Diving Right In: Taste of London

Despite Graham’s concern about the conveyor belt swallowing his bag, we and our luggage made it to London.

Once we arrived, and balked at the overly expensive SIM card prices (which we did not buy), we got on the train to downtown London and were quickly joined in our train booth by the two most British looking young adults eating pre-cut fruit from a Tesco. Another young adult standing up had an Arctic Monkeys hoodie wrapped around their waist. All of the British stereotypes were instantly coming to life.

We went to Taste on London as our afternoon event and it was awesome. It absolutely put Taste of Edmonton to shame. Taste of Calgary too. Canada, get it together. Its a massive event spread out in one corner of Regents Park, which we wandered as well. It had lovely manicured trees and flowerbeds lining the paths. Canada, get it together there too.

At Taste of London, we had 6 “main,” dishes, and joined a pizza making class. We also sampled a grotesque amount of stuff, and the poor Jamaican curry we had at the end of the day didn’t get a fair shake in the rankings, as we were stuffed. But here are our rankings of the food

1. South Indian Chicken Wings – Kahani
2. Dahl and Roti – Roti King
3. Our Margarita Pizza we made!!!! – Us and Ooni
4. Ceviche – Joia
5. Afghan Lamb & Rice – Afghan Caravan
6. Vegan Jamaican Curry – Likkle Dutchpot (Cam didn’t like this but Graham over ruled)
7. Various Dumplings – Dumplings Legend

Out of all of the free stuff, we had this brilliant Jollop hot sauce from Varo foods. That may have been the actual winner of the day, that little sample on a bit of microwaved Jollof rice. The loser of the day was a distinct lack of aisan noodle dishes, much to Cam’s disappointment.

The atmosphere was amazing. There must have been 8 DJ’s around the place blasting music, and by 8:00, there was a gang of British women dancing on top of a bar at one of the booths. Small club atmospheres popped up everywhere. There were at least 100 booths either selling food dishes, or selling food/ drink products. It was a great way to start off the trip, but we packed it in around 8:30, got to our hotel, and immediately crashed. We were exhausted.

Overall it was a very well done event, and the VIP passes actually ended up saving us money due to the free perks that came with it. Please enjoy some of the photos we took of the event below! -Graham