Brick Lane Beigel Bake, 159 Brick Lane, London E1 6SB

Brick Lane, huh? The stuff of novels, mediocre curries, and 24-hour bagels. You heard right - 24 hours, 7 days a week, bagels on tap.

Where do I get this tap, you ask. Why at the Brick Lane Beigel Bake, of course. Don't you use Google?

Famed for being one of those places in London loved both by the locals and also tourists who come from afar just to say they've been to this legendary bagel-producing takeaway, it remains to this day, one of the places we'd never quite made our way to.

Until now, that is. Veni vidi vici.

It also seems to be one of those places untouched by the Disgusting Claws of Inflation. These prices look acceptable in the eighties. How much for a piece of cheesecake?!? I almost was afraid to ask if the prices were actually valid - fearing my complete lack of self control but even after I'd ordered about half the board, it only came out to about £8 so I can safely say that yes, those prices are in fact, real and valid.

By the way, for those of you reading this who're not British, and not too familiar with the way things are priced here, the numbers on the board represent the amount of pennies you'd have to shell out for the item. For example, to avoid any doubt, 70 means 70p, or £0.70.

That amount buys you about half a piece of toast in a normal establishment. Here, it gets you a slice of cheesecake, or chocolate fudge, or even a carrot cake.

It's not just the prices that're stuck in the decades gone by - the interior is, too. Not necessarily a bad thing though as it does create a nice, comforting sense of nostalgia as you walk into the shop from the (sometimes) bleak Brick Lane vibe outside.

By the window is a huge slab of hot salt beef - just tantalising those tastebuds and anyone who walks by (scroll to last picture below for a quick smile). Guarding these meaty treasures are 2 As-East-End-As-You'll-Get ladies who exude the personalities of dinner ladies with attitude. Brisk, brief and bustling - they ask for your order, hand it to you, and off you go. None of that pansy "How're you today, love" nonsense.

For £3.50, you get this doorstop of a beefy, boffy bagel. What I liked about it was the fact that these bagels were oh so darn chewy! Chewy chewy chewy. Each chewy bite was such a pleasure to bite into - cheeeeeeewy. Then, as I sank my teeth further into the meaty treasure, I bit into MORE chewy - in the form of the hot salt beef. Chewy in a good way though. It was moist, it was meaty, it was flavourful, and it was oh so chewmazing.

A little zingy zing from the English mustard so generously slathered on and we were set to want more.

And because this chicken bagel cost £1.50, I couldn't resist. While the chicken was literally just that - chicken - it was kinda enjoyable in its own way, too. The taste was clean, uninterrupted, and if you like chicken, you're in for a good bagel.



This was the pastry (1 of 2) that I somehow managed to order in the time between deciding which bagel to have, and actually saying those words out loud. Nothing amazing, but for that price (under £1), what more could you ask for.

How could you walk by and not bagel?

This lil guy looked hungry outside the shop.

Full Stop Bar, 202 Brick Lane, E1 6SA London

Twitter @fullstopbar if you're that way inclined.

So while the husband and I are exploring the lifestyle of the unemployed - waking at noon, breakfast at lunch, and going out at rush hour (6pm), having lunch at dinner, you know the drill - we've also been diligently trying to get through our London List. This is the list of things we should have done perhaps four years ago when we first moved to London, but because of the lack of time, energy and commitment, somehow they've just gone off the radar.

Not anymore, though. The list is now back in action and we're working our way through it.

After forcing ourselves out of the flat around 1pm, we decided to make our way towards Brick Lane.

A bit of background here, if you may. My husband used to go to Pete's cafe everyday while it was located at Church Street Market near Marylebone (when it was called Indie Coffee). This is the same husband who, until about 5 months ago, hated coffee like I hate commuter crowds. He didn't like the smell of the beans, the taste of the liquid, and pretty much hated anything to do with coffee. Then, succumbing perhaps to some peer pressure (busy people having busy coffee), he decided to try a bit of the wonderful stuff. It wasn't love at first gulp, and after a few persistent months of Flat Whites, he got hooked.

He began to like coffee, and most of all, grew to enjoy the little chats he had with the guy who ran the stall. So, it was without question that when this guy then opened up his new coffee shop in Brick Lane, that we'd go check it out before we left London.

Full Stop Bar is the shop in question - located on Brick Lane, handily opposite the road from the famous Brick Lane Beigel Bake (a place which would've made me very fat had I worked / lived / commuted past it on a daily basis).

The outside of the shop still says Antiques on the board, so you could easily walk past it thinking the chairs and tables by the window were for sale. They're probably not. What they were, though, however, were very comfy places for us to perch our bums on while we had our excellent coffee and more than excellent brownie (more on that later).

I ordered a White Americano as I just couldn't justify having that much milk so early on in the day (my daily Starbucks Soy Latte was calling for me). While it was smooth and definitely one of the best Americanos I've had, it was no match for the ...

... Flat White.

This is by far one of the nicest Flat Whites in London. We've been to quite a few coffee places in London, but this stands out from the rest. Guess it helps that we like the guy who makes it, too, but that aside, Full Stop Bar actually has comfy chairs for us to sit in. The other places we've been to in London have usually been the type of crowded, small and cramped places where you'd have to scoot by in a certain sideway fashion to get to your seat, while then balancing your cuppa on the WiFi-enabled laptop that came as an accessory.

