Monday 5 September 2011

Islington Pub Crawl

On Saturday night, we went on a pub/bar crawl around our Kings Cross/Islington hood. We stopped at the following places:
  1. The Canal
  2. The Draper's Arms
  3. The Albion
  4. Ethiopian restaurant for din din
  5. Back to the Canal
  6. The Driver
  7. Be @ One
We also enjoyed the last few days of summer. The weather was pretty dang beautiful this weekend!
I stuck with wine/cocktails for the night. Occasionally, I snuck in a few sips of beer (shhh!!)

Dinner was at Merkato restaurant. We've been here a couple times and its always been a pleasant dining experience. Unfortunately, we had a few minor hiccups this time around.
We ordered a bottle of their in house honey wine. It's usually sweet with a touch honey but this bottle seemed to have gone bad; it had a vinegar taste to it :(
at least their beer was decent!
The food service at Merkato was unbelievably sloooooooow. I think we had to wait 45 minutes for our food!! They apologized for the slow service but didn't really acknowledge it til we grew impatient. I don't like it when restaurants ignore the fact that their food should have come out 30 minutes ago!!
Thankfully everything was as delicious as I last remembered it. Btw- most injera's are gluten free since they are made from teff flour. I didn't ask if any other flour was added to it because I just didn't want to know! Ignorance is bliss (this time around) :-)
We all inhaled our food, stopping every now and then to remark how tasty it was. I must have gotten lazy after this because I didn't take any more pictures throughout the night. Somehow, our group of 6 grew to 10+.. We ended our night at Be @ One, and this time, I had a better experience and kept my new Iphone close to me!

Side note- the bartenders at Be@1 are super friendly but the free shot of Jose Cuervo tequila at the end of the night was definitely unnecessary! Needless to say, my Sunday was completely ruined.. My bum was glued to the couch for most of the day.
Somehow I was able to peel myself off the couch to make myself a GF lunch. I added in some sauteed onions, chopped up cucumbers and spring onions to Tiger Tiger's gluten free noodles.
http://www.tigertiger.info/gluten-free
Tarek totally spoiled me and brought back bbq from Pitt Cue. It was the last day they were serving bbq from their truck since summer is almost over.
http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/venue/2%3A30101/pitt-cue-co
juicy pulled pork on a bed of coleslaw
I also had some beef ribs- DELISH!

with some eggplant on the side
gluten free macaroons! I think I died and went to macaroon heaven :) Someone please tell me how I only discovered macaroons 2 years ago when I moved here to London- they are so good!
the green tea one was my favorite! I couldn't tell the difference between GF and regular ones.. In fact, I'm not even sure if the regular ones are made with any type of flour. Maybe they're just naturally gluten free?? hehe.. Either way, I'm not complaining!
the sesame one was decent..
hot sauced/ketchup scrambled eggs w. GF toast and it's time for the gym yo!