Coppa

Update: Since this post was published Coppa have made some changes to the menu. Antipasti is now £8 per head and all the skewers and arancini are now served in pairs. 

When reading any of my blog posts, my mother and sister both accuse me of being too nice. I can honestly say that this is the first time either of them have accused me of this. I do however explain that a lot of the places I’ve been visiting have simply just been good.

The sister emailed me whilst I was away a few weeks ago, asking if I wanted to go the soft opening of Coppa – the new roof terrace pop up on London Fields run by the people behind Lardo’s – one of our favourite restaurants in Hackney. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to get into the soft opening but reserved a table for the following Friday.

I am straight away going to acknowledge that Coppa did not have an easy opening night. Having torrential rain and winter temperatures on your first night at the end of May was not exactly predictable nor ideal. The staff tried to be as chirpy as possible and even thanked us for still coming and braving the weather.

Coppa is a pop up this summer on a roof on London Fields near the Pub on the Park. They have put up some little wooden cabanas in bright colours which will look great on a sunny day. We were however ushered into a little glass room they have which was sheltered much to our relief. The only downside was, the 3 of us were put on a small table right by the door when the rest of the place was empty, meaning that everytime the staff went in and out to get food we were still freezing. Also below was not quite the rooftop view I was expecting! 

The gist of the menu is that each person had the general antipasti for £10 per head and then a few hot and grilled dishes can be ordered as extras. Now I thought £10 was a bit steep for some anti-pasti. We were given some olives, salted almonds, slightly bizarre dried peppers, caponato and chickpea salad. All of these things were perfectly pleasant – my favourite part was probably the caponato as it was the only warm element and we were bloody cold. On the other hand though for £10 a head I think they could have provided some hams or salamis, particular as Lardo’s is known for curing their own meats - Also the name Coppa (a type of salami) seemed slightly misleading... 

Now we ordered one each of the 3 different skewers which costs from around £3.5—4.50 each and then the other 2 had a mini calzone each for around £4.50 and I had arancini for £2.50. One rice ball arriving with a wedge of lemon which is roughly the same size did not really impress me. It was tasty, don’t get me wrong – but just looked lonely. It would have made more sense to charge more like £3 or 3.50 and have 2 or 3. But this was nothing compare to paying £4.50 for one skewered prawn. One prawn. One of the other skewers was some sort of fried bread skewer which had such a strong soapy taste to it due to one of the herbs.

The majority of the food was perfectly nice. The calzones were tasty and the only items which I would say were actually good value for money. The staff were also incredibly friendly and obviously trying to make the best of a pretty crappy rainy situation. But I think we all agreed that generally speaking it was pretty expensive for what it was in particular the antipasti and one prawn. The bill came to roughly £85 - £30 of this accounted for by our mixed veggie antipasti.

I’m going to come back to Coppa on a sunny weekend afternoon – but this time probably for a drink and if I get peckish maybe a calzone or 2. Hopefully the view will look a bit brighter than this! 

Coppa
Hothouse Rooftop
Access via Mortello Street
London
E8 3QW

Field Day

When my friend offered me a ticket to go to Field Day a week before the day, I jumped at the chance. This was Field Day's third year in Victoria Park and hopefully they are not going anywhere anytime soon. In the few days leading up to Saturday, I looked at the line-up and realised that apart from about two of the acts I was pretty lost. Undeterred, I turned to my good friend Spotify and listened to the Field Day 2013 playlist giving myself a bit more of an idea of what to expect. Some people might turn away from a one day festival full of bands they didn't know but I liked to stay positive and think of it as a day of bands and DJs I didn't know YET. 

A friendly game of male v female tug of war. 

We arrived at about 2pm deciding that if we started at 12 chances are we would need to go to bed by 8pm. Unfortunately, this did mean that we missed some of the good earlier shows but you can’t win them all. Thank god it was sunny. After Friday’s torrential rain and our WhatsApp conversations regarding wellies, which my autocorrect changed to ‘do you think I need willies?’ much to Mo’s amusement, the sun was a welcome change. Us Brits are always just so much happier when it’s sunny. 

Glad the wellies weren't actually needed in the end. 

Apparently noone told me about the new stripes dress code. 

My highlight of the day was Disclosure who were just bloody amazing. Mo’s was Django Django at the end of the night. Four Tet managed to have the coolest set with these enormous balloons which reminded me of that old Panasonic advert with the different coloured bouncing balls. 

