London August 2014

London was great. Thanks to everyone for all of your suggestions!

We mainly spent the weekend walking around enjoying the wonderful weather. It only rained a bit on Friday evening and the rest of the weekend was sun and blue skies. On Friday we stumbled upon Shakespeare’s Globe (OMG!) so Kay indulged me with tickets and we went to see the Holy Warriors show there on the Saturday night.

Here are a few glimpses from our weekend:

We were a little surprised how expensive entries to Buckingham Palace ($60) and Westminster Abbey ($30!) were. Even St. Paul’s, the Cathedral, cost $26. Ouch! We didn’t buy one of the multi-museum passes for our short stay and the weather was so nice that I didn’t really feel like visiting any of the free museums either. We figure we’ll be back at some point, so best enjoy the weather when it was actually nice!

We walked all around South Bank, along the Thames, where we ran into Shakespeare’s Globe, between London and Tower Bridge, Covent Garden, stopping at Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Circus to go shopping at Topshop, among other things. We did pay to see the Tower Bridge museum (not Tower of London) and the Monument and spent the rest of the weekend taking photos of the famous sites, lazing in Hyde Park, shopping and eating lots of great food.

On the first morning we went to a cafe nearby our hotel Citadines Barbican where I could only get a gluten free brownie and some strange lactose-full cream and fruit. It was sickeningly sweet, but the other days there we shopped at Whole Foods and took advantage of the hotel which came equipped with mini fridge, two hobs, microwave, sink and mini dishwasher.

I did have some time before the trip to hastily look up and print out maps of gluten free restaurants. Here’s my quick and dirty gluten free guide to London:

Breakfast: Whole Foods

Lunch/Snacks: (I also carried snacks I brought with me from Zurich which I ate during the day and at the airport.)
Costa Coffee: Ended up only having some prepackaged GF snacks for sale
Pod: Clean, healthy food. Didn’t get a chance to try one of these as it was closed.
Wahaca: Cheap, delicious Mexican. Really wanted to try this!
Pret a Manger: Not much, but you can get a salad or fresh fruit here and they are all over the place.

Dinner:
The Truscott Arms: Pub food with many GF options. Fish and Chips and beer!Vozars: Completely GF restaurant. Eastern European w/ Brazilian influences
Dishoom: Indian in Shoreditch or Covent Garden with dedicated GF menu
Cây Tre: Vietnamese in Soho
Busaba Eathai: Thai close to Oxford Circus
Flat Iron Steak: Affordable steak near Piccadilly Circus
Honest Burgers: GF burgers
Tierra Peru: Peruvian

On Friday we had dinner at the Truscott Arms the first night because I really, really wanted GF fish and chips. They were wonderful, but a little on the small side. We also ordered GF cake in chocolate and carrot and it was all delicious. They only had normal beer on lager though and the gluten free beer in the fridge was borderline warm, so I didn’t really enjoy the beer experience as much as I had hoped.

Saturday we ate early before the show, so we went to Flat Iron Steak because I heard it was really popular and doesn’t take reservations. The menu is 99% gluten free because the whole concept of the restaurant is that they just serve steak for dinner with a salad and you can choose some sides, one of which has gluten. Kay was a big fan of this place because he is Mr. Steak and the meat itself was decent for the price. We were lucky to get in and out of the restaurant quickly and have time for a dessert from Whole Foods while walking along the Thames to the theater.

On Sunday we decided to go for Indian at Dishoom because I’ve always heard so many great things about London’s Indian food. It was definitely delicious, although the portions were also smaller than we’d expected. Maybe Kay and I just eat more these days. It was fine though.

Overall, we ate really well and I only wish we had more time to try other places. We had just had Mexican and Peruvian in Puerto Rico and Miami, so it wasn’t imperative that we have those. And it really is true, when I research which restaurants to go to, we do eat at better places than just walking around and picking randomly.

As far as activities, we hadn’t really planned anything beforehand, but I figured we couldn’t go wrong with a first visit and next time we go I’m sure we’ll plan a little more what we want to see on subsequent visits. 🙂

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