Helps too that their brownies are softchewilicious. Crumbawumba. Chockawocka. Get your hands off it.

Papadoms / Mango, Brick Lane, London

Let's give you a preview as to how this dinner went, by relaying the conversation that we had as we were coming out of the restaurant, talking to the guy (presumably one of the owners or waiters) who asked us in there in the first place.

(With one hand shaking my friend's hand) 'How was it! How was it!' in a loud, friendly, booming voice.

'Well mate, honestly, not so good.'

'I know, I know,' patting my friend on the back, in a not so loud, booming voice. Said man then proceeds to give my friend his business card, and promises a discount the next time we go back there.

I'd rather eat dry cereal, to be honest.

So, now that you have a flavour of the story, let's begin, shall we?

(If this didn't get me blogging again, I don't know what did).



Last week, our friends asked us to go with them to Brick Lane for the curry festival that was going on there. Now, having been to Brick Lane a few times (though not to eat), and having seen the countless banners proclaiming wins or nominations at almost every restaurant of some curry award or another, we obviously felt quite suspicious of most of them. Which one do we choose? With nothing to guide us around, we decided on choosing the one with the most people, yet not that many people that would make us have to wait more than 5 minutes.



With that in mind, Papadoms fit the bill, and with the guy at the front telling us that we'd be given first drinks free, and 20% of the food bill, we thought, why not?
(More on why not coming right up.)

Having amused ourselves chatting for about 20 mins, we slowly ran out of conversation topics and began focusing on why it was taking them so long to get us a table. The guy at the door obviously sensed this, and so ushered us out of the original restaurant, and into one a few doors down, which he called his 'other branch'. Alternatively also called Mango, to the discerning public.

So, to summarise the story so far, this is where we should have been eating at, when we made the choice to go into Papadoms.

This is where we actually ate at, when the manager / marketing guy / person doing the business pulling decided to take us to hi ‘other branch’ instead.

Now, the first thing to note here is that I ALWAYS look at other people’s food on the way to my table. This is pretty much so that I can see what’s good, what’s not, and how pleasing the portion sizes are. What I saw on the way to the table this time were lots of little dishes, with bland-looking watery curry in them.

(Should have walked out, huh.)

Sat down, ordered, and asked for a jug of tap water. We got the first round of drinks free, as part of the curry festival customer-pulling deal, so we figured, why not make the most of that, and then make do with tap water after. Thing is, Mr Waiter Guy must have had something else on his agenda, as it took us 5 tries before some water finally came our way.

With some soap bubbles added for good measure.

Obviously, you can see from the picture that the soap was on the outside of the glass, and Mr Waiter Guy also vehemently stressed this fact to us, as though we were being unreasonable, because, hey, the soap is on the outside, not on the inside, no probs!

Nada, my friend. Probs. You don’t serve water in soapy glasses.

Anyhow, moving on to the food, when it came. Almost at the same time when our food arrived at our table, I overheard the lady at the table across from us say loudly to the waiter that her food had no flavour at all and that she didn’t order what she was served. The waiter then said that he’d give her another complimentary dish, and that it would be one of the nicer ones there. When the said dish arrived, the thank you was said, the waiter walked away, and I overheard her saying that the new dish wasn’t up to scratch either.

Thing is, even with all that, we approached our food with open minds. Wanting to make the most of the meal, and wanting to enjoy the rest of our night out, we waited for the food to arrive. When it did, let’s just say, the plates were much bigger than the amount of food actually in them (with the exception of the side dish, in which the biggest thing in there was the spoon).

Note: No prices stated here as I didn’t note them down, but the curry dishes were about £8-ish, and we had a 20% discount.

Chef’s special lamb curry with calamansi
Look, this dish was tasty, with surprising new flavours which were nice as I’d not had them in curries before. True, the dish was cooked well, the meat was OK tender, and the blend of flavours worked well. However, when the portion is barely enough for one, but priced higher than average, I find it hard to stomach the dish. Call it quantity over quality if you like, but that’s an important factor to me.

Lamb mango curry
This was what I ordered, mainly because I like the taste of fruit in curry, and find the mix of sweetness in curry quite delightful tasting. It didn’t disappoint, and exceeded my expectations actually, with the mango infusing ever so well with the curry sauce. The sweetness of the mango was evident throughout the sauce, and the only thing bringing the dish down was the tough pieces of lamb in the dish.

Fish balti
The flavours here were again, quite good. Dry and fragrant, the dish would have been top class if not for the fact that the portions were just too small, and the fish was just that bit overcooked and tough.

Chef’s special chicken curry (not trying to be vague, but I didn’t take down the name of the dish)
Refer to comments above, is all I can say.

Bhindi side dish (ladies fingers, or okra), about £3

This is the dish where the spoon was almost bigger than the portion itself. As we ordered this to share, there wasn’t much there to be shared, so we kinda had about a teaspoon each. Tasty, but so very little of it.

And as I usually say at the end of each post, would I recommend this restaurant? Not really, no. From the deals you have to negotiate outside the restaurant, the wait, the being led to another restaurant, the soapy glass, the small portions, the not so attentive waiters, and the overall feeling of dissatisfaction as you come out of the restaurant, it just didn’t give me the feeling of having just had a good meal out.

Google Maps to here!

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