Sweet memories of London

No one can spend four straight days just shopping and drooling over Glenn Carter. Obviously, I had to eat every few hours to keep my strength!

Apart for my main food supplier, Pret a Manger, who had a very nice big branch right across the street from my hotel with the loveliest sandwiches and fresh made sushi (not to mention, soy milk cappuccinos that were pretty hard to find elsewhere) I had some other wonderful meals on the streets of London.

Nifty and I (and Pinky and a whole lot of meerkats) met for a fun day on Covent Garden, which started with a highly recoomended full English breakfast at Diana's Diner.

We then headed to the Covent Garden market building itself, where Pinky and his new meerkat buddy (who has since then been named Sunny, since in Africa meerkats are nicknamed "sun angels") found lots of treats to stare at (Pinky can't eat carbohydrates, he's training for a new ballet).

One of the above photos is focused on the right thing, not sure which is which though

After some shopping, we decided it's time for a cupcake and headed on to the tiny Ella's Bakehouse, that offers a small yet beautiful collection of cupcakes. I chose red velvet (my first!) and Nifty took a lemon raspberry cupcake. Both were deliciously moist and fresh with a delicate creamy topping. Not to mention the sweet sugar flowers and sparkles covering them.

Obviously, meerkats can eat as many carbs as they please

We ended the day making toasts at Punch & Judy, my favorite Covent Garden pub. I had a lovely pear ale that was a perfect refreshment.

The guys giving my ale a little sip

Here are Nifty's notes of the same lovely day.

The following day, I went shopping on Carnaby St. and had high tea at Liberty, which is a very luxurious department store that opened back in the 19th century. Tea was absolutely outrageous, with a pot of beautifully scented black tea with rose petals, traditional finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and rose petal marmalade, and assorted cakes. It was so tasty, and so abundant I took half of it back to the hotel with me, being too full to try everything on house.

I wish I could have clotted cream each day

On Tuesday night I met my friend, who planned a cool night out on the Soho pubs for us. Unforgettably, I was so tired of the day I had I asked her to come to my hotel instead, so we ended up eating at Giraffe which was okay, but not as good as the company.

At noon of my last day, I went back to Covent Garden to spend some time at my favorite place (and buy some jeans). I was horribly hungry, but decided to listen to my inner child and have cake for lunch. I started at the colorfully lovely Candy Cakes coffee shop. I bought an espresso and an apple-raspberry cupcake, which didn't taste as good as it looked and the topping was way too sweet for me.

How sweet is that? Very very sweet

So I had no choice but go back to Ella's and try another cupcake, this time - the wonderful lemon-raspberry one Nifty had two days earlier. It was simply wonderful. I have no idea why local cupcake makers (Which I can count on the fingers of a single hand) pride themselves on exchanging the original cupcake toppings with cream based ones. I for one love the original whipped butter and sugar based toppings and could eat them all day everyday (till I die of acute heart failure that is, from all the sugar and fats).

Some more sparkles powder for my nose

After all that, I went back to the hotel and bought some cheese, cake, and pastry to take home on Tesco's supermarket. Then I bought some extra Christmas special sandwiches on Pret (chicken, stuffing, and cherry sauce with watercress) and headed to the hotel to pack my bags for the trip home, with a burning desire to diet once I get back home.