The British Sweet Tooth - Bakery Treats in London

One of our favorite activities on vacations is exploring local bakeries.  London has many from which to choose, but the good news is that if you are in South Kensington and you have just eaten at Byron, you are only a couple of steps from Hummingbird Bakery and a couple more steps away from Ben's Cookies.  Now, you may ask yourself, who on earth shops at a bakery after eating an enormous hamburger (complete with cheese and bacon), fries, a large beer, a large chocolate malted, and courgette fries?  Why, Major Obvious, naturally.  And the offspring of Major Obvious.

So, what to get when you arrive?  How to choose?  Our favorites from Ben's Cookies are Coconut and Dark Chocolate Chunk.  My university Big Sister swears by Lemon.  At Hummingbird Bakery, the Red Velvet Cake is extremely attractive, but not particularly flavorful and tragically lacking pecans on the cream cheese frosting.  The Carrot Cake, on the other hand, is pretty tasty, if tooth-achingly sweet.

Byron - The Sequel at Old Brompton Road, London

It was very naive of me to think that I could partake in a euphoric Burger Experience all by myself without any consequences.  My family insisted on trying Byron out for themselves, so we skipped over to the Old Brompton Rd. one which is conveniently located to those great South Kensington museums like the Natural History Museum or the Victoria & Albert. 

Major Obvious had the Byron Burger complete with homemade special Byron sauce and bacon.  Little Man tried the Macaroni & Cheese while Sweet Pea had the Mini Cheeseburgers (both children's meals came with generous helpings of fries).  Everyone loved the Courgette Fries.  To cap everything off, we also ordered a chocolate milkshake with malt.  The shake came served in the tin canister, large and in charge.  Super chocolate-y, super decadent.  We had 2 servers and both were extremely friendly.  When they asked, "How is everything?" Sweet Pea responded (pointing to the shake canister), "This is YUMMY!"  Our server responded with eyes lit up, "I KNOW!  You know what's even better?  OREO."  Well, we had to leave something to look forward to next time! 

The Best Sushi I've Had In The UK - Atari Ya, London

I've FINALLY eaten sushi here in the UK that I find noteworthy!  To be fair, I haven't conducted an exhaustive search.  I tend to shy away when someone comes up to me, "There is a new sushi joint in X, we should try it out."  Rather, I'm more inclined to research and poll, asking questions such as, "Is it Japanese-operated?"  (Although I am Chinese, I do not trust my people to prepare raw fish for my consumption.  We are too inclined to cut corners).  "What are they known for?"  (If it's a place that does mostly rolls with imitation crab, I will run in the other direction).

I am pleased to report that Atari Ya is definitely Japanese.  On an early Saturday evening, my family and I attempted to eat here, only to realize that every table had a little "Reserved" sign on it.  One Japanese family after another came in and happily ordered lovely looking meals.  The waitstaff was particularly gracious to them and us, even though we had opted to just takeaway.

We ordered sashimi (yellowtail, tuna, salmon), nigiri (fattiest tuna), rolls (spider, spicy tuna, cucumber avocado), chirashi, chicken teriyaki, shrimp tempura, and edamame.  Ok, I will admit that I was really hungry when I was ordering.

Everything was delicious!  Everything was awesome!  I can't wait to go there and sit down to eat.

Hoarders Beware: Coconut Cream and Coconut Pancakes

There are some ingredients that I seem to have a lot of difficulty finding at the grocery store when I need them.  One of these is cream of coconut, aka coconut cream.  In America, this ingredient is not stocked with baking ingredients, but with liquor and cocktail ingredients.  In the UK, I can't really begin to tell you where it is located. 

Because I have so much trouble with this ingredient, whenever I see it while I'm roaming the aisles, I will usually just throw it into the grocery cart.  It never goes bad and I save myself the problem of having to relocate it at a later date.  The problem with this strategy is that I often do not take inventory of my pantry.  Imagine my surprise when, two weekends ago, I discovered that I had been hoarding SIX cans of coconut cream.  4 were from the commissary and 2 were from Waitrose.  Shame on me! 

Now, another problem is that apart from the occasional coconut cake, I don't use coconut cream very often (hence my difficulty in locating it at the store).  I did a little research today and realized, to my delight, that I could just use some imagination and basically substitute it for milk or coconut milk in a lot of recipes.  Soon, ideas for coconut tapioca pudding, coconut bread pudding, and coconut rice came to my head.  And since I had been craving pancakes for a couple of days, I decided that we all needed to have coconut pancakes for afternoon tea.  As Jamie Oliver would say, the cream coconut "worked a treat" and I was pleased with the results.  These pancakes have the same texture as regular pancakes (and no crunchy little coconut bits, which some people really abhor).

Coconut Pancakes

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk (or regular milk with some lemon juice squirted in and left to sit for a few minutes)
1 cup cream of coconut
vegetable oil/butter

1.  Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.  In another bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk and cream of coconut.

2.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and whisk to combine.  Stop whisking once everything is combined. 

3.  Heat a pancake griddle or frying pan, add some oil or butter to prevent the cakes from sticking (be generous with this...these cakes seem stickier than regular ones).  Cook the pancakes until bubbles appear all over the batter.  Flip the pancakes and continue cooking them for a minute or two longer.

4.  These are so sweet that I don't think they need any syrup, but if you want a real treat, warm up some maple syrup and sprinkle with chopped pecans or macadamia nuts.