Every time I go into Central London, I have the option to leave the village by bus & tube, or bike.
I usually ride. London is a great cycling city.
I can get most of the way in along Regents Canal, winding and weaving under bridges and around the young folk and their pets spilling off the canal boats. We can get onto the canal from Victoria Park, and obviously as we live in Victoria Park Village that is very very close.
I always zoom past this one patch where the building has been converted into a hub of cafes. Hammocks, people ordering and then sitting dangling their legs over the edge of the canal – it’s a fluid eating and community space, and for some reason I’ve never had a chance to go. I was reading about Arepa & Co, one of the eateries there, and when my friend Clayton texted and said we should hang out, I thought why not over a Venezuelan brunch.
We managed to bag some hammocks.
We all ordered the same – a tin plate filled with chicken, guacamole, black beans, eggs cooked with tomato and onion, cheese and fried plantains. A little plate of cachapas, Venezuelan corn pancakes came on the side that we ripped and dipped and filled.
Guava milkshakes and beer for those needing a little hair of the dog.
We wandered up to Broadway Market, vintage shopping. I found a great 1950’s purple patterned dress, and a big leather and fur coat for winter for 5 quid. Dan at Climpson & Sons when I visited this week told me about their roasters, hidden away in the back streets of London Fields. They open it up as a bar and a restaurant with a woodfire grill over the weekend. We sat behind the rail station inside a coffee roasters for a few beers.
Then back to Viccy Park – there’s a pub almost inside the park itself that has been recently renovated and turned into a microbrewery. Australia still hasn’t gotten onto the sours yet, I’ve seen them a bit in the USA and they are becoming more common here. Basically a berliner weisse (a sour) is a wheat beer infected with lactobacillus, giving the beer a sour, yoghurty, sometimes cheese-like taste. It’s an interesting brew, that’s for sure.
We met some friends at the People’s Park Tavern, sitting in their big beer garden surrounded by the greenery of Viccy Park.
Great pose Dylan! Just the right one for drinking microbrew in a park in London.
