Cantinetta, Dean Street Townhouse, & Maltby Street Market

Despite not being in Puglia after dramatically missing our flight, we've still managed to have a delightfully foodie week. Even, a very Italian one.

On Thursday night, I went to Cantinetta, where I had some great Italian food!

I tried some salmon and sea bass carpaccio, with a strawberry vinegar dressing. I found this too acidic and overpowering, which was a shame since I couldn't taste the delicate fish.

Also as antipasta, I had some burrata with sun dried tomatoes. The cheese was wonderfully creamy, but not too runny, which was great. The tomatoes were full of flavour and went really well with the buratta.

I had some great prawns in a lovely rich garlicy sauce, with some crisp bread.

Following the seafood theme, I tasted some scallops with endive salad. The scallops were amazing because they had only been very briefly seared, so tasted very fresh.

For my main, I had a seafood risotto, which was delicious! The rice had a good bite to it, maybe slightly too much of a bite, but it was quite creamy, and fishy which was nice. I liked the chopped herbs in it.

My mum had lobster spaghetti, which was of course indulgently rich, with soft and flavoursome meat and al dente pasta.

I also had some delicious fried courgette as a chip-substitute, which were lovely and crispy.

Yesterday afternoon, I visited Dean Street Townhouse for a spot of afternoon tea. I chose some buttered crumpets, which I hadn't had for ages, so it was a nice treat. I also had some scones with clotted cream and lovely strawberry and raspberry jam - delicious!

Finally, today I visited Maltby Street Market - sort of a close (in location and food quality) rival to the incredibly well known but slightly too touristy Borough Market. It was a bit more of a trek from London Bridge, but definitely worth it. We got there a bit late (it starts shutting down at around 2pm), but bought some fantastic 17 month comte from the Borough Cheese Company, which is aged in a fort in eastern-France. I also went to Niel's Yard Dairy, where I tried some cheese called St John, which had a great tangy flavour, and was quite smelly and creamy.