All in all a bloody good day. Never a long bar queue and even the toilets generally had some loo roll for most the day. I will definitely be booking another ticket next year. The night ended with a go on a fairground ride (the one with the spinning chairs) followed by an after party at The Shacklewell Arms. To be honest I think I've been recovering now for the last 2 days but was it worth it? Hell yes. 

Field Day Festival
Victoria Park 

Brick Lane, Columbia Road and Lily Vanilli's

Sorry for the delay everyone. I was away having a lovely time in Hong Kong of which I will tell you more about soon.

I had a lovely weekend back in London with one main aim being a visit to Columbia Road Flower Market on Sunday. I have a balcony, which before Sunday contained 2 stools, 2 small (dying) plants and an ashtray. My next door neighbours’ ridiculously cute little garden balcony was starting to embarrass me and I’m also hoping that eventually England does remember that it’s meant to be warm and I can sit out there. Project Balcony started with a walk to Columbia Road via Brick Lane Market to get some fuel. My sister was appalled that I had never tried the noodles from the ‘Brick Lane noodle man’, so up we went to the Bethnal Green Road end of the market to queue up. At least this queue comes with a performance. At this husband and wife run stall, the noodles are hand pulled in front of you.

To be honest it looked like quite the work out. I was exhausted just watching him. Although the performance is pretty amazing we still did have to queue for around 20 minutes… not ideal when you had a post Efes night out hunger like mine. You do have to be careful with this place as during the busy lunchtime there can be a long wait.... they could do with a few more hands helping out with the noodling. 

I went for the Pork and Vegetable wanton noodle soup. We carried our bowls of noodles up towards Columbia Road market where we found a handy wall to munch them. The portion is huge – well worth the £5.50. The texture of the noodles is different then any I've had... softer - but generally delicious. There's something about a big bowl of noodle soup which I always find quite cleansing (again after a night out in Efes I feel like the cleansing is necessary). 

Having received Lilli Vanilli’s Sweet Tooth for Christmas, I wanted to pop into her café whilst in the area. The Bakery is only open on Sunday's until 4.30pm for the Columbia Road Market punters. The place was packed but I happily queued.. again, whilst admiring the decoration – I particularly liked the fairy lights with little sweet bags tied to some of the lights.

The cakes all sounded delicious (although I think the choice was a bit limited by the time we got there at 2pm). I got us piece of the prettiest Victoria Sponge I’ve seen (£3) and a Burnt butter brownie (£3) to share with the others. The sweet peas on top made it look so summery, though I did have a slight issue later on when it was stuck to my cake and a debate on whether they are edible ensued. Both were delicious and the brownie had a hit of saltiness from the burnt butter which was an unusual touch but set it apart from the average brownie. 

I've got my eye on these coconut, rose and pistachio meringues for the next time when I come back to continue Project Balcony. 

We left Columbia Road with two big plants for the balcony and this enormous bunch of tulips. The tulips were only a fiver! Absolute bargain. I would recommend going to Columbia road a bit later after lunch if you want to get the good deals. 

Once home I put my flower arranging skills to the test... impressive no? It is true what they say... flowers do really cheer a room up! 

La Mian and Dim Sum Stall

Brick Lane Market

Sundays

Columbia Road Flower Market

Columbia Road

Sundays 8am-3pm

Lily Vanilli Bakery

6 The Courtyard

Ezra Street

E2 7RH

May Bank Holiday

A sunny bank holiday weekend is one of those elusive things which, when actually happening, make every Londoner the most cheerful person you've ever met. I had a wedding reception in Kent to go to on the Saturday evening, so Friday was kept tame with just a few much needed, post work gin and tonics at the Clapton Hart.

Saturday afternoon – project beautifying started with getting my nails done at Nails 4 You on Dalston Lane. At £28 for a full manicure and pedicure, my winter neglected feet were scrubbed, scraped, buffed and ready for sandals. You can get a mani-pedi for the same price at the little stand in the Kingsland Shopping Centre but at Nails 4 u they are always super friendly and quick which is a real bonus. Plus massaging chairs - enough said. 

