I am at the Sky Garden, 525ft above London. It is the highest I’ve ever been in London, short of in a plane. The city looks compacted at such height, as if everything is within a hand’s span reach. You also realise how many buildings have roof-top gardens. Not as many as Paris, but still.
The local M&S has shut down, with a sad, poignant message on its window. Luckily, I had earlier bought some chocolate bourbon biscuits (35p, 150g) from M&S and let me tell you, they are the finest shop-bought bourbons I’ve tried. Their shape is stouter than standard issue, but they taste delicious. I ate three while looking out over London pointing out where I worked, once lived, was born. None of it looked far.
Then to Soho, to buy brownie biskies at Cutter and Squidge: a pair of soft chocolate biscuits sandwiching a brownie which you do indeed squidge into submission (from £26.99 for 6). Next door we popped into Lina Stores to buy ravioli for dinner (nduja and scamorza).
The next day was about bubble tea from Ding Tea in Islington. We had a classic chocolate tea with tapioca pearls, the sort of thing, had you been served it at school, you might have rebelled at. But iced and for £3.50, it tasted like liquid chocolate pudding. It saw me most of the way home to Suffolk.
Keeping the tea theme I had a bar of Fu Wan’s Red Jade Tea (£8.95, 45g) on arrival home, as I opened all my post. I’m really starting to appreciate this Taiwanese make. Each bar is a real ‘taste sensation’ (I loathe this phrase, but it’s justified here). The chocolate and tea perfectly complement each other, delicate, beautiful and expertly judged.
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