Another street food market you say?! Already too many doing the rounds you say?! NOPE! There are never enough street food markets. I am obsessed. I suppose it’s the huge quantity of delicious food confined in one space that makes me giddy! haha
When I received an email about Bite Street Food, I was intrigued and a little excited. On a Friday too! What better way to kick off the weakend early?!
I’ve done the food festivals at Southbank, Street Feast in Dalston, Urban Food Fest and so many others. But I can never be bored. I love how every stall is a personal homage to the vendor’s home town/country or food they’re passionate about. Speaking to them is always a pleasure because they really want you to try their food and tell them what you think. I’d love to take over a food stall one of these days and sell food for charity at one of the street markets. Anyone reading this who does something similar, please contact me!
Anyway moving onto the main show, Bite Street Food has been set up away from the regular Shoreditch/Dalston/hipster areas and moved further East to All Saints. It’s held on the last Friday of every month and this was the second one in London. Anyone familiar with the area would know about Chrisp Street Market. Although I’d heard about the area but I had never been and I had to drag a couple of my friends down from the wharf. It is conveniently located within Docklands so it’s an easy commute for anyone coming there. It’s great the organisers chose to stay away from the regular places to set up shop and are attracting crowds in a different and upcoming area. They’re doing a great job bringing the local community together, providing entertainment for kids as as well as adults and introducing something new to the locals.
Bite had a good mix of cuisines and stalls. It wasn’t overcrowded and had just the right amount of cuisines to choose from.
I LOVE Turkish food so my first stop was at this friendly stall selling traditional Turkish Gozleme. Gozleme looks like a folded crepe but wow the flavours are so intense and delicious. I tried the potato and coriander stuffed Gozleme which I would’ve finished in a heart beat if I didn’t have more stalls to visit. The best thing about them was everything was made fresh on the day including the homemade Bakhlawa that I took home with me.
I was recommended to try a burger and since I’d missed eating a burger on the National Burger Day, I thought I’d compensate for that by trying a burger made by the guys at Craft Burgers. Any street food would be incomplete without a burger! It was a decent burger, wouldn’t say it’s one of the best I’ve had but you won’t be disappointed either. I liked the fact they grilled the buns with the cheese and meat so the flavours were fully infused.
Gifty’s was representing good ol’ home cooked Jamaican food with Jollof rice and a hearty portion of chicken and lamb stew. It all looked mouthwatering but by this time I was too stuffed to try it.
If you’re a fan of hot dogs then there was a German sausage stall that was selling different types of sausages and it had quite a few people queuing up.
My friend had a lunch box from the Chinese food stall and did not talk properly until it was all finished. On asking whether it was any good, a vigorous nod followed by more eating!
The only stall selling desserts was Cat Food ‘Treats by Cat, not for cats”. She had a mouthwatering selection of cupcakes (oreos, peanuts butter, vanilla) and my favourite out of all, the brownies! They were sooo gooey and delicious as brownies should be. I munched on my brownie for rest of the afternoon. I was a happy bunny! (Follow Cat Food on Twitter @catfoodldn)
An unusual and cool sight was the guy manning the pedalled powered coffee machine. It definitely looked like a great workout! 😉
If all that wasn’t enough, there was Lebanese food, enticing sliders (I wish I had an extra stomach!), wood oven pizzas and even live music!
One of the stalls that definitely stood out was the Sticky Beaks stall. I loved the presentation of the stall with condiments presented in jars and a picnic basket.
There was a pot bubbling away with meatballs in a very rich looking tomato sauce. My friend and I looked at each other and we thought we HAVE to try this Moroccan meatball sandwich. So we ordered one and the delicious tomato sauce oozed and absorbed itself into the bread and the whole concoction was topped with crunchy almonds. It was a messy meal but it was definitely worth it! I obviously couldn’t finish all of it as it was a meal on its own. (Follow Sticky Beaks on Twitter @Sticky_Beaks)
All in all it was a great way to kick off the weekend early. The only thing I would suggest is they should do more marketing around the offices- a lot of people I spoke to did not know about the Bite Street Food. Hopefully this blog post would raise more awareness. And they definitely need to to include more daring and interesting food stalls like I’ve had in other street food markets for e.g. frog legs (YIKES!), Peruvian food, Ramen burgers etc. It helps develop a niche for the food market and generate more interest.
There you have it folks, the latest from the Street Food scene in London. To know more about Bite Street Food and when they’ll be setting up shop next, follow them on Twitter @BiteStreetFood
Check out the other Street Food markets I’ve been to:
See ya later! xx
