The Sugar Bar

I was a birthday girl last Saturday. (big cheshire cat grin)

Knowing it was going to be my last week in London before I move back in with the -rents, and after reading Catty’s amazing post on Vintage Patisserie’s vintage tea service, this Madhatter-loving girl just had to throw one party like she meant it. Go out with a bang.

Don’t know what this Vintage Patisserie is all about? Hit up the link to find out more about Angel and her wonderful team who let you step back into the 20s. This includes gorgeous vintage teaware which she’s been collecting since forever, champagne teas, a wicked dress-up trunk, a personalized afternoon tea and decor to send your senses tingling and toes curling. Angel (whom you might’ve seen on Dragon’s Den), in all her sweet glorious fiery head of hair and personality to match, knows how to host and prep a party good. Leave it in her fairy godmother hands to spin you up a magical time; and she doesn’t even need a lame-ass magic wand to do that.

I was truly embarrassed to see my face on cupcakes and my name on little cubes of milky white chocolate. But every girl should be showered with attention and treated like a bit of royalty on her birthday, no? However, having me mates eat my face was a tad bit unsettling at times. The champagne spiked tea did help settle my nerves. The girls (and boys) had a jolly good time trying on stuff from the dress-up trunk. And so did I. It was so much fun and a good excuse to smear on more layers of red rouge than necessary. Win.

My recent addiction to Mad Men (now that I’ve found time to get back on track with television) has caused my longtime obsession with menswear, tuxedos and those funky accessories for the male gentry to go absolutely off the charts! This meant I was eyeing the tophats for forever. The red ones were pretty yum. If I could have gotten away with a size L tophat on my tiny head, I would’ve.

Was very pleased that Catty, Suyin, Sasa, Mowie and Bruce could join in the fun. Thank you for coming, my special foodies. Didn’t manage to get a good shot of them gorgeous ones but one thing I can say for sure….I’ve never been surrounded by so many beautiful people ever. Fact.

Time seems to have just melted by. A year has literally flown by. New friends made and memories treasured; loves been and gone; mistakes made and remembered. Now…a year wiser and a step into another chapter of my life.

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Ps. In the last few days of coffee/lunch/dinner dates with pals, and of course that dreaded packing and repacking of suitcases, here’s what I’ve been doing: admiring these beaute Pierre Hermé macarons Mowie and Bruce gave me! Muchos loveage! Honestly, I think I’m dying and going to heaven.

I’m big on café culture. Aside from serving good coffee (and food), cafés need to be spaces for relaxation and quiet thinking, a shelter from noise and city annoyances, a temporary rest stop to catch one’s breath and replenish body and mind. Hurwundeki ticks all these prerequisites.

Its counter that greets you is straightforward and honest. Neatly set and labelled with nothing out of place and not a stray crumb in sight. The smell of roasting coffee goes choo choo and away.

I love that what greets you first is the neat display of the café’s selection of savoury foods and pastries, although this makes choosing what to have just so much harder. Everything looks so good.

Here’s the entrance to more seating – into an area where everything, from your table to your chair to the wall of knick knacks and vintage finds are all for sale.

the food

I love this bit of wall here. Something about the weathering of the bricks was very enchanting. I took quite a few photos of it.

Parma ham, mozzarella and lettuce in ciabatta

Carrot cake slice

the rawness, the crudeness, the random equations of this space for creative discovery

Something about café spaces, with the customers that come and go, with the endless permutations of customer orders and for Hurwundeki, the ever-changing make up of their café space (since every bit of furniture and decoration is for sale), can make the observer feel quite so small and humble. A tiny flaneur in a big bad world. A big world with much to look at where every minute and mundane detail is worth one’s study and contemplation.

I rewind, reset, recharge my tired brain. With the empty cappuccino cup I’ve set back down, my insides come alive. The sound of the trains directly above (the café’s roof is the railway arch) at regular intervals reminds me of time passing whilst the old beaten furniture around me tells of time passed.

A quirky cafe with a haunted house/a-paedo-lives-here exterior (and that’s not a bad thing at all!) gives me flashbacks of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining the same time it makes me fall in love with it completely. I give you…Hurwundeki, the master of a boutique, hair salon and café.

[For more pictures of this wicked cafe, check out their website. It does it far more justice than I can ever try to capture.]

Hurwundeki cafe
299 Railway Arches
Cambridge Heath Road
London
E2 9HA

The English weather can be described here in one word, or rather one sound – a big fat SIGH.

My Monday blues can be summed up in one word, or also one sound – a big fat SIGH.

But both can be resolved with a brunch date, with a gorgeous friend of mine (and fellow Ferragamo fiend) to boot? Sorted.

So here we shared a lovely pot of coffee, sweetening it with shiny crystals of brown sugar straight from a recycled black treacle tin, stirring then sipping them nice and slow despite the gathering grey clouds. What I love about Albion Cafe, Bakery and Food Store is definitely the fact that you can sit outside on the tables and red chairs lining the street. It faces some quaint little shops on the peaceful and rather dignified Boundary Street. During the summer, it is simply wonderful to sit out in the sun on their glossy red coffee shop chairs next to wooden crates of fresh cauliflower, cabbages, etc. A great spot to leisurely have brunch whilst people-watching fellow East Londoners drifting through from Shoreditch High Street or Brick Lane. And remember my post on Fried Eggs & Sage? Yep, you’ll find Albion just turning the corner from the infamous Leila’s Shop.

Portobello Mushrooms on Toast

Mushroom Omelette

My lunch mate and I both ordered mushrooms. I admit it isn’t in the least bit exciting especially when the menu offers so much more, like great British caff food and even some pub classics (crackling & apple sauce, duck eggs on toast, bangers & mash, etc). It was very tempting I’ll tell you that though. Their drinks menu is extensive and impressive, especially the elderflower cooler which is a must-try IMHO. Anyhow, P and I are mushroom fanatics. And we strangely have similar cravings at the same time. Can’t understand that? Me neither. We’re as similar as night…and later that night (quoted from Monica of Friends, guilty as charged). We both have unhealthy obsessions with Ferragamos, long brown hair of nearly the same shade, even ugly spots in the exact same places on our faces come that funny time of the month, share a passionate love for red Chanel lipsticks and full-fat salted butter. And we both love to brunch! A friendship made to last.

Our gorgeous and friendly hunk of a waiter came with hot coffee pronto. Lunch followed fairly swiftly. My portobello mushrooms were very flavourful and juicy on brown toast, generously drizzled with olive oil and garnished with chopped parsley. P’s omelette was at least an inch thick and uber creamy, which she ate with brown toast and oodles of butter. Albion boasts quality ingredients and straightforward food. It is exactly that and more – soul-warming food, the type that makes you forget your daily worries, the wintry chills of autumn and the impending ugly of rain clouds.

It started raining in a bit. Grey, wet, nippy and generally miserable with a capital M. Felt a bit like wet dogs getting rained on en route to Brick Lane where P lives. But shortly before that, we had had some awesome food action. And so we were still happy and pretty mushroom-smug, no doubt about that. When you’ve got good food in your belly, it’s nearly impossible to be grumpy. Don’t you agree?

Albion Cafe, Bakery and Food Store
2-4 Boundary Street
Shoreditch
London
E2 7DD
• http://www.albioncaff.co.uk •