Nothing says Christmas is in the air for me, more than the sound of Mariah Carey singing ‘ all I want for Christmas’ and the smell and taste of mulled wine or hot mead.
Category: City travel – not Scotland
A Promising Start
“Tre prosecco “ I knew this food tour was going to go well: it was 10.30 am in the morning – and I had flown into Rome last night from Edinburgh to meet my friend Fran who had flown from Gatwick – and we were on a four-hour eating and drinking tour with Domenico of Eating Europe Food Tours
I went to London for a three-day trip – never like to stay with anyone for longer than three days – based on the premis that guests and fish go off after three days.
The reason for my visit was my great friend Genevieve Fox was publishing her first book https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/29/milkshakes-morphine-memoir-love-loss-genevieve-fox-review .Milkshakes and morphine is an un-put-downable down memoir – I devoured it one evening pre publication and experienced a torrent of different kind of emotions for the author and also as a friend. Do buy and read: Milkshakes and Morphine: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Genevieve Fox is published by Square Peg (£14.99)
And of course with London I wanted to eat – the in-crowd may have moved on but I wanted to try The Chiltern Firehouse which is a former fire station dating from the 1880s, this refined, high-end hotel is surrounded by bars, restaurants and shopping in the fashionable Marylebone district http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5319709/Princess-Eugenie-parties-Chiltern-Firehouse-again.html
My friend Lu secured a table – one with a actual fire pole -so we imagined the action that bit of metal had seen as we looked for celebs – Eugenie hadn’t turned up yet…
From the range of starters top pick was this crab doughnut £7 
I love to see a bit of London I don’ t know and I would recommend going on an airbnb experience -https://www.airbnb.co.uk/experiences/145488 I thought Roberta’s tour (£20 per person)- a gorgeous mix of economy and history from Bloomberg’s latest scraper to the recently discovered Mitra temple with coffee thrown in in a crypt church and Roberta ended her tour on a high at the Skyscraper Bar in the city. 
Coffee in the crypt in St Marys le Bow London
and as Roberta was Italian – of course we got the best coffee and sandwich tips – Panini Gusto in the city from Milan a Parma Ham sandwich packed with ham and mozzarella. And enough walking why not hop – or in my case pour myself into a mini and have a tour of the city – seeing the big names and the lesser known sights https://smallcarbigcity.com/ Samantha picked us up from exposed pipes but cool pan Asian food at Caravan restaurant Bankside where I had just eaten a very fine crispy tofu with fermented black bean paste – through Borough Market in a mini – ‘these are great salted caramel doughnuts’ – Sam said – ‘oh yes please I said’ as I begged the Borough Market bread vendor to pass one through the roof – which was open and then we were off again 
Samantha with her whizzy mini – and finally before I let the train take the strain back to Scotland I was delighted to find there is a food market – wednesdays to Fridays at Kings Cross Railway Station http://www.realfoodfestival.co.uk/real-food-markets/kings-cross-market/which is great if you have a hankering for fresh doughnuts – even I had had enough – to Moroccan carrots and felafel and feta and lentil salad with dried apricots for your train journey which I ate as headed north through England’s Green and Pleasant.