Street Art and Dinner In The Dark
We woke up in our mini-hotel and tried to figure out what to do during the day. This trip more than anyone we've done, Lacey and I had to do some serious research about what to do or eat or whatever in the actual place. Other trips, we have a pretty long list of things that interest us and hold our attention and we're excited about it. Because of the wedding situation, we just didn't have the same level of full prep.
While we were walking to the tube station without an actual destination (lol), I had an idea. We grabbed some pastries from a chain called Paul. They're so good. Our destination was an area of London I had never really explored but heard about. It's called Brick Lane.
Brick Lane is on the East side of London (all the way across town from where we were staying of course). It's been a hotbed for immigrants since the 1650s. Persecuted Christians came there. Then Jews settled there in the 1800s. Then in the 1970s, it was packed with settlers from British colonies in South Asia (think Bangladesh and India). Now it's bein inundated with hipsters haha.
Brick Lane is known for 2 things: the huge amount of ethnic restaurants from all over the world and the street art. Most of the restaurants were closed so we couldn't really do anything about that but we did see lots of street art everywhere. In some areas, people would call it graffiti but Lacey and I both thought this was true art. The paintings were beautiful.
There is one restaurant that was open. It's called Beigel Bake and it's been open 24/7 (including all holidays) for the last 30+ years. It's famous for its bagel sandwich with salt beef, a pickle, and mustard. We had to try it as a late morning snack. It was good! Especially when you got a full bite of everything, it really tasted yummy.
We had tickets reserved for later in the day for a place called Sky Garden. It's a very tall, new building in the area that has a huge observation deck on top. We weren't too far walk away so we decided to head over there and see if we could get in now as opposed to later. The walk was kind of brutal through the windy, cold streets but we made it.
Lucky for us, there was no line for walk-ins! Yet again, offseason saved us. Lacey visited it when she was living in London but she had to wait outside for like 2 hours to get in. Admission is free and they have a couple bars and a restaurant on the top too. It's literally a garden on top. There are tropical trees and the like. We walked around a few times and got some pictures. It still blows my mind that when I was here only 11 years ago ALL the office buildings including Sky Garden didn't exist. This area of London has seen an insane building streak. Sky Garden was good but Lacey thought it was better lit up at night (also probably better when it's nice outside on the terrace).
It was lunchtime now so we had to do that neverending search for food. We walked across the Thames to the Borough market again to see if anything piqued our interest. Unfortunately, we were both pretty cold and just wanted to sit inside somewhere. The market was about 90% less busy than the last time we visited. So weird to see it so much more empty. We stopped at a chain fast food restaurant called Leon. Leon is famous because it's marketed as "healthy fast food". The people who own it know that people love fast food but they hate how it hurts people. So they make healthy fast food in cardboard boxes. I got chili and rice. Lacey got meatballs and rice. They were actually pretty darn good!! And cheap! If they had these in Blaine, I'm sure I'd eat it.We needed a sweet treat (because we always need a sweet treat haha). We stopped and got some Victorian sponge cake in honor of one of our favorite shows, Great British Bake Off. It was delicious.
We headed back to the hotel to rest up a bit before our BIG night plans.
Our big night plan was a very special restaurant called Dans Le Noir. That's French for "In the Night". It's a unique restaurant where your entire meal in completely in the absolute pitch black. The waiters are all either blind or mostly visually impaired. You pick a meal based on the type of protein you want (ie meat or fish/seafood or vegetarian). You can choose to have just a starter and main or add dessert or wine pairings and things like that.
We found out about this on our favorite travel YouTube channel, Kara and Nate. They did it in Vietnam and had an incredible experience. It's quite pricey in London but proceeds go to help visually impaired people too. We reserved this before our trip and were super excited about it.
