THE "DIRTY" DIETITIAN: London Market Food

My friends Nancy & Tony who were in my apartment in NYC while I was in Nancy's place in London kept telling me to go to Borough market that it was a foodies paradise. Naturally, I said that we (my friend Sonya & I) had to go. Before we set out to go there I had the grand plan of looking up the best places to eat brunch in London. I chose to go to a place called Roast that happened to be in the Borough market. When we arrived at Borough market, it was a madhouse and we were both starving so we made a beeline for the restaurant Roast. I was most disappointed because we got to Roast after the brunch hour had passed so I was forced to eat lunch food as my first food of the day. Again if you have ever shared enough meals with me or just spent enough time with me, you would know that brunch is one of my favorite meals because you can get a little savory and a little sweet and then throw in a spot of alcohol. The other thing about me is that no matter what time of day it is when I eat my first food of the day, it has to be something breakfast like.

The menu at roast was heavy on the pork and many of the entrees seemed large so I thought I would be a smarty pants and get a few side dishes. My memory tells me I had some kind of squash soup that was nice and some roasted brussels sprouts which were also nice but again it was not hitting the spot for me. This could actually throw off my entire eating day and send me in to a quest to find something satisfying but never really get there. Sonya had a pork dish which was alright but then again I took one small bite. After we left roast and we had a minute to look at the dizzying array of food in the market, we were too full to try anything. To me this was a tragedy because there were so many great choices that we could have nibbled on but we were not too excited about once we were stuffed.

After borough market we decided to go to the famous Portobello market which was made famous in the movie Notting Hill. This market was great fun but the beginning and middle was mostly walking with stores thrown in. The very tail end of the market had more food vendors. We saw the giant paella pans as well as many baked goods and fruit. Sonya and I shared some item of food at this point but it was not memorable.

My advice to anyone going to London who loves to go to crowded markets is try not to go on the weekend and go very hungry.