Kerb Saturday

I managed to make it down for the last - and best - Kerb Saturday of the Summer, showcasing the best of london street food. The sun was shining and it turned out to be a glorious day with a wonderful atmosphere for everyone to enjoy. There was a blues band, tons of traders, kids were playing in the fountains, Skate at Kings Cross - the popup skating rink - had finished a day previously however they were offering free skating that day!

It was loaded with so many people from families, people who knew about Kerb, people who didn't, students and elderly couples.

We went, knowing previously what food we were going to make a beeline for, and started with the Grilling Greek's halloumi pita wrap with onions, tomatoes and homemade tzatziki and their triple cooked chips with feta and oregano.

Obligatory bite-through pic...

The wrap was delicious, the halloumi wasn't rubbery at all and had melted slightly oozing out with the delicious tzatziki and all dusted in paprika. A win all round.

The chips. Ohmygod, those chips. They were the surprise of the day for me. Probably the best chips I've ever had if I'm honest! The oregano was fresh and delicious and a welcome change from all the (equally delicious) rosemary salting around at the moment. Thin-cut like fries, they were perfectly crispy and fluffy at the same time. They had just the right amount of salt and mixed with the feta beautifully. Bring me more of those please!!

Then we went on to have the biggest burrito in the world from Luardos, King of Mexican street food. A 12 inch tortilla is packed full with rice, black beans, cheese, tomato salsa, sour cream, lettuce and fresh coriander and your choice of varying degrees of hot sauce. The veggie version also come with lashings of free guacamole.

It was ginormous and only £5!!

Then we moved on to Donostia Social Club, one I've been wanting to try for a while. It was difficult to choose which dish I wanted since they all sounded incredible - scallops, prawns with a salsa, pork cheek and celeriac puree, which to choose which to choose!!

In the end I had the confit duck slider with basque cider. Again only £5 with an incredible amount of duck on the plate. The duck was tender and tasty, however I couldn't taste much of the cider and there were parts of the duck that were a little greasy - I'm not sure if this was oil drizzled over, or perhaps the cider, or just the duck juices in itself, but not knowing and not being the biggest fan of greasiness it put me off ever so slightly. I loved the addition of apple for an extra texture and the bread was lovely, but I was expecting more of a bun for a slider! It was good, but not as good as I was hoping.

The truffled mushrooms with quail's egg and balsamic vinegar however was the absolute star of the day. The mushroom smelled incredible, truffle hitting me immediately and it packed a real punch, definitely not scrimping on the amount of truffle they put in! The bread it sat on was delicious and the egg was a brilliant addition, along with the acidity that balsamic gives the whole dish was truly fantastic!!

I cannot wait to try the rest of their menu and I will be waxing lyrical about those truffled mushroom for months to come.

Dessert time. We had doughnuts in cinnamon sugar with salted caramel sauce and mini oreo pieces from You Doughnut - delicious. Light fluffy little doughnuts, that are freshly prepared and melt in the mouth bites.

And I can't go to one of these things without getting something from Kooky Bakes if he's around. I absolutely adore his bakes and have now nearly had most of what he has to offer! Unfortunately already all his cronuts were gone by the time we got there so we picked the cookies and creme supreme cupcake, an oreo flavoured cupcake, with a chocolate and vanilla sponge, oreo buttercream, a hidden chocolate sauce centre and an oreo on top. Unlike most other oreo flavoured goods, this is not bland in the slightest. Instead of only tasting of the vanilla centre of the oreo it also includes plenty of the flavour of the chocolate biscuit and again unlike most other oreo flavoured things, it is also not sickly in the slightest.

 Absolutely beautiful!! We sat by the canal, enjoyed the music, the food and had some great times and clearly, so did a lot of other people.

We then decided to make fools of ourselves and go rollerskating, which may have been the most stupid thing we have ever done but it was free so why not?!

