tube station which was right next to our flat, we found PAUL (my London boyfriend) yet again. I am not sure if I am exaggerating or not but I think I may have eaten at PAUL on a daily basis while I was in London or perhaps PAUL was just occupying too much space in my head. I was sad when the trip was over because I really enjoyed London but I was happy to know that when I got home I could break up with PAUL for good. One of the other things that I was pondering standing in Marleybone station is why are the people here not grossly obese like in the states if they have tons of food around. Right in the center of the station, there is a huge candy boat. There is also a grocery store right next to PAUL, a pasty (like an empanada) shop, a bagel shop, a Burger King, & a sports bar.

I think the reason (explained by my friend Christian who is a dietitian raised in London) that Londoners are not as fat as Americans is because they have smaller portions of food & they walk a lot. Perhaps they are laughing at all the tourists who get trapped buying candy at the tube station.

The next must try stop on the sweet train was Patisserie Valerie. I had a cream filled doughnut which was great but that was the first day I was in town before I got swept away by my very DIRTY boyfriend PAUL. Valerie & I never had a chance to really get to know each other.

When I was looking through the Time Out London guide I came across a bakery called Hummingbird which was described as an American style bakery, so naturally I had to put it on the to do list more for Sonya really since she is a cup cake officionado. I tell myself this as a way of rationalizing eating cup cakes in London. We had tried a very bad cup cake earlier in the week which was just pretty so my hopes were not very high for London's finest cup cakes. Although I am no expert when it comes to cup cakes, I must say that the cup cakes at Hummingbird were hands down the best cup cakes I have ever had anywhere period.

Red velvet on the left & Vanilla Vanilla on the

right.

Very pretty but bad malt ball cup cake below

So it is a good thing that London is an easy walking city because I did do a fair amount of walking but then again, I did a very fair amount of eating. Sonya had the camera so on the day that she went on a walking tour without me, she took this great picture of caffe Nero which sums up the trip in a sweet little package. Shouldn't it always be cake time?