First Impressions 3: Tastes and Textures

So, London. I did live here as a child and have a memory or nostalgia of things, mostly certain foods and drinks.

I've been trying all this stuff that I remember tasted really good as a kid... mostly sweets and chocolate bars. For the larger part, um... maybe I should have left them as sweet taste-sensations in my memory. UGH!

Other things I never tasted because I was still a child. Of course I've had Guinness before, but there's a myriad of crazy drinks here.

<--- Pimms: a gin-based beverage which is served with herbs, fruit and soda. Verrryyy bitter.

Mentioning that I prefer a lighter, sweeter beer, someone served me a strawberry larger. Yes, a fruity, strawberry-flavoured beer. Blerch. And in some pubs, they have house-bourbons and scotches. So you don't ask for a Red Label and soda or a JB and coke.. they won't have it. You ask for a Bourbon and coke.
So far, the wines I've had haven't been impressive. Except for one expensive bottle Reto got once.

But there are things I'm loving:

- The cheese, Grommit, the cheese! Apart from lovely mature cheddar, there are all sorts of french and italian cheeses which I'm having a great time discovering.

- Ginger Beer.... man this stuff would be a hit in Brazil. Its a soft drink made of ginger. It's sort of fiery-hot, but also sweet and refreshing.

- The curries and Thai food... yummm. There's a great Thai restaurant near me. I went with Anna and a friend. It was INCREDIBLE. Really different from what I expected, but sooo good.

- dairy things. Milk tastes delicious here. Yoghurt is soooo creamy... and they have lots of lemon yoghurt, which I looove.

- Pies. Cottage pie, steak and kidney pies... Since Brazil is not a big pie country, I'm finding them pretty good.

- Corn... so sweet! Must come from the US.

- berries. lots of berries.

I got an expresso maker from Andrea and Reto (so sweet!), so I make my own lovely lattes at home. Eaten with Weetabix, or else crumpets and cheese and butter.

The supermarket doesn't have a very good selection of meat, but has some great ready-foods. And the supermarket discounts the price of things about to go bad... so you can get really cheap stuff at the last minute.

Toilet-paper: So strong you could write on it!

I'm having a huge problem with sweeteners and diet stuff. Apart from Diet coke, it's really difficult to find diet drinks, like Iced tea and juices. Plus the sweeteners here suck and the sugar is really grainy.

My hair and skin are suffering. The water is really hard, so if I blow dry my hair it gets all stiff.. and my skin is still a little confused at what's going on.

Well, tomorrow Anna lends me her camera. Mine is still broken from Antigua. So, I'll finally be able to take pictures from my day, around my neighbourhood and post them.

Sorry for taking so long to update! I promise I'll be better at this!