The Food Market at Brent Cross

I've been coming to Brent Cross shopping centre long before they got rid of their giant fountain and the multicoloured glass dome above it- which is for a very long time indeed. I remember being about four or five years old and sitting by that fountain on one of the chairs that circled it, eating an apricot pastry with my mum and scuffing at the red carpet with my shoes. I also seem to remember it always being dark all the time, but in a stylishly moody way. Anybody out there got any old photos of Brent Cross from the early 1990's, incidentally? There seems to be a drought of them on the interweb.

Anyway, enough of my wistful nostalgia. Brent Cross has come a long way since then in its efforts to stay in favour of the general public's ever-changing whims, and I'd say it's done pretty darn well over the years. Twenty years on and I still find myself there several times a month, at least- I'd say that's a good sign.

The most recent addition to the Brent Cross experience is the Food Market, which runs every Friday and Saturday and launched about a month ago. It's no secret that food has become fashionable, particularly home-made cake and street food, and I've always loved street food, food markets and festivals. Usually I have to travel all the way to Borough Market to get my food market fix, so I was thrilled to hear that one was opening virtually in my own backyard. Even more thrilled to hear that a few of my favourite traders from Borough Market would have stalls too, such as Ion Patisserie and Comptoir Gourmand. No surprises from people who follow my baking blog Tashcakes! that two of my favourite stalls happen to be cake stalls...

You can check out a selection of the traders on The Food Market at Brent Cross website, although it's a bit frustrating that it's not a comprehensive list and, from experience, the list differs between Fridays and Saturdays. I'm hoping that with a little time they'll polish the main website up a little more to include this sort of information. I'll go easy on them though, since they still seem to be adding new traders to sell even more tasty things.

On with the photos!

I got talking to Claire of Claire's Fancy Cakes- a fellow North West Londoner, as it turns out- who had some gorgeous cakes, cupcakes and cake pops on offer. I have the greatest respect for people who go for it and open their own food businesses, and Claire's been selling her goodies for a couple of years now. All the best, Claire!

Noted.

You can see why I love Comptoir Gourmand.

And Ion Patisserie.

I also quite like Karantania Deli, which is normally found in the Southbank Centre's weekly Real Food Market. Check out their 8-layer cake on the top left hand corner of the photo! It's made with poppy seeds, apple, ricotta cheese and walnuts.

These looked deliciously moist. Next time, my pretties...

I thought this was a cute name! They sold falafel things.

Of course there was a lot more delicious savoury food such as curry, Caribbean and much more- but you all know where my loyalties lie in the battle between sweet and savoury. Plus I make it no secret that I'm pretty bad at capturing savoury food on camera- I never do it justice. In any case, it looks like I'll be continuing to visit Brent Cross for another good twenty years at least!

Chinatown: Open Air Stall

This wasn't actually 'my food', but my friend Min-Hwee's (as I was too full from jiaozi from the previous entry and I don't eat pork). Alas I don't read Chinese well enough to know the name of the stall if it has one, but it's one of about three hawker stalls in Chinatown at the moment that prepares fresh food in the open air.

Now that's one substantial crepe.

Where?

Soho, Chinatown, right at the end of Gerard and Lisle street where the pagoda is. The nearest tube station is Leicester Square.

What?

 A crepe filled with hot dog, youtiao (Chinese savoury doughnut stick), herbs, an egg, and chili and hoisin sauce. I tried a little bit of the crepe itself and it was very tasty.

This was quite a large amount of food, and only for £3. One of the several bonuses about the stalls (apart from the tasty food) is the value for money you get. I'll write a post about the baozi and egg waffles another time.

I loved watching the lady make it up! It started off like a regular French crepe, then the lady cracked and egg onto the surface and swished it around. She sprinkled some herbs on one side and flipped it over to paint hoisin sauce and chili sauce onto the other side, and then placed the hot dog and youtiao onto the crepe, folding it up and putting it into a paper bag to be eaten (I missed snapping the hot dog part because I was too busy laughing with another onlooker about how she was using a proper digital SLR camera to take awesome pictures, whereas I just had my little Samsung compact camera).

Visit these stalls if you want a substantial snack on the cheap: you won't be disappointed.