I wasn't expecting to be free today, but some last-minute cancellations meant I had a day to catch up on my south/east London wanderings. Last night involved a few cocktails at
ninetyeight in Shoreditch, including the eucalyptus martini pictured below, so I was a little later than usual heading out for my morning run along the river.
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| Eucalyptus martini at ninetyeight |
But I still made it to
Monmouth's Spa Terminus outpost to pick up a bag of freshly roasted Brazilian coffee beans before their noon closing time. I also grabbed a croissant from the Little Bread Pedlar before heading home to shower and change.
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| Coffee + croissant = happy Bex |
The sun was starting to shine by then, so I decided to treat myself to lunch at the
Ropewalk, near Maltby Street. They always have a range of tempting lunch options, but I decided to join the burgeoning queue for burgers at
The Woolpack's stall. I ordered a classic burger, which involved mature cheddar and heritage tomato chutney. It was delicious and well worth the wait, even if I nearly squeezed a squirt of burger juices onto my jeans, thanks to the burger being somewhat bigger than the brioche that housed it.
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| The Woolpack's burger bar at the Ropewalk |
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| Classic Woolpack burger. Medium rare. Delicious. |
I hadn't checked out any new (to me) espresso bars for a while, so I then walked over Tower Bridge and up to Shoreditch, via Spitalfields Market, where I valiantly resisted buying numerous pretty and cheap-ish scarves, before ending up at
Allpress on Redchurch Street (full review to follow). I much prefer Shoreditch on a chilled out Saturday afternoon to Friday nights, when the whole area is rammed and not all that pleasant. And you can see some of the street art by day too.
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| Allpress Espresso, Shoreditch. |
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| "Please wait here until you are useful." |
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| Reflected Shoreditch street art. |
After a quick browse in some of the pop-up shops at
Boxpark, I walked back down through the City, past the Gherkin and many of the new developments to St Paul's, where I crossed back to the South Bank and headed home. There was, as usual, a constant mass of people stretching from the front of St Paul's all the way to the Tate Modern.
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| The Gherkin and its new neighbours. |
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| The hoards approach the Millennium Bridge. |
