Monday 19 March 2012

Borough Wines, L'Entrepot, Dalston Lane, E8

Heart Burn, Hiccuping Bump, constant need for a wee, it must be 4am. Yay!... I know I shouldn't complain as soon, I'll be up every 2 hours, but 4am? Really? I'm now completely wide awake and don't want to be . Today is Midwife day so maybe thats why I'm having trouble sleeping too. Last time we went the Midwife asked me "Did you have a large stomach before you were pregnant". Rude! God knows, what insult I'll get today. "Have you always had a weak chin / big cheeks / a slightly bung right eye?". It seems to be another given, along with people touching your stomach, that people feel they have the right to comment on your bump. Another example, was the man in the suit Hire Shop on Oxford Street last week. I had accompanied my friend to Moss Bros to try on a suit for a function and ended up having the following conversation with the suit measurer (not sure that's his official job title, but that's what he was doing):

Man: When are you due?
Me: May.
Man: Really?
Me: Yes.
Man: Is it twins?
Me: Er . . . no. . .
Man: Really? Are you sure?
Me: Yes. I think so. It only had one head and body on the scans.
Man: Oh, right. . .
Me: *Silence*
Man: But you're massive!
Me: And you're rude!

The thing about these sorts of conversations is that I can't forget them. Even though I am a fairly bright person (fairly, not really) and know that everyone is different and all babies are different I can't help but feel a little bit paranoid when people say things like this to me ("You're a bit big" / "Aren't you small?", believe it or not I have also had this said to me too so you can see why I might be a bit confused). Suit measuring man must know what he's talking about otherwise why would he have said that to me? He must be some sort of expert, he does have a tape measure after all and would know all about measurements, even fundal heights. Or maybe he was just a prat.

Anyway, its not all babies, babies, babies over in E8. On Saturday we finally made it into the NEW place that opened up less than 1 minute walk from the flat and the place that brought me to tears last weekend when I was told what it was.

So, may I now present to you 'Borough Wines - L'Entrepot' on Dalston Lane. Hurrah!!

Just to reiterate, this is going to be:

An Off Licence.
A Coffee Shop.
A Bar with food.
And eventually, a florist.

All it needs to add is a bit of Karaoke and this will be my dream place.








As we learnt last week, the man and lady who will run it are extremely friendly (I think they are Australian which is pretty much our favorite type of person) and the hot chocolate was delicious.


They've done a great job transforming, what I'm sure was, a bit of a nasty space and subsequently it feels light, airy and clean.

Not only can you buy wines in their own bottles but you can also buy empty bottles for £2 to get re-filled as and when you run out of booze. They had a really busy night on Friday night apparently and we had hoped to go along but I was asleep by 6:30pm, so to make up for it, and also to support them, I bought a bottle of Viognier.


As I have previously mentioned, I have been virtually tee total since last August. 4 sips of vino blanco on Christmas Day and 1 small glass last week, so I don't know what I was doing buying a whole bottle of the stuff. My wine tolerance has completely dwindled away to nothing. Half a small glass later and I had passed out. The shame!

Anyway, I think it's great. And I think once the food gets going, it could be my new favorite place. I really hope it does well as it deserves too. I'm so happy about this place opening that it's already making me think that maybe we shouldn't move after all. Does the baby really need it's own room or could it sleep in the shed? I practically grew up in a shed (my friend and I took over my Dads shed when we were about 14 and we used to sit and write poetry, talk about boys and smoke B+H in it) and it never did me any harm. . .

Then yesterday, we also tried out a couple of other Cafes nearby which we hadn't been too before. Thank god for all these new Coffee shops to visit as without weekend hangovers to struggle through I really don't know what we would be doing with our time at the moment.

We went to meet our friends who had recently had a baby and they suggested meeting at the E5 Bakehouse in London Fields. The E5 Bakehouse (in E8...?) make bread, its delicious, it's not cheap costing around £3.50 per loaf, but its delicious none the less. They do bakery courses, my friend did one, he said it was great. They do not however, make good hot chocolate. And have VERY chipped mugs. Chipped mugs  are, in my view, unacceptable, along with people that don't give you their seat on public transport, people that throw rubbish on the floor and nuclear weapons.


"Underneath the arches . . . tra la la . . ."


The bakery delivery bike. Great.

The cafe with the bakery behind.

A naked bottom! On a Sunday?! What an outrage!


Bread for sale.

My chipped mug...

 ...The Wigs cracked and stained mug. I've seen Roman mugs that have been excavated in the Jorvik centre in better nick than this thing.

I'm also not sure about this communal jam situation or the red stuff with cling film on, but like I said, delicious bread. To confirm bakery = good, cafe = bad.


So after a watery brown hot drink with lumps of powder in, reminiscent of one I bought from a Sports Centre vending machine in 1986, our friends arrived and we moved off next to door to the Happy Kitchen to start again.






This place was brilliant. It was full of healthy products to buy (Granola, freeze dried fruit, nuts, seeds etc) but also had some delicious looking cakes and breakfast options.


 We all had pancakes and although breakfast for 2 came to about £17 it was definitely worth it and I would highly recommend this place. It even had a toilet, one of The Wig's favorite things in a cafe.



So all in all a good weekend of Cafe recce's. 2 good ones out of 3 isn't bad at all. 

1 comment:

  1. I will def. try the Happy Kitchen great pics as usual on your lovely blog, hoping you are keeping cool and well,a ghost reader.

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