Lunch at Le Pain Quotidien
Tuesday, 3 May 2016
I am in the terrible habit of buying lunch every day. I know, it's expensive and I could save loads by bringing in food but it is seriously the highlight of my working day and I feel sad when I haven't got a nice lunch to look forward to. As much as eating nice food, I love to get out of the office for an hour and usually go exploring with Juanita. There's lots to be seen in Fitzrovia and recently, rather than visiting a new shop to pick up something exciting to go, we've been enjoying actually having a sit down lunch in a restaurant.
Whether it's google, or more recently, Instagram, I am always hunting for new places to visit and I recently came across Le Pain Quotidien, a cute little Belgium chain with a pretty delicious looking menu and after a quick search, I realised that we walk past our local one, on Tottenham Court Road every day. So today, we went in.
Whether it's google, or more recently, Instagram, I am always hunting for new places to visit and I recently came across Le Pain Quotidien, a cute little Belgium chain with a pretty delicious looking menu and after a quick search, I realised that we walk past our local one, on Tottenham Court Road every day. So today, we went in.
We arrived at 12:30 and the lunch time rush had already started - it was already packed out. We found a table by the window and setteled down for an hour. I could already tell this place was going to be good. There was a little takeaway counter at the back which was full of delicious looking bread and cake and some very yummy looking specials up on the board. As for the menu, it had some many perfect lunch time choices from salads to tartines (much more on this to come) and lots of hot options.
It was the first time I'd ever seen a whole section on the
menu just for tartines. Actually it was the first time I'd ever heard
of a tartine in the first place. I soon learned that an open topped
sandwich actually had a name, it was a tartine - and their choices
looked just my style - three of them had avocado on them! I went for chicken avo and feta and I think I made a good choice. Plus
it didn't make me fall asleep at work afterwards (this has definitely
happened) so maybe just once slice of bread at a time is the way
forward!
Piled high with toppings (which I was very pleased about as I have been known to shun bread altogether in the past when it comes to sandwiches.) The bread was smothered with smooth avo and topped with thick strips of chicken and chunks of tomato, then sprinkled with feta cheese.
I'm actually starting to love feta on things that aren't salads. The scattered pieces give a nice little kick of flavour.
Juanita ordered the potato and chorizo frittata. I didn't know what a frittata was either but turned out its similar to an omlette but much chunkier with much more filling. It came with a large plate of salad and a couple of slices of bread.
We also decided on hot chocolates and we're both very amused when Juanitas turned up with a teddy bear in the froth. It's much harder to do with soya milk so mine had a simple love heart but still, when your just expecting a plain drink to arrive it was a lovely, happy surprise that made us both smile.
We smiled a little harder when we realised the hot chocolate came with a little jug of more chocolate that you could add to flavour. No testing needed. We both tipped the whole thing straight in.
To finish off we picked up a tart each to take back to work! One lemon and one strawberry with thick whipped cream underneath. SO delicious and the perfect late afternoon pick me up.
