lacquemant de lille, lille

such absolutely brilliant waffles at this tiny corner shop in lille. lille feels like a pretty tiny french town, full of gorgeous architecture and a pretty decent high street (enough to do some shopping, if you’d like).

we arrived here on a day-trip from paris, and were looking forward to meals of moules and frites here, especially after hearing my father’s recollections of great mussels when he last visited a few years ago. the proximity to belgium certainly reinforced our expectations of a good shellfish meal, but I have to say that what I was most excited by was the prospect of a good waffle.

recipease, london (the deli)

pretty little deli belonging to jamie oliver in the heart of notting hill. this is a sequel to my earlier post on the cafe at this same site – and I have to say that just as much as I enjoyed breakfast at the cafe, I loved walking about the deli. bread, pastries, jams, oils, chocolates, utensils – I mean you name (a food-associated) it, they probably have it.

these photos are just a tiny distillation of the huge space downstairs. there is a sort of giant island in the centre, where people take cooking lessons – that night there were a group of adults learning various methods of cuttings vegetables, such as dicing, matchstick-ing and julienning. surrounding this are shelves full of food: jamie-branded jars of jam and mustards and pickles, colourful bottles of oils and vinegars, and loads of straight-away-edibles such as chocolates and biscuits.