Dining adventures in London
London is home to many a world-class restaurant. We did not go to any of those. This is not meant to be a guide to any London restaurants much less the best of them (although I can point you to A Lady in London if that’s what you’re after. There, I helped).
We did, however, have to feed ourselves during our days in London. One of our first stops was Wagamama, home to bowls of noodle-y, soupy deliciousness. I know it’s a chain, and I know it’s not cool, and I do not care. I also now know that using the giant wooden spoons gives me duck face. Don’t care about that either.
The obligatory-for-me chains out of the way, we set our sights a little higher: the legendary Harrods food halls. Rodolfo almost stormed out when he saw that a soda cost £4, and I don’t think that price is anything short of highway robbery. But. These are my people. A massive space filled to overflowing with gourmet nibbles, full meals, restaurants, sweets – this is what my heaven looks like. And damn it, I wanted to have lunch in heaven, and hang the cost.
So we did. We went for dim sum for no particular reason other than it sounded different than what we usually have in Chile. Was it amazing? No, but since I was in heaven and all, the overall experience was still quite lovely.
The best was yet to come, however. See, next to the dim sum restaurant is a cupcake counter. A LOLA‘s Cupcakes counter, to be specific. Obviously it was meant to be, so I snatched up 3 cupcakes. Well, 2 mini and 1 regular, which was still plenty since Rodolfo doesn’t really like sweets. They weren’t the best I’ve ever had – that honor belongs to Sprinkles – but they had glitter frosting. That gets you like 10 extra points right there.
Our pockets lighter, we took a stroll around Hyde Park and enjoyed its Winter Wonderland Christmas market and carnival to digest. We had big plans that night: meeting up with Fned, Oneika, A Lady and their men in Shoreditch. After a few drinks at a pub, we found ourselves having a curry off Brick Lane. While my chicken korma didn’t hold a candle to the absolutely amazing Indian restaurant near my dad’s house, the company couldn’t have been better.
The next morning, our gastronomic adventures in London were over, and it was time to head north. We left the sunshine and green countryside of the south via train, and in 2 short hours we were back in Cheshire. But there was no time to be sad about leaving London because the weather gods had something even better than sunshine planned for us – snow!
More in this series:
A winter walk in London
A visit to the Churchill War Rooms
Nerding out at the British Museum
I so wish I could’ve been at that blogger meet up. I miss those faces.
That would have been so much fun! Although we would have had to fight over the guest room
I love Wagamama! It was the first place I ate on my first trip to London. Yum!
It’s just one of those places I associate with London, along with Pret, so I like going when I’m there. Plus my warm soup was the perfect thing for a cold day!
Love your pictures. Sometimes the atmosphere of a place makes up for the Not the Best Ever food, doesn’t it?
(That’s basically how I feel about Dunkin Donuts which now that I think about it does not have particularly good atmosphere OR good food. But I associate it with home and thus miss it!)
Definitely. I wasn’t going to Harrods because I thought it would be the best meal in all of London, I was going for the atmosphere, and that didn’t disappoint.
So so so jealous of your blogger meetup and holy sh*t I want ALL of those desserts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Only getting 3 cupcakes was seriously limiting myself – I only spent long enough looking at the rest of the desserts to snap that photo, otherwise I know I would have been far too tempted!
Yay! Great post. You ate so well in London! It was great to see you!
I had all these plans of going to some of the places you’ve blogged about that look amazing, but in the end we didn’t really have time. Clearly on our next trip we’ll have to stay longer to check out more restaurants!
Fun times fun times!! Now when are you coming back?!
Let’s see, you came here, then I went there…I think it’s your turn to come back! If only Peru were a little bit closer.
The cupcakes look amazing! I loved the scones that I had in London specially bc of the cream!! I expected food to b blah in London but I loved everything I had. Even the coffee was good! Cafe Nero is my favorite after Juan Valdez!!
English food is SO good, and it’s such a stereotype that it’s bad! Caffe Nero is great – I think I prefer it to Costa.
We wanted to have lunch in the Food Halls at Harrods too but just couldn’t justify the price. LOVED looking around the pet store upstairs though – there was a gourmet doggie food treat bar up there and a spa. That store is so over the top it’s almost a museum.
Isn’t it crazy? Even the bathrooms are super luxe – they’ve got all sorts of fancy perfumes for you to use to freshen up. It’s worth a visit even if you’re not planning to spend any money.
Wagamama is sooo good! I was surprised when I learned it’s actually a chain – bit it didn’t stop me from going back
I feel like it sounds lame to say you went to this new city and ate at a chain restaurant, but when the chains are good (and right by the British Museum), why not?
GIMME THOSE CUPCAKES.
(Pretty please?!)
I would except that I already ate them all. Meet you at Harrod’s to buy more?
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There appears to be a Wagamama under construction at the corner of Bilbao and Hernando Aguirre in Providencia. Have you heard anything about this?
No, but I will investigate! I did just google “Wagamama Chile” and got nothing, so my guess is that it might be an impostor.
I thought the same at first, but the logo is really authentic, and it looks like the real deal inside. Wagamama kept me alive the year I lived in London. Strange though there is no advanced publicity. If it turns out to be authentic, some sort of celebration is in order!
Now, finally, it’s open. I don’t know about the similarities between the chilean version and the original one, but I’ll check it out.
Sadly I don’t think it’s the same at all. I passed by and noticed it’s sushi, so it’s just the same name but completely different food.
It seems to me that they [i]also[/i] have sushi, but now I was checking their menu in the webpage and they have a big variety of thai/thai inspired dishes. I’ll give it a shot!
Tried Wagamama Santiago last week. The owner seemed nervous when I asked about their affiliation with the other Wagamama’s of the world. At first he said something about France, then something about how sushi was the Chilean element of the place. If not legit, they were super nice, the ingredients were of good quality, and the noodle dishes we tried, though a notch below Shoogun on Enrique Foster, were good for the price.
Thanks for reporting back! That’s pretty funny that the owner knows that he’s ripping off the branding of an international chain and just doing it anyway.