It started raining on our way to the restaurant which was not nice. However, as soon as we got to the restaurant, we were so excited. They make you put everything into a locker and then confirm your meal choices. Then the hostess brings you to the dark part of the restaurant and you meet your waiter. We actually never saw our waiter until the very end of the meal (when we were leaving). You make a human chain of people with a hand on each other's shoulders and the waiter leads you through the pitch black to your seat. We got seated with a British couple named Callum and Florence. They seemed nice but we didn't talk to them too much. I wanted to but I also didn't want to ruin their dinner date. That was a slightly awkward part of the meal but it was fine.
So you get seated and you can't see anything. It's just crazy. Lacey got a tiny bit freaked out at first but recovered nicely after just a few minutes. We first had to pour our own waters using a pitcher. We used our hands and fingers to tell if how much water was poured and where. We didn't spill any!
They brought out the starters first. The waiter would place the plate in front of Lacey. Then they would hold it out across the table for me. I would have to bring my hands up from the table until I felt the plate and grabbed it. Again, we didn't know what we were eating, only that we both chose the "meat" option. We chose the same option so we could discuss and theorize what we were eating together. The starter was good! The meat in it was definitely soft and a little stringy. We thought it might be some kind of roasted or stewed beef. There was some kind of puree like mashed potatoes but not that. There was also some kind of spiralized vegetables. We thought it was stewed beef, sweet potatoes, and carrots. It turned out to be pork cheek, pumpkin puree, and carrots. So we were definitely on the right track! We didn't find out if we were right until after the meal ended btw.
Next was the main course. They definitely waited a little while between courses. I have no idea how many people were in the room total. I would guess like 30? but it's hard to tell because they seat people in shifts. This was the first dinner in probably EVER where Lacey and I didn't look at our phones once (because we didn't have them ha). It was fun to just talk and feel the anticipation of what was to come.
The main course was next. Even before it was set down in front of her, Lacey knew it was lamb. She ate a lot of lamb at her grandparent's house when she was little. She's not exactly a fan but it was impressive that she knew right away. The other elements were harder to identify because there were quite a few things on the plate. I recognized one as zucchini right away. I didn't really know the preparation or anything. There was also some kale. Lacey did eat most of her lamb which was impressive and everything tasted pretty good. We both thought the starter was better though. Also, we were right on pretty much everything. It was lamb, zucchini mousaka, black olives/kale. We actually did pretty darn well on this one!
Lastly, we had dessert. Holy crap was this good. Like so so so so good. The couple next to us didn't get dessert so it was kind of awkward because our dessert came and then we were both making weird noises because it tasted so good haha. The couple left the room right away while we were eating. Back to the dessert, it was definitely some raspberry sherbert and then there was a cake that tasted half baked that was incredible. I brought the plate up to my mouth and just scooped it because I didn't want to spill any or miss any. Seriously delicious. As it turns out, we were right. It was raspberry sherbert and a thing called a pudding but pudding in Britain is like a soft cake thing. We finished our dessert and then the waiters started to clear everyone else out of the room. By the end, it was just the two of us and a group of 4 on the other side of the room. Lacey and I kept joking that they had forgotten about us or something.
Eventually, our waitress came and got us and brought us out. We had to do the same thing again (hands-on shoulders). We were in the darkroom for just under 2 full hours. Crazy! They showed us pictures of everything we ate and we got to see how well we did at that point. I thought we did a pretty good job! It was such a fun experience. Figuring out how to pour water, how to eat, what things tasted like without seeing, it was all so good. We've never ever done anything like that before. It was a fun way to end our time in London and start the tail end of our trip.
It was pouring rain when we left and it was about a 9-minute walk from the tube to our hotel. So we got pretty soaked, unfortunately. We dried off in our micro room and got ready to leave the next day.
At the start of the day, Lacey and I were both a little worried about what to do to keep us busy. As it turns out, we had a fantastic day seeing a different side of London and eating some really fun food.
We found out about this on our favorite travel YouTube channel, Kara and Nate. They did it in Vietnam and had an incredible experience. It's quite pricey in London but proceeds go to help visually impaired people too. We reserved this before our trip and were super excited about it.
