harrod's food hall fun

after we were done snickering at the guards at buckingham palace, we decided to take advantage of one of the pedicabs that was sitting there waiting for someone to notice them.  we wanted to go back to harrod's to see what we could find in the food halls for dinner, and it just seemed like the easiest way to get there without having to wait for another uber or hoof it over on foot.  i decided to take a time-lapse video of our ride:

touristing on a weekday is pretty fantastic, because as crowded as it had been a couple of days ago here, it was practically a ghost town on a tuesday evening.

this gave us plenty of time to browse around and check things out before making our selections for dinner.  the only bummer is that there isn't any actual seating here - you buy your stuff and then take it home or wherever to enjoy.  that's okay though...we still had lots of fun looking around.  the charcuterie section was our favorite.

you could find jesus there, even.

the only experience with vienna sausages i've ever had is with those cans with the pop-top lid crammed in with that weird meat jelly crap like you find in spam.  i didn't get any of these, but i was amused.

there were things like this, too:

look how pretty their vegetable display is!

and the fishmonger:

at the "pasta evangelists" station, there was fresh pasta that you could either pick up to cook at home, or they would do it for you and top it with sauce of your choice.

i decided to order the truffle & burrata ravioloni topped with an amazing browned butter sauce, and while she was working on my order i wandered over to the deli counter to see what deliciousness could be found there.

the hub met up with me then, having ordered his fill of freshly sliced meats from the charcuterie counter, and we went straight over to the cheese counter.

i managed to hold myself back from picking up this reusable grocery bag (although now that i'm back home i kind of regret it because i would've used the hell out of that thing).

we checked out with the help of a delightfully sweet cashier who told us that there were benches right outside the door where we could sit and enjoy our goodies.  the hub happily dug into the hand roll he'd gotten:

and my truffle & burrata ravioloni was just as delicious as i'd imagined.

 i washed it down with another bottle of flavored milk:

and because i'm a sucker for most things truffle, i'd had the hub get me a serving of thinly sliced truffle salami.

these chips were, sadly, not as tasty as i'd hoped.

the benches were not exactly comfortable, and so we decided to take the rest of our groceries and hop into a cab back to the hotel.  we sat on the bed and spread everything out and went to town while we watched something on the food network (which was kind of the only thing that was remotely interesting on british tv).

i finished off my food hall dinner with this praline tart.  hazelnut sponge topped with harrod's chocolate mousse and hazelnut praline.  so good.

we had such a good time going through those food halls and browsing through the shelves and counters and picking up this and that, and it kind of reminded me of when we go to the farmer's market by the grove.  everyone usually goes their own way and picks up whatever sounds good, and then we convene at a table in the middle and grub down on our selections.

it's always an adventure.