Soho, Hyde Park, Indian Food, The Thames at Night

Posted by Andrew on Sep 19, 2010 | 2 comments

Today we did much less walking than we have the previous couple of days. We woke up early and had breakfast, orange juice and coffee at TomTom, but this time it wasn’t croissants. We had eggs benedict which was wonderful. We sat for a while at the little communal table before going back to Mickey and Cheryl’s flat where Andrew helped get some things ready for the move. Did I mention they are moving to a new place very soon? We have been trying to be as helpful as possible as we know it can’t be easy to have houseguests while you are trying to pack up. After that we took a cab to a tapas restaurant where Cheryl was meeting up with a few friends from San Francisco. They were very nice and lunch was excellent. I had sweet corn and blueberry fritters with chorizo and a salad of baby greens and Andrew had a specialty egg dish that was basically a poached egg sitting on top of some yogurt, drizzled with chili oil. We both enjoyed it very much. After lunch we headed off to do some shopping at John Lewis, a department store much like Macy’s in the States because Cheryl thought they might have some unique British branded items that weren’t too touristy. She was right. What a great selection. We ended up getting a few things there and then splitting with Mickey and Cheryl so we could do some more shopping. They pointed us to the Soho neighborhood with lots of ecclectic shops and fun stuff. If you have ever heard of Liberty of London, this is where they have their main store. It was great although we tried to go over one street where the mainstream shopping is (Banana Republic, Armani, Gucci, etc.) and the amount of people trying to navigate the sidewalks was insane. They were everywhere and we could hardly move. After that we decided we needed a little wide open space so we walked to the Barclay’s bikes and hopped on for a ride through Hyde Park. We saw the Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park where people can go to protest and speak their mind to anyone who will listen. After riding through the park and along the large lake that runs through the center called The Serpentine, we returned the bikes and got on the Tube as our dinner reservations were looming. Mickey booked us a reservation at a modern Indian restaurant with small plates called Imli. We showed up 20 minutes early and were seated right away. We took one look at the menu and immediately knew that we wanted a taste of everything so we ordered the tasting menu which consisted of six small courses plus dessert. The food was out of this world. It was the best meal here we have had so far and we both stuffed our faces like nobody’s business. We couldn’t even decide which courses we liked best as they were all phenomenal. And the fig and ginger ice cream that came as dessert was to die for. Just amazing. After we were nice and stuffed we hopped the Tube again to Big Ben and the Houses or Parliament because Andrew had been wanting to take some night shots. They came out wonderful as you can see below. Well, we’re once again pretty tired and calling it a night. Au revior, Chelsie and Andrew