London coffee update, plus crabs!

I've been quiet for a while because life got in the way. Last week I'm not sure why, but this week it was because I was taking a training course that took over my life. W went off on a diving trip from Wednesday and honestly, thank goodness he did because I had my usual 2 hour commute there and back, plus course 9 to 5, plus 2-3 hours homework and revision in the evening. I don't mean to whine, cause I know that other people may have to work longer hours than this in more difficult jobs, but this was a bit of a shock for me!

The course was Prince 2 project management, something that I had been meaning to do for ages. I passed the Foundation exam on Wednesday and I took the Practitioner exam yesterday. I'm feeling reasonably confident, although not 100% confident, that I passed. I should hear in a few weeks.

The unexpected highlight of the week was the coffee and food. We were based in a building in Moorgate and walking from Moorgate tube station to the course, I had to pass the Harris + Hoole coffee shop on London Wall. I've written before about finding good coffee, and honestly words cannot praise too highly how good these guys are! I loved the little shop, I loved the staff (so friendly and welcoming, without being fake), I loved the chalk menu and drawings, I loved the cookies, I loved the lemonade, and above all I loved the soya flat white.

The menu: who wouldn't feel better about their day looking at this? 

The other highlight was the small food fair that we found under the Gherkin building on Thursday. Deciding what to have was really difficult.

This was basically one third of the choice. And indicates how many people were getting lunch there. 

I finally made my choice. 

I never had a soft shell crab before. I had the one with fennel, and it was excellent!

This is going to sound Pollyanna-ish of me, but I love finding the things that make an otherwise not particularly interesting week great. Prince 2 is pretty dry, so although I wanted to learn it and I'm glad I have, it was never going to be an exciting week. But the new location, the coffee, the food and some of the people on the course made it a really fun and interesting week, surprising even me!

The agony and the ecstasy

This is my reward. Yesterday I decided I definitely needed a sports massage. Nothing was in pain, but my hips, knees and IT band felt tight and achy. So I went to see Annabelle at Ambition Fitness. She went to work on my calves and quads and I am officially tight. It hurt more than acupuncture or the dentist, and I laughed throughout, mainly because I was paying for someone to torture me. 

Afterwards, I went swimming, which may have been a very good idea. At least I felt loosened up, and was able to walk properly to the station. The burrito is my reward and honestly was amazing. Hunger is the best spice and there's something about swimming that makes me very hungry. 

I am booked for more torture massage next week and I'm curious what difference it will make. In keeping with the 'look to long term goals, rather than short term', I'm willing to have a massage regularly if it helps keep me moving. We shall see...

Where can I get the best cup of coffee in Victoria, London?

Today’s random question comes from my recent experiences buying a cup of coffee on the way into work. Despite the fact that this is an expensive and not particularly environmentally friendly habit, I do love getting a cup as I walk to work from Victoria Station. There’s just something good about walking along with one, and in the colder months in the UK it’s a nice way to keep your hands warm as well. Bonus!

Not strictly much to do with coffee, but this is some 
Victoria Street street art and I rather like it.

So what are my criteria for a good cup? I try to consume minimal cow dairy products as they definitely give me stomach problems, so I tend to ask for soy milk.^[1]At home I drink much more almond, hemp, oat etc milks as I’m also not wild about drinking too much soy, but those don’t tend to be on offer in cafes.^[2]

I prefer flat whites. I’m not sure why, but I like the texture better than a latte, and the volume is right – much larger and I feel as though I’m drinking a milkshake. For me, a really good flat white is velvety, not too foamy, and even with soy milk, there’s a kind of creaminess.

I also have decaff most days. A bit like the milk, this isn’t a preference, but I quit caffeine while trying to get pregnant. Since I’m still trying, I’m mostly still off the caffeine. Weirdly, I’ve now got used to this emasculated flat white to a degree that one with real milk and real caffeine tastes odd.

In Victoria Station there are approximately 20 places where you can get coffee, including Cafe Nero’s, Costa, Starbucks, Pret and a few other places. Walk down Victoria Street and you pass at least another 20, including Starbucks and Pret twice each, Leon, and various other chains. If you have a Waitrose card, you can get a free latte (no flat white) but these are milk only and decaf, although that was a happy purse month the month before I quit milk.

In Strutton Ground, there is a stall called Flat Cap Coffee, which I call out because it’s pretty good, although sometimes the coffee tastes a little burnt. It’s also on the pricey side at £2.80 a cup.

While thinking about how to enjoy coffee on a semi regular basis without wasting too much money, I decided to research. This demonstrates just how nerdy I can get about this kind of thing. I had a little table set up on my iPhone and everything. Over a couple of weeks, I bought coffee at all sorts of different places, and I’m proud to present the following table:

Demonstration that I probably take this too seriously

Until I tried Ravello today, I had decided to go for Pret on the basis of both taste and cost, but Ravello surprised me and I may have to rethink...

What does this tell us? First that I really need to get out more. Second that coffee can be enormously variable in price and quality. I did a similar exercise a few years back when I had to travel to Milton Keynes every Tuesday for work, but based only on cafes in Euston station. 

And there for the captive market all the cafes were exactly the same price. Whereas in Victoria, where people are roaming about much more, the prices range considerably. Hmm, there’s some kind of paper in there.

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[1] The Dutch call coffee with milk ‘koffie verkeerd’, which basically means you’re drinking it wrong. I disagree, and I think this says a lot about the Dutch – no half measures, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things!

[2] There is a lovely little cafe near St Martin’s in the Fields that makes fresh almond milk every morning. I haven’t tried it yet, but I need to do that before I leave London.