3 Days in London

Tudkin Flavors of Malaysia.

If the Tube is working properly take a Central Line train from Nottinghill Gate to Lancaster Gate ( 5-10 mins). Exit and walk to Tudkin. Maybe a 10 minute walk.

Now popular I’d suggest making a reservation as the place is small. Not cheap but not insanely costly either.

Near Notting Hill we had a good meal at Prince of Wales, 8 Kensington Church St. If you like Thai food, then look into the restaurant at The Churchill Arms, 119 Kensington Church St. Reservations are pretty much required for it.

Elsewhere, we had a good meal at The Old Bank of England, 194 Fleet St. Near the Gloucester Rd. Tube stop are Steak and Company and The Hereford Arms, South Kensington. Reservations are recommended for the latter two restaurants. Steak and Company is a pricier restaurant compared to the others I mentioned.

East End street art tour by Alternative London! https://alternativeldn.co.uk/london-street-art-tour/
Everyone I know who’s done this has loved it. It’s a great way to experience a neighborhood a lot of tourists miss. It revolves around Brick Lane, which is awash in good Indian restaurants. Each restaurant has hawkers out front, and Londoners seem to take the banter/negotiations as part of the experience, like dinner theatre. My personal favorite has been Eastern Eye Balti House. Spitalfields Market and some good pubs this way too.

In Notting Hill, the Ladbroke Arms, The Windsor Castle, The Churchill Arms have a lot of admirers.

Re- the first suggestion- the Central Line is currently having problems due to problems with the engines on the trains- more properly the traction systems- but engines will do. A number of trains are out of service, leading to long intervals between trains and overcrowding.

This is expected to last for at least a month while new parts are delivered and installed.

East End street art tour by Alternative London! https://alternativeldn.co.uk/london-street-art-tour/

My favourite pastime at the moment is spotting "10 Foot" tags. They're everywhere when you start to look for them. A Google search will bring up more about 10 Foot for anyone interested.

Somewhere I've mentioned a few times on here is Upper Street in Islington. It's off the tourist beaten track a little but I rate it as one of the best places for walk ups for dinner in London. There's a range of very highly rated restaurants for all tastes and budgets. Plug it into Google Maps and you can see how many places get good reviews and ratings in that one area. People say you can't get good Mexican in London but I've been to Wahacca, Desperados, Chilango and the original branch of the Tortilla chain in Upper Street and they were all good enough to satisfy my admittedly uneducated tastes.

Drummond Street in Euston is somewhere else to plug into Google Maps for food. There's several very high quality, budget friendly Indian restaurants, specialising in buffet service. It's too many years since I've been out there for me to recommend anywhere specific, but you can go by online recommendations and pick somewhere and I'm sure you'll get something really authentic that most visitors might miss out on.

I've taken to watching the Youtube channel "Gary Eats" recently for restaurant reviews. He's covered lots of obscure places in London, which you may enjoy if you like watching that sort of stuff for info.

Ach! GerryM we were at Euston in December desperate for a good lunch. If only I had known!

we were at Euston in December desperate for a good lunch.

I thought you might like it if you liked Brick Lane. Doesn't have the hype-men to sway your decision either :)

On Upper Street again, there's a branch of Chicken Shop. Borrowing the name from a ubiquitous feature of every London neighbourhood (maybe not Chelsea), they take fried chicken to another level. I've eaten at their branch in Soho (Wardour Street) a couple of times since they opened two or three years ago. Right at the high end of fast food and very tasty.

https://chickenshop.com/

Thanks for all the great ideas.
Getting excited about the trip we arrive in London on the 20th, so if there are more ideas feel free to share.

Go to The Ledbury restaurant . Will cost …. a lot, but book now and enjoy.

I realized that I never posted any post-trip report to share some of the little bit of knowledge I picked up during our whirlwind trip to London in February. As I have more questions for another trip, I thought I should share a couple things before asking more of all the great folks who use this forum.

