Lunch in London

You will have a GREAT time, I am sure! By the way, I am a knitter, too; the name of the yarn shop? I'd love to know. I am going to London in October and will be sure to visit it! Have a great trip!

I'm going to be checking out Loop. They are the only store in the UK that carries Wollmeise, so I'm hoping they'll still have some Friday!

You are not specific about when you are meeting your Father-Not-In-Law. Are you meeting at lunchtime? If so, he will have a pretty good idea where you two should go for lunch. Are you meeting him later in the afternoon? Then ask him where you should go for lunch; he lives there; he will know. Also, you could just walk around there in Camden Passage and look for a place that looks good; an upscale pub or a little sandwich shop/bakery. Personally, I would take some snacks with me on the plane in your purse or backpack, because you never know in this situation where you will be when you get really hungry.

Checking my dining map, I see several restaurants a couple of blocks south of the area you asked about. Peasant, Moro, Clerkenwell Kitchen, Modern Pantry, and Cicada are listed. You can do a Google map search to locate these, and enter these names into tripadvisor.com to see the reviews. These are all straight down Upper St./St. John St. (A north-south street which changes names as it crosses the A501 road) from Camden Passage. Hope this helps.

Thanks, Rebecca. There's a store I specifically want to go to while in London (it's a yarn store--I'm a knitter), so we agreed that would be the best plan of attack. I am going to ask him when exactly he will be getting off work to see if I have time to explore a bit or if he'll be off work at lunch and meet me right away. He's still somewhat new to London, so I'll have him ask his friends out there for suggestions as well.

Thank you! I will check it out. Here's an article from a knitting blog I sometimes go to. I think you will enjoy the story of this woman taking a train in Germany just to find Wollmeise yarn! And beautiful pictures of the yarn and shop. They have tons of Wollmeise! http://iwouldratherbeknitting.blogspot.com/2009/08/wollmeise-yarn-how-i-love-you.html Notice she does not tell us WHERE this yarn shop is. Only that she changed trains in Nurnberg. She's keeping the location a secret. But I think this is the shop she refers to, and they have online ordering: http://shop.strato.de/epages/61425309.sf/en_US/?ObjectPath=/Shops/61425309/Categories/%22Der%20Laden%22 Good luck with your quest for yarn, and have a great time in London!

I am now seeing if I could do a weekend trip to Germany to go yarn shopping if/when I go back to Portugal in the summer. Oh dear... It will be some costly yarn! But it's not like a side trip to Germany would be a BAD thing, would it?

No! That would be a good thing! You could even do the Rick Steves "Germany, Austria & Switzerland in 14 Days" trip and visit the yarn store as a side trip.:) That would be one fantastic trip! Note I have now added the store's website to my posting. (Did a Google search for them.) Their home page has directions to the store in Germany, street by street, and they do mail order or online ordering. Their address is at the very bottom of their page.

I can highly recommend Ottolenghi which is on Upper Street between the Angel and Highbury and Islington tube stations. It has absolutely fabulous salads and desserts. It is one of my favorite places in London, and I always make a point to get lunch here on every trip. Here is their website: http://www.ottolenghi.co.uk/ Keep in mind, that you probably won't be hungry when you first arrive since you will arrive at 2:30 am California time and will have been fed on the plane so I'd suggest you not bother to stop at the airport. Get something in London.

After flying in from california you are going to be more tired than hungry, but you will probably last until evening. You probably will not want something fancy for lunch. Wherever you are in London you will find sandwich and tea/coffee places or pubs. Will not be a problem

You underestimate my stomach's powerful hunger ;) I made it through to about 11:00 PM last time I flew in to that part of Europe (I was going straight on to Iberia that time), but man alive was I hungry! I find the flight back to California much harder to shake.

I assume you will take the Express train into Paddington Station. Within that station, there are several cafes and sandwich shops. My favorite is Bagel Factory. Yummy sandwiches, cheap.

Why not grab something at Heathrow that you can munch on during the ride into London? Then, ask your boyfriend's father to suggest someplace near his workplace. That's almost certain to be better.

Rick mentions a good place to eat in Heathrow in his London guidebook. It's the Food Village self service cafeteria in T-3. You will be in Terminal 3, right? So you may give it a try, especially if you're starving when you get off your plane. Also, j.c.'s suggestion gets my vote. Have a great trip!

I don't fly much any longer and I understand that most budget airlines don't feed on short haul. But don't long haul airlines feed any more? I used to fly transatlantic a lot and never remember arriving hungry. You must have some stomach...

I don't really fly budget airlines (you can't fly "budget" to Europe from the west coast of North America!), s I am decently fed on airlines. I just am the sort of person who does best by eating regularly.

Nigel, every time I've flown to London from the east coast of the U.S., we folk in steerage were fed, free of charge.