First of all, I have never laughed so hard in my life. She had not yet travelled two feet and she fell slap bang on her arse! I couldn't breathe I was laughing so much. I'd forgotten how much fun rollerskating is, hardly something I do often now! We should really get back on it and start going again.

After skating we were, incredibly, feeling peckish again, so we went to the Ice Kitchen and got ourselves a mango lolly and a blackberry, yoghurt and honey ice lolly. Look at the colours! Thick frozen lollies packed with real fruit pulp and flavour, they were delicious.

By the evening Granary Square looked beautiful. The place had the most incredible feeling that day. This one isn't technically even over yet but I can't wait for next Summer and the next lot of Kerb Saturdays.

FEAST!

The day after Truckstop, I headed out on the hottest day of the year so far for another foodie fest. This time it was Feast! This was my second time visiting a Feast festival. The first was last Summer back when they had it in a hospital car park near London Bridge. That was tiny compared to the setting this year!

The great thing about Feast is that, unlike other food festivals, they not only have street food, but restaurants also grab a stall and showcase versions of their food at a fraction of the price. For instance, Flat Iron had some wagyu steak with grated horseradish at £5, Morito had little lamb chops and other goodies, there was also Spuntino, Copita, Pig and Butcher, Patty&Bun, Caravan, Mishkins and many more!!

We did two rounds and then decided to be daring and start with a lamb's heart kebab from James Iowa. I've never had lamb's heart before and it was very interesting! With a texture chewier than liver but of the same flavour, it was a very odd but interesting food. I definitely would not say no to having it again!

We then went for the octopus, creamed potatoes and paprika from Copita Tapas.
This was very nice. Ben couldn't quite get over octopus and potato together, but they were so smooth and spicy from the paprika, the textures together didn't bother me. The flavours that came together were delicious.

Other goodies on offer....

We then tried the spelt arancini balls from Monikers. These were also extremely good!!

Then it was Mishkin's for a corn dog, since neither of us really knew what a corn dog actually was!! 

It was beef (though it tasted more liek a frankfurter to me, a sausage that I detest) with a fried corn coating served with green tomato ketchup (sweeter than red, very good stuff indeed) and sauerkraut-like stuff. This I was a little disappointed by, for the fact that I'm sure I could taste a plain and simple frankfurter in the middle and I couldn't get over that flavour. When mixed with a lot of the sauerkraut and green ketchup however, it definitely brightened the whole thing up. If you don't mind frankfurters to begin with, I bet you'll love it!!

Now comes my favourite savoury for the day from Salt Yard. Chorizo with smokey aubergine and almond aoli. Also on the menu was 5 year old Iberico ham which sat proudly at the front of the stall, looking absolutely mouth-watering.

We ate it too fast for me to get a good picture, but ohmygod the strong chorizo was balanced perfectly by the incredible almond aoli, along with the sweet yet smokey aubergine. It was delicious, haven't had something that yummy for a while.

I will definitely be visiting Salt Yard very soon!!!

Unfortunately I was way too full to try them, but I really really regret not getting some ribs from the Pig and Butcher because they looked astonishing. For £5 you got huge pieces of ribs that had been marinated in dandelion and burdock. It's actually making me sad thinking about it now!!

We moved on to dessert.

Firstly was After Hours, a little pop-up dessert place I've never heard of before. I don't know why because they're tubs were incredible and brilliant value.

Doesn't look great once the chocolate sauce has been poured on top but let me tell you it was INCREDIBLE!!!

Best desserts I've had for a while. Being a chocolate lover, the chocolate was my fave. The mandarin gel was a refreshing punch of flavour amongst all the chocolate, the mousse was so very light and the marshmallow was...well. No words. Brilliant. I swiftly followed them on Twitter and I can't wait to find out where they will be next!! I shall be stalking them from now on.

The lemon and raspberry pot came a very very close second (which means a lot coming from a chocolate lover like me). The parfait was so refreshing on such a hot day and all the interesting textures and flavour combinations of the shortbread and curd came together beautifully.

