EMILY ISA BAKER

I was lucky enough to attend the Boxpark press launch last Wednesday (I know I know, I'm a rubbish excuse of a blogger) but it was probably the best event i've ever attended. Sorry but a banquet of food from pretty much all of the traders here at Boxpark... What could be much better!

Started off with some fruity jar cocktails from Casso.

The set up was extremely cute, big black and white balloons and long tables in the middle of the dining hall (if it's not called a dining hall then it should be) around the outskirts of the dining hall was all the food traders.

This was the menu, 30 different things to try! We were full before most of the mains had come out which we felt extremely bad but made sure we tried everything!

This dish from the 'starters' was from Mud Cafe, a corn fritter served with smashed avocado, poached egg, chilli jam and pea shoots. Honestly Mud are fantastic, Rakesh and I headed to their Tooting restaurant back in March and didn't stop going on about it for ages so we were extremely excited to find out they were coming to Croydon.

This was a crispy rice cake with prawn, picked jalapeno, tobiko and chicken floss from Bang Bang Hawker Kitchen, very tasteful.

Beef and spring onion dumplings from Mamalan

Some tender steak from Fixed

Oh my goodness Coqfighters is one of my favourites, vodka and sesame battered Korean style wings were so tasty. Them giving us our own paintbrushes to sauce them to our own taste was a touch!

Dead Hippie French's Mustard-fried beef patty, dead hippie sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles from Meat Liquor

A tasty sweet pork gua bao from Bao Bao

We also went to The Eskimo Dance event on the Saturday which was unreal, it felt hard to believe that we were actually in Croydon still. As a 20 something growing up in Croydon I can vouch that this is what us youngsters have been needing for awhile, somewhere to hang out with friends surrounded by amazing food and great tunes.

*Edit - When you go, check out Nanny Outers the Guyanese Roti House, amazing food and friendly staff and expect more food features from Boxpark.

Where we stayed, where we ate and what we did...

It has now been three weeks since we got back from our three week adventure in Mexico, and as I sit here looking through the photographs I still can't believe we went. I've always wanted to explore Mexico, maybe it was because I love Mexican food but to me that is a perfect excuse to go. Firstly we flew to Mexico City and was there for four days, then flew to Merida for four days, coach to Cancun for two days, coach to Playa Del Carmen for two days and ended our trip with ten days in lovely Tulum.

Mexico City, for me it was a city that could easily be called home... it reminded me of New York mixed with Barcelona (every time I go somewhere new I can't help but compare and find similarities.) The streets were big and green and the eateries were endless, honestly annoyed we didn't stay there for a bit longer! Mexicans hardly speak English here we found but we're extremely lucky we have google translate at our fingertips.

Like usual I'll be doing guides but not for all the places in Mexico, just Mexico City, Merida and Tulum.

Why brunch out when you can brunch in...

First let me bore you, as you may or may not know I am 24 and work part time in retail. Working 9 - 2pm 5 days a week... Recently i've been doing tonnes of over time for holiday spending money. I've worked 12 days in a row and today is my day off, i've been looking forward to this since the first day of the twelve days. I've missed doing a lot of things but one of them is brunching, so I planned ahead and went food shopping last night.

It's been 55 days that I've cut out my four favourite things, bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. So i've been making alternatives... Here i've made a courgette fritter to go alongside my spicy beans, portobello mushroom, avocado and tomatoes. This right here is one of my favourite brunches, why would I need to go out for brunch when I can make a tasty brunch like this... eh! (nah but I mostly don't brunch out cos I'm broke all the time)

If you already follow me, then you know I love eggs any style and here are some examples of how you can have a "dine out" style brunch! Take a look at my whole collection here.. "#Bakerseggs"

Our Annual Camping Trip

In 2014 a week after I got back from Glastonbury, Rakesh booked us a weekend camping trip to Black Lands Farm near Brighton. It was super cute and the camp site was pretty decent, this was our third time there but this time we only got to go for a night but we I'm pretty sure we made the most of it.

We got there early and set up camp and then drove into Brighton town to find some breakfast, we went to Mangetout and it was super tasty.

I had to skip out on that large slice of sourdough though which was pretty upsetting (stupidly cutting out bread, rice, pasta and potatoes) and here's some photographs to show the cute interior and a photograph of a serious looking Rakesh.

We wondered around the cool streets and kind of tripped and fell into a vintage store called Flock that had a cool hidden indoor garden at the back (if I'm ever to have my own store I will sell tonnes of plants!) honestly people say they're in heaven when they see loads of cactis in a garden centre.... try coming here!

I was cooing over a very large monstera cheese plant but at a hefty price of 35 pounds I had to let myself be sensible and i'm rather lucky I did because on the walk back to the car we passed a florist and we wasn't going to step inside but then we saw a whole bunch of them... went in for a browse and they were... 12 pounds! I couldn't refuse such a good price and literally walked down the road smiling through the leaves of the plant. I finally own one, still can't believe it.

Headed back to the camp for an hour lay down to decide what to do for tea, we couldn't quite decide what to do so went to Tescos to do some snack and drink shopping. We thought we'd just grab something quick so opted for an Indian take out. So yes we ate take out around our campfire, it's not the first time we've done this either! It was a shame we were only there for one night cos we would have both loved to have actually cooked using the stove/bbq. We had such a lovely night just talking and laughing.

The next morning we packed up and then decided to head to Lewes as we'd both never been before and well we didn't see many great things there, plus a lot was closed there on a Sunday including this super cute bakery called Flint Owl Bakery we walked past! Look at that Navy blue!

We left Lewes and drove back to Brighton, found a not so cute looking cafe and I had corn fritters, poached eggs and chorizo which tasted pretty nice! We wondered to the beach, because what's a trip to Brighton without a lay down on the stoney beach!

st davids coffee house brunch lunch restaurant cafe london forest hill interiors

A day in... Forest Hill

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have my good friend Mirvet suggest we check out a few things in Forest Hill, and even luckier for me it's only 4 stops away on the overground. We met around 1-ish and found our lunch spot.. St David Coffee House which was right opposite the station.

A quaint cafe with rustic wooden floors, paintings for sale, a lot of vintage mirrors and peonies and spider plants in vases. The window at the front of the cafe being covered in overgrown foliage feels like you're in a garden shed, how your dad probably feels when he goes to escape the chaos. Now we get it.

(Jeans: &otherstories - Shoes: Birkenstocks)

I've recently gone on a no carbs diet (cutting out bread, potato, pasta and rice) so I felt extremely excited that they had this dish on their menu... I went for the corn fritta's w/ avocado, tomato, poached egg and kasundi which was so tasty. Mirvet went for the sourdough w/ avocado, bacon and poached egg. I tried not to dribble over her bread...

I didn't manage to get a snap of the amazing cake collection (probably because it would have been torture) so I stole Mirvets... c'mon I don't know how we both resisted if I'm honest.

Next we took a short walk to The Horniman Museum being the cheapskates we are we didn't pay to get into the actual museum part and as it was a dry day we walked around the gardens.

(Shirt: ASOS - Bag: Handmade by me - Shoes: Birkenstocks - Jeans: &otherstories)

May of taken it in turns to have a mini photoshoot by this beach shack lookalike. I'd recommend these gardens for something cool to do for free in South East London, there's also a mini zoo with llamas in but it was closed when we were there but we got a quick glimpse.