Acklam Road food market

There are endless markets and specialist food shops in London and the more I travel through the city, the more I realise they are too numerous to blog about. From Peckham to Shepherds Bush, if you need to buy food, clothing or material from a particular country, you are spoiled for choice.

Still, I will keep adding them to my blog when I have the time. So first to West London and to the little collection of food stalls under the Westway, where you can buy Portuguese, Polish and Venezuelan food, amongst other cuisines.

Polish Deli Dalston

I spotted a rather up-market looking Polish shop whilst on my way to an art gallery a few weeks ago.  Mind you it is in Dalston, so it's bound to be cooler than the average Polish shop in London.

Stage and Twist

Stage and Twist was a Tate Modern exhibition by two artists: Polish artist Anna Molska and Romanian artist Ciprian Muresan. Their work sought to highlight collective experiences in a post Communist era.

 This video installation of a greenhouse filling with foam whilst a man walks around it with a whip was my favourite thing from the exhibition.

Bar Polski

I have spent a lot of time in the Holborn area over the last 2 and a half years and also a lot of time on the internet researching places to visit for my world tour in London. Yet despite this I somehow managed to miss this little Polish bar, run by an Australian called John. I tried 3 different types of vodka and some Polish cider.

The only downside I can see to this bar is that their vodka menu is too extensive to be able to taste them all and remain in any sort of coherent state. A return visit is required I feel.

Pop Up Design

Even though the London Evening Standard can be a pretentious piece of rubbish, I do have to thank it for telling me about some of the entries on this blog, in particular this pop up design shop on Great Titchfield Street that was open from 20th to 26th June 2012.

Alas, the Jordanian designer had to cancel at the last minute (something about the items being made of concrete and a bit expensive to get to London from Jordan) so I didn't get any new countries.  However there were some cool things there from a range of designers around the world.

By Puzz'le Design, Geneva

 By kubedesign, architetture in cartone, Milan

 By Slam London

 

The shop also featured designers from Hong Kong, USA, Poland and the Netherlands.

World Poems on the Undergeround

Good old TFL! In one go, you've helped me to visit 3 countries that I've never been to in London before.

According to the little guide 'each poet contributes something unique and personal to the story of their lives and also of ours.' 

Keep your eyes peeled for poems from 44 countries on underground trains across London.

Also represented are: Afghanistan, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Barbados, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guyana, Hungary, India, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Nigeria, Turkey, USA

Lituanica

Lituanica sells products from Russia, Poland, Latvia, Germany and Romania according to their website. They have stores in Stratford and Barking.

www.lituanicaltd.com

Baltic Store in Barking

Sometimes I forget how big London is.  Then I go to somewhere like Barking and I remember again.

 

 I love the cute packaging of this Lithuanian soft drink.  Gira means Kvass, which is a malt kind of drink that I seem to have written about in every post where I've visited a Russian shop :)

 A Lithuanian flavoured cider - it has a very strong artificial cherry taste, but if you like that kind of thing then it's pretty good

Romanian mustard

Green Lane, Harringay

Green Lanes in Harrangay has a huge choice of Turkish shops and restaurants but you can find things from other countries too. Harrangay Food sells products from Bulgaria and Russia and the Russian shop opposite sells a lot of different types of Kvass – 500 ml bottles for 79p and a range of prices for the larger bottles.

Turkish wedding cake shop

Harringay Foods

Polish poetry in the underground

Poems on the Underground has been running since 1986.  There is currently a collection of Polish poems on display in some tube stations and I've spotted them at Oxford Circus and Holborn so far.

Russkij Bazar

This Russian, Polish and Ukrainian food shop in Cambridge Heath sells Kvass for 50p! They even sold the brand that I had to drink when I went to Assorti restaurant back in June.  Although Cambridge Heath is a bit far from where I live, it's much closer than Russia.

Red Pig

Red Pig is a Polish shop up in Willesden Green that sells a range of products, including meat, cheese, vegetables, alcohol and books.

I gave this chocolate wafer bar a try as it was on sale at 29p.  Very tasty!

Memoirs from a Cold Utopia

The London Print Works on Harrow Road currently has an exhibition of work from artists who used to live behind the iron curtain.  Their art will be on display until 18th November.

I'm going to split the exhibition up into several posts again.

Here we go....

LEGO concentration camps by Polish artist Zbigniew Libera.

Polskie Delikatesy Mleczko

There are a couple of branches of these shops on Uxbridge Road, Shepherds Bush.

Mira spots some Knorr products.

I was unadventurous and just went for a chocolate bar.  I wasn't expecting too much for 29p but it was really tasty.