Asian Cravings and Markets

We booked our flights and the rental car today for the wedding in June. I found a really cheap B&B in the same little village where the reception will be. It saves us a 12km trip to the nearest big hotel, which would be 40 Euros by cab . I called the cab company of that particular area and the person on the phone was really helpful and kind, he gave me some addresses of hotels to check out online. The nearest hotel would've been either Wieringermeer or Schagen and the latter was booked already. A room at Wieringermeer would've been another 93 Euros. So I called the lady of the B&B and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the room was available. The perfect place to stay, in the middle of nowhere, in farmer country!

I needed fabric to sew two new dresses, and a zipper to adjust and finish my dress for the wedding. So we went to Ridley Road Market, to this store called 'Dalston Mill Fabrics'. An Aladdin's cave to be explored, so many fabrics and colours, zippers, threads. I bought a dark chocolate satin and a light grey satin, thread and zippers so I'm all set to finish the dress for the wedding and start the other two in time. This store was situated next to the Ridley Road market, a cool market, we were a bit late but we'll probably go there again. I need to look for bamboo steam baskets since mine are falling apart of intensive use. I also need to look for ingredients for Dim Sum, since I have been craving this and Sushi lately. I think I will make some Sushi next week and buy fresh tuna from this market.

We then rushed off to Lakeside, A. had bought the wrong size of shoes so we had to go there to swap them, they only had one pair left unfortunately, the ones on the shelf, so one shoe was slightly more cracked than the other. I went to Marks & Spencer and finally found the pants [cropped leg] that I have been looking for, so I bought two of them in black and I ordered another pair in a light grey tartan fabric [very nice!]. I will have to collect them next Saturday from Ilford. Because I have been craving for Asian food for days we decided to order in Chinese. Unfortunately Dim Sum is never on the menu, well, not the original Dim Sum, only starters... Anyway it was good but I will still make some Sushi next week!!!

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Ridley Road Market
Open: Mon-Wed, 9am-3pm, Thu 9am-midday, Fri/Sat 9am-5pm, Dalston Kingslane Railway Station.

About Dalston - London Borough of Hackney
Known to locals as Dalston Market, this is the place to come if you've a penchant for Asian, African, Caribbean and Mediterranean food stuffs. Sadly, the market has made headlines in recent months for all the wrong reasons (allegedly illegal bushmeat is easily obtainable if you're a regular to the market) although that said, it's still a good place to come for cheap fruit 'n' vegetables, exotic spices and Asian specialities. Ridley Road market is a truly great place to walk around; it bustles, it jostles, it smells, it's noisy, it tests your patience, it tires you out, it's completely fascinating, at turns its comic and then somehow seems poignant. In short, it's alive.

The mixture of races rubbing shoulders with each other is incredible: Indian, Chinese, Jamaican, old time Londoners (ie, pre-yuppy), Turkish, African - they're all here, buying provisions, chatting away in all manner of languages and dialects. And the food on sale is amazing: dates, custard apples, big fat avocados, pomegranites, sharon fruit, mangos, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, puna yams, bags of garlic, thousands of chillis, a whole array of scary blackened smoked fish heads, and even rolls of dried, cured cow skin. The various fishmongers sell between them fresh tuna, coley fillets, live crabs, squid, octopus, salmon, cod, tilapia, skate, red snappers and psychadelic parrot fish.

You take as you find, speak of what you see, and after many years of walking down Kingsland Road, ending up at Ridley Road market, one can never tire of the amazing vibe of the place, its myriad faces and languages all competing with the sound of the market traders shouting back at you, selling they're bits and bobs, rubbing they're hands together to get the warmth back in, sipping hot steaming cups of tea. Ridley Road market, and by extension, Dalston itself, is a great place; busy, colourful, unpretentious, noisy, real and alive. If you can see beyond its scruffiness, you might well find yourself falling hopelessly in love with the place.
© My Hackney
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