Alas! British food, I will not miss you (except for choco muffins!)

Our hotel was Premier Travel Inn at Kings Cross. It’s very near the busy tube station but it was quiet. I loved our hotel (sorry, no pics!) since it was near everything—the tube station, the bus station, pubs, a McDonald’s (though we didn’t eat there but it looked bright and friendly anyway), and a Tesco right at the back!

That little supermarket has really yummy food. I found these incredible chocolate muffins there. Super sarap! Grabe! I even brought home 2 bags of those muffins. Yes, here in Manila! Tinipid ko talagang kainin yung mga muffins na yun pero all good things must come to an end and after a week, I very sadly finished off the last chocolate muffin and Vince thought I was so kawawa kasi pati yung maliliit na crumbs na nahulog sa lamesa, pinulot ko. Yes, I am that pathetic. If there’s anyone out there kind enough to send me these incredibly delicious chocolate muffins, please!

The pastries and desserts in London were great but everything else… okay, like I said before, the food ain’t bad. In fact, I loved everything the first two days haha. English breakfasts are fantastic actually. The croissants and jams and jellies are superb! And the fruit juices? The freshest I've ever had.

Here’s Vince enjoying the famous English dish fish and chips. Fish fillet and potato wedges for a whopping GBP 7. I had lasagna, served also with the ubiquitous chips. And salad. They like their greens. My dish was also a whopping GBP 7. So yung total mga PHP 1,300. Masarap ba? Sabihin na lang natin na matabang yung isda at mas masarap pa ang lasagna ng Greenwich.

While Vince enjoyed the fish and chips, he did not enjoy the strange sandwich at the British Museum (ganda ng ceiling, no!). Look at his face. That sandwich cost us GBP 3.50, so it's around PHP 314!!! Mga friends, I'm not boasting here when I quote the prices of what we ate, ha. I'm just saying that the food is soooo expensive and so we were constantly feeling just a bit hungry because we just can't bring ourselves to shell out lots of cash para sa pagkain na hindi naman masarap! Kahit nga yung mga mahal na food (we tried those eventually, we figured malamang mas masarap yun), hindi talaga natuwa ang taste buds namin. Sigh!

Yung coffee naman sa Camden (I’m drinking something hot kasi maginaw, kahit na maaraw sa picture na eto), yung isang tasa GBP 1. So okay lang kasi mga ninety pesos lang so parang parehas din dito. Well, sabihin na lang natin ulit na mas masarap pa ang instant Nescafe coffee so sobrang hindi siya sulit!

My friend Ianne said that she found the food great but maybe that’s because she ate mostly at Asian restos. Ianne, I dunno where you ate but the curry we had and the lumpiang Shanghai and the sweet and sour pork, pati yung Chinese fried rice that we hunted and eventually found, grabe. Matabang. I mean, c’mon, how can you go wrong with fried rice?! In fact, na-depress ako after a while. Umiyak nga ako nung last day namin dun. Hinahanap-hanap ko talaga ang lutong Pinoy.

Sa totoo lang, the food is good. Not out-of-your-mind-fantabulous but okay. London, after all, is not a destination known for its food (unlike Hong Kong or Thailand, for example). Ang masakit lang kasi sobrang mahal. Yung egg-and-tomato sandwich halos Php200, for example, wala pang mayo o mustard man lang. So you'll think, "Damn, for that kind of money, I could've eaten at a fine dining resto back home!" Grabe, yung isang bote ng tubig dun (see photo), mas mahal pa sa gasolina natin dito! Kaya pati tubig, tinitipid namin inumin. Hahahaha!

So Vince and I, when we got home, we ate at North Park, C2, all these yummy places here. And we kept going, "My golly gulay, we ate enough for four people and that was only, like, GBP 10!"

*continue reading… Contest ahead!