We ended up at The Hayden Pub and Rooms for our lodging. https://www.haydennottinghill.com
Nice location in Nottinghill, friendly staff, and a clean, quiet room.

As we'd been in London before we opted for a few unusual destinations. The weather was drizzly at times, but only really rainy one day. Given that it was February, I think we did ok for weather. All that to say that some of the hoped for meandering walks weren't as fun as we'd hoped, but it was still worth checking out lesser visited areas of London.

We went to Richmond -- yes for the Ted Lasso connection -- but if it wasn't drizzly we'd have spent a lot more time wandering around the cute shops. From there we took the Overground to Hamstead Heath for another drizzly walk. Has a great lunch by a cozy fire at the Spaniard's Inn https://www.thespaniardshampstead.co.uk/#/ and finished up the day at the British Library. Nice display of the library's highlights of British literary, musical, and entertainment culture.

We went in the completely opposite direction the next day to visit the Museum of the London Docklands in East London near the Canary Wharf. https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museum-london-docklands I highly recommend this free museum if you have the time. Personally as someone whose academic studies have had a lot of focus on African American and immigrant history -- it was super interesting to see how the museum handled some similar topics. We also were able to catch a random walking tour offered by the museum that afternoon of the Poplar neighborhood featured in the series, "Call the Midwife" -- it was pouring rain from most of it, but again cool to see a different side of London.

We also did the Tower of London plus a walk from there to St. Paul's and though the streets of the City of London.

We tried to eat near our lodging as much as possible. So one night we were at the delightful Tiroler Hut, https://www.tirolerhutrestaurant.co.uk -- reservations needed even in February at this family owned little spot with authentic Austrian food, live music, and attentive waitstaff. The owner spent time at each table -- something my husband loves. We also found another pub near our lodging whose name I forgot and a funky tiki bar -- Trailer Happiness -- https://trailerh.com -- because why not?

Our final morning we checked out the markets of Portobello Road -- it was Saturday so fairly busy, but that was also our best weather day. While there we had a great breakfast at Electric Diner https://www.electricdiner.com

As a final bit of information, if you haven't already discovered for yourself, using the Tube was easier than ever for us. We could just tap and pay at the turnstile with our iPhones. The Apple Pay app worked easily every time, so no need to even pull out a credit card to tap or buy an Oyster card to keep refilling. Given how much and (how for we rode the Tube system) it was one less thing to worry about.

Thanks for reading -- I hope some of this was helpful.

Unless things have changed significantly the restaurants in Brick Lane are really just tourist traps and the fact that they have hawkers outside only probably confirms that. Good restaurants don't need to do that. There are some very good "Indian" restaurants in the general area but they are not on Brick Lane. Tayyabs is justly famous and you will probably have to queue to get in.

Yes, we knew to avoid any restaurant "hawkers" -- and wanted to get good Indian food in the East End, but it was pouring rain and we were soaked from our walking tour that day. But thanks for the suggestion for next time -- and for others who might be there in more favorable weather.

Thanks for the report. London is a great European city to return and to further explore. Learned decades ago, always changing, always the same. It’s the different neighborhoods, cuisines of the world, the green space, polite and helpful people, theatre, delightful pubs and free museums.

Been watching it evolve since 1972. My home away from home. If I won the lottery (1st I’d have to play it) I’d invest in property or simply reserve a month’s stay in a BnB, apartment or hotel suite. “ oh wouldn’t it be lovely? “

Glad you enjoyed your 36 hours!!!

Excellent suggestions here already! And of course you already know what you are doing. :-)

I would only add that if you are staying in Notting Hill, a lovely gastropub to try is The Cow, at 89 Westbourne Park Road. It’s small, cozy, convivial, very local, and has WONDERFUL food.

Hoping you have a blast, wherever you choose to go!

Yes, we very much enjoyed our short time in London. I think because of the rain, we took a more leisurely pace and just enjoyed being in London without too many "must do" lists.