It started raining on our way to the restaurant which was not nice. However, as soon as we got to the restaurant, we were so excited. They make you put everything into a locker and then confirm your meal choices. Then the hostess brings you to the dark part of the restaurant and you meet your waiter. We actually never saw our waiter until the very end of the meal (when we were leaving). You make a human chain of people with a hand on each other's shoulders and the waiter leads you through the pitch black to your seat. We got seated with a British couple named Callum and Florence. They seemed nice but we didn't talk to them too much. I wanted to but I also didn't want to ruin their dinner date. That was a slightly awkward part of the meal but it was fine.
So you get seated and you can't see anything. It's just crazy. Lacey got a tiny bit freaked out at first but recovered nicely after just a few minutes. We first had to pour our own waters using a pitcher. We used our hands and fingers to tell if how much water was poured and where. We didn't spill any!
They brought out the starters first. The waiter would place the plate in front of Lacey. Then they would hold it out across the table for me. I would have to bring my hands up from the table until I felt the plate and grabbed it. Again, we didn't know what we were eating, only that we both chose the "meat" option. We chose the same option so we could discuss and theorize what we were eating together. The starter was good! The meat in it was definitely soft and a little stringy. We thought it might be some kind of roasted or stewed beef. There was some kind of puree like mashed potatoes but not that. There was also some kind of spiralized vegetables. We thought it was stewed beef, sweet potatoes, and carrots. It turned out to be pork cheek, pumpkin puree, and carrots. So we were definitely on the right track! We didn't find out if we were right until after the meal ended btw.
Next was the main course. They definitely waited a little while between courses. I have no idea how many people were in the room total. I would guess like 30? but it's hard to tell because they seat people in shifts. This was the first dinner in probably EVER where Lacey and I didn't look at our phones once (because we didn't have them ha). It was fun to just talk and feel the anticipation of what was to come.
The main course was next. Even before it was set down in front of her, Lacey knew it was lamb. She ate a lot of lamb at her grandparent's house when she was little. She's not exactly a fan but it was impressive that she knew right away. The other elements were harder to identify because there were quite a few things on the plate. I recognized one as zucchini right away. I didn't really know the preparation or anything. There was also some kale. Lacey did eat most of her lamb which was impressive and everything tasted pretty good. We both thought the starter was better though. Also, we were right on pretty much everything. It was lamb, zucchini mousaka, black olives/kale. We actually did pretty darn well on this one!
Lastly, we had dessert. Holy crap was this good. Like so so so so good. The couple next to us didn't get dessert so it was kind of awkward because our dessert came and then we were both making weird noises because it tasted so good haha. The couple left the room right away while we were eating. Back to the dessert, it was definitely some raspberry sherbert and then there was a cake that tasted half baked that was incredible. I brought the plate up to my mouth and just scooped it because I didn't want to spill any or miss any. Seriously delicious. As it turns out, we were right. It was raspberry sherbert and a thing called a pudding but pudding in Britain is like a soft cake thing. We finished our dessert and then the waiters started to clear everyone else out of the room. By the end, it was just the two of us and a group of 4 on the other side of the room. Lacey and I kept joking that they had forgotten about us or something.
Eventually, our waitress came and got us and brought us out. We had to do the same thing again (hands-on shoulders). We were in the darkroom for just under 2 full hours. Crazy! They showed us pictures of everything we ate and we got to see how well we did at that point. I thought we did a pretty good job! It was such a fun experience. Figuring out how to pour water, how to eat, what things tasted like without seeing, it was all so good. We've never ever done anything like that before. It was a fun way to end our time in London and start the tail end of our trip.
It was pouring rain when we left and it was about a 9-minute walk from the tube to our hotel. So we got pretty soaked, unfortunately. We dried off in our micro room and got ready to leave the next day.
At the start of the day, Lacey and I were both a little worried about what to do to keep us busy. As it turns out, we had a fantastic day seeing a different side of London and eating some really fun food.
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