Next came my waxing at Ria. Now my reason for going to Ria is that it's cheap and you can usually always walk in or at least call them an hour in advance and walk in. Also location wise I can get a quick wax whilst picking up dinner from Sainsburys. On the other hand if I could afford to go somewhere pricier – I most definitely would. The customer service is pretty shoddy and often just quite frankly rude. But hey ho – beggars can’t be choosers in the waxing world.

Now yesterday was one of those bank holiday Mondays we all dream of. I was busy doing some last minute packing as am off to Hong Kong fora week but I wondered down to Dalston in the sun. First stop was Street Feast who were back in Dalston for the Land of Kings/ Kids weekend. After battling my way past swarms of children I found the car park where Street Feast had located itself. As usual my food indecision reared its ugly head but in the end I went for Original Fry Up Material – it was a sort of brunch time after all. I went for the English – what I can only describe as a sausage egg muffin which would bring McDonald’s Egg McMuffin to its knees. It was amazing. That’s all I can say.

On my way home, Harvest (the new health shop/ café on Kingland road) were selling whole young coconuts to drink curtesy of Cocoface. At £2.75 each it was much better value then paying around £2 for the little VitaCoco water’s I occasionally treat myself to. When the coconut water had all gone, I went home and attacked the coconut Kill Bill style in order to get to the flesh inside. Yes it took 3 knives and 20 minutes but eventually: Alice 1 – coconut 0.

I had a nice and chilled bank holiday and hopefully this weekend was the sign that summer is well and truly here... when I get back I really must sort out my balcony. Now, I’m off to Hong Kong for a week to eat as much dim sum as I possibly can. In fact I will most likely return in the form of a dumpling with legs. 

Nails 4 U

18 Dalston Lane

E8 3AZ

Ria Beauty
Unit 26 & Kiosk 2, Kingsland Shopping Centre
Dalston
E8 2LX

Harvest E8
130 Kingsland Road

Dalston
E8 4PH

Speed Dating at The Scolt Head

Speed dating. 2 words that have always filled me with complete fear mixed with just a sprinkling of curiosity. So when I saw on Twitter last week that there was a speed dating event at The Scolt Head I texted my single friend Mo to tell her about it. I was pretty insistent that we weren’t actually going to do it until last Thursday I went out on a hen do and woke up with an email confirming our booking. Never drink and online shop.This was worse than the time I woke up with an Itunes receipt for Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Call Me Maybe’.

I digress. Faced with the realisation that I was now attending this event, I asked for some wisdom from friends. I think my favourite was ‘Alice just please try to remember to be nice…’. The fact that this came from someone I had a brief romantic fling with made it particularly encouraging.

Mo and I stopped off at mine to have a few glasses of prosecco/ Dutch courage pre dating event. We had been told we would have 17 different 4 minute dates. 17. I can officially say I could count on 1 hand the number of proper ‘first dates’ I had been on before last night.  

The Scolt Head is actually a really nice pub. I had onlybeen once before for a birthday but the front garden in full bloom is really cute.Inside was a bunch of slightly nervous looking people desperately orderingdrinks from the bar (clearly the Dutch courage approach is a general rule forspeed daters).

After ordering a large glass of white wine, we made our way into the ‘speed dating room’ and were handed a pen and a book to make notes in and then a name badge. Name badges always make me slightly sad but a necessity in this case (and also gave 17 men an excuse to look at 17 girls breasts without having to be discreet about it).

What were the men like? Well a mixed bag but to be honest,not as bad as I was anticipating! The problem with speed dating is obviously the time limit. 4 minutes can be a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you want to move on quickly (I was praying for that bell when one guy congratulated me on being ‘skinny’). On the other hand how well can you judge someone in a 4 minute time frame? Out of the 17 dates I would probably only want to see around 2 of them again – and that was mostly because Mo and I got chatting with them during the break and had a drink with them afterwards and they were good fun.

Would I do it again? Probably not any time soon. But I am pleased I tried it. If nothing else it has ticked a box on my life to do list. I did on the other hand manage to meet someone post speed dating. As Mo said ‘How have you managed to go speed dating and be picked up by a non-speed dater?’.

I probably indulged in slightly too many ‘Dutch courage’large glasses of pinot and today am feeling slightly delicate. Quite frankly I judged myself when I came into work wearing sunglasses and holding this:

Look at for another speed dating night most probably next month:

The Scolt Head

107A Culford Road

London 

N1 4HR