Alice in Hackneyland: 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.