The Artisan Bagel East London Is Waiting For

If you already found it next to hopeless to graze through all the must eats of London Fields on a single Saturday, from Banhmi11 Vietnamese baguettes at Broadway Market to Lucky Chip burgers and Home Slice Pizza at Netil Market, your life just got a lot more complicated: The not-to-be-missed bagels at e5 Bakehouse, Ben MacKinnon‘s exceptional bread bakery under the railway arches beside London Fields station, are only baked on Saturday afternoons. And good as those bagels are when carried home for toasting at the next day’s Sunday brunch, topped with a schmear of creamed cheese and draped with fat-glistening Scottish smoked salmon, they are at their pristine best when consumed plain and hot – not more than 5 minutes and 5 metres from the e5 Bakehouse’s ovens.

The name “e5″ may come from the bakery’s Hackney postcode but I take it to mean “eat within five”. [Read more...]

My Tomato Bum Fetish

Having not yet fully grasped the contours of the seasons as they exist in the UK, I may have waited too long for the summer of 2008, which, had it ever arrived, would have marked my fourth summer since moving from New York to London.  But now that the two-digit dates of September are here, I am prepared to accept the obvious and pack up my unused, unwrinkled Agnes B. beige linen suit for ‘winter’. I will, nevertheless, hold off on my ‘autumn’ menus and cling like shrink wrap to tomato season for as long as it lasts. [Read more...]