LONDON: DAY 1
It was our first trip to London. Not a very well timed one- I am moving to SF in less than a week, but we had made the reservations months ago and there were no refunds, so at least we got a little vacation before the big move. I'd done a lot of research for this trip. With the exchange rate now $2 for 1 pound, we needed to plan well so that we didn't spend too much money. Basically, we'd be going for a lot of cheap eats (my copy of Time Out London : Cheap Eats came in handy), and we found out that really, good tasting cheap eats aren't hard to find in London, you just gotta do a little searching.

We arrived in London in the morning and luckily, our hotel let us check in early. So we got a little rest in before heading out to look for lunch. We stayed in Earl's Court, which is on the Western edge of the city, but it's a nice place to be because it's convenient to the tube and there is a lot of food around. Mostly chains, but that's where we could find the cheapest food. For our first meal, I took Huong's advice and headed out to Bayswater (nearing Notting Hill) where we found Royal China Dim Sum. I knew in advance that it was a little fancier than the usual dim sum places, but both Huong and Kjell said it'd be worth it.

So we were seated and I was surprised at the number of people having dim sum at 2pm. There were lots of Asians eating (always a good sign). At Royal China, they give you a menu which you order off of and then they bring the food (no carts). I picked out 6 different plates for us, and here's the best part, a got to order in English!! Sigh. London's great. They speak English.

Ok, moving on. Huong also strongly suggested that I order these pork puffs for Tom. He thought they were ok, but definitely on the sweet side. Then, I ordered what would be my favorite dish of the meal- peking duck rolls. Some genius definitely came up with this dish. What could be better than duck, wrapped in a wonton wrapper and fried. It was juicy and crunch and delicious! Then I order some of the more typical dim sum stuff- shrimp dumplings, different buns and fried dough wrapped in rice noodles.Everything was really well prepared, but I wouldn't say it was more extraordinary than what I can get in LA. The final bill was 20 pounds, not bad if you think of it in pounds, but at $40, it was the most expensive dim sum I've ever had. And that's the thing with London. All the prices are reasonable if you think of them in pounds, but at some point, you'll realize that you're paying double that in dollars. It's best to just ignore this and deal when you get home.

After lunch, we decided to walk around a bit, and headed over to the Portobello Road market. It's an outdoor market, with all sorts of random stuff like antiques, food, clothes and nick nacks (you might remember it if you've ever seen Notting Hill, the movie). We walked through, but didn't really buy anything. Here are some pics of food vendors: Afterwards, we returned to our hotel to continue napping. Around 7, we woke up and decided it was time to find some dinner. So we headed over to Earl's court, and found Nando's, a local Portuguese chain of restaurants (you'll find them all over London). They're famous for their spicy chicken, that you can order at different levels of heat.

I got a combo order of medium spicy chicken wings, corn and coleslaw. It was actually quite good. I liked the fact that they grilled the corn and the coleslaw helped cool the burn from the chicken wings.
Meanwhile, Tom ordered a chicken sandwich with a side of chips. He got the spicy version, and when he hit the bottom of it where all the spicy sauce had pooled, he paid for it in the end. But he did enjoy it. His mouth was just on fire for a while.
Altogether, our dinner wasn't too expensive. It was around 12 pounds (but once again, that's $24 for dinner). But we enjoyed our first day in London and looked foward to a busy weekend.