I think that's what it is, it's so many textures of things in one pot that makes each mouthful exciting and so interesting and equally always delicious no matter what you get. Could not rave about them more.

As we left the guy making them said "If you come back around let us know what you thought" almost unsurely, as if they would be anything other than amazing!!

THEN we had a "Feast Cup" from Le Petit Paris. We went for strawberry and chocolate macaroons and chose refreshing ice creams for such a hot day: pistachio and mango.

A great idea and very cute too. The ice cream and sorbet were packed full of flavour. Definitely some of the best ice cream I've had!

We then lazed under a shaded bench digesting all the food with our raw natural coconut water to keep hydrated from Coco. The real thing is so much better than the bottled stuff. Could hardly bare to drink it  from a carton the next day.

Once you're done with the water they will also smash it open so you can eat the flesh on the inside, but we were waaaay too full to do that!!

We were sat right opposite Spuntino, who I noticed were doing a little PB&J ice cream sanwich with peanut butter brittle that I just couldn't miss out on. Lover of peanut butter.

Great way to finish the day!!

Trying to figure out how to eat it.....

Follow @wefeastlondon on twitter or visit their website wefeast.co.uk to find out when and where the next Feast will be taking place. I highly recommend everyone to go!! It's the best day of food you'll have for a while.

#Truckstop

The guys behind Streatfeast (which has started again at Dalston Yard), Ginstock and most recently Ribstock are back again with another street food heaven. Truckstop is found in Wood Wharf, offering stunning views of Canary Wharf, the first Thursday and Friday of August and September.
Brilliant food courtesy of all kinds of street food trucks, a bar courtesy of Rotary Bar & Diner with craft beer and pint-sized cocktails and a Taco Shack by Breddo's Tacos, all with added #vibes of course, make this an epic night of food and fun. I went with my two besties and we were determined to try most of what was on offer.

We started with a veggie sushi roll from newcomers to the streetfood scene Maki Matcha.

Yummy, but not as good as the chicken one would have been I'm sure. Little disappointed to find there was no fish version, but I guess that's their selling point.

Then we went on to Anna Mae's incredible Mac and Cheese.

We just had the original with no toppings, but it was so delicious even without pesto and crispy bacon on top. In fact it was so good, we went back for a second tub later....

Then we had Cheeky Italian's Meatloaf Dog. A half pork half beef meat loaf, with a fontana cheese centre in the middle all in a tomato sauce. This was my absolute favourite of the night!!

I did want to try some of the fried chicken that was on offer, but Spit and Roast, Motherclucker and Funky Chicken all had the longest queues of the night. I'm not entirely sure what the craze is for fried chicken at the moment, but I wasn't prepared to wait an hour to get my food when there was plenty more choice to be had!! Hopefully next time I can try.

Then we had some chaat from Jhal Murie Express. My friends got super excited about this because he was recently featured on Rick Stein's India. I have never had chaat before, but I can tell you it was very good.

Next up was some pizza from Born and Raised. We went for goat's cheese, caramelised red onions and watercress on a beetroot infused dough. Extremely good stuff.

Purple dough from the beetroot!

We sat with views out over the docks and the Wharf and had a break before dessert came.

We started with the Dognuts from FishDog. Basically really really incredible light and fluffy Spanish churros (almost like a long doughnut pastry) with the best salted caramel sauce. I nearly didn't get a picture we scoffed them so quickly.

And finally we had frozen yoghurt, from a great little truck I've never seen before that uses actual frozen fruit and combines it with yoghurt to create a frozen yoghurt. It leaves the yoghurt with the most potent flavour and some chunky bits of fruit left in. We had the mango and strawberry flavours.

The machine they use to make the froyo. 

Very happy customers!!

The sun started to set and the buildings came alive.

Such a beautiful setting for a food fest.

If I've tempted you to go to the next one of the 1st and 2nd August, a little tip. Tickets cost £10 and if you book online in advance you get that £10 back in truckstop dollars to spend at the bar!

I'm definitely going back for more!!

Oh yeah, she touched it.