Nude Espresso is one of a few places which are at the fore front of the rising coffee culture in London. After a bellyful of Croydon chicken rice; Supercharz, Mark and myself headed toward Brick Lane for the Rankin exhibit, but not before we woke up to a cup or two.

Oh, and we’re calling ourselves the London Fm2 trio.

The interiors of Nude Espresso are basic. Wooden floorboards, white walls and yet more wood, but you know its nice and relaxing. The good peeps behind the counter dress insurmountably cooler than me, and sound very hip – it is very much part of the urban jungle environment that is associated with this area in East London. We ordered three flat whites.

Mmm, it’s not half bad, but honestly I’ve had better. I would like to think that I’ve been to many of the coffee hotspots around town, including Taylor, Monmouth, Flat White and Lantana. My favourite flat white so far, is still the version at Flat White; I’m no connoisseur, but I prefer it for its sugarcane aftertaste and also for its creaminess. The Nude version was not bad, but it lags behind both Flat White and Monmouth (a close second for me), of course all of it could just be down to hype and reputation, I wonder if technique has anything to do with the perfect cup of coffee. Those of you with laudable barista skillz, care to enlighten me?

Like many hip cafes around, Nude also sells lots of home-made cakes and sandwiches. Now I can’t remember if this was a carrot cake, or a banana cake (I’m leaning toward the former) but the icing was pretty good – very sweet, very decadent, if you like that kind of thing.

Charz implored that we try their signature lemon tart. I took one spoonful of the wobbly, citrusy and custardy action, it’s a good pudding, I wish I ordered one.

Now fully energised with sugar and caffeine, we began hatching our plans of world domination with talks of forming the greatest photo group ever to grace London…. by shooting with three Nikon FM2s. Charz has already bought one of the classic and most loved manual only SLR cameras known to man and we are now waiting for Mark to land another chrome version and arm it with a 50mm lens to complete the trio. They don’t make ‘em like they used to, and so we have to buy them secondhand, which makes it even more special.

Woo hoo. Viva la film and rock that zone focus.

Oh and the Rankin exhibit at the truman brewery was pretty good, worth the tenner, the celeb shots were impressive, I especially liked his Heidi Klum gallery. His 1000 portraits of normal folks, not so much. It was a little gimmicky.

Nude Espresso official site
26 Hanbury Street
07804 223590

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How do I describe the Beigel Bake? A free standing cafe, perhaps a takeaway cafe or maybe it’s just a bakery that sells hot cakes, bagels and sandwiches of all kinds. Here’s me, West London Boy, spending some quality time with the East and getting cosy with some hot salt beef.

Hot Salt Beef for all

I must admit, this is the first time I’ve ever come to this part of Brick Lane. I used to think that this part of town was just a kind of curry mile, what with the waiters flogging their menus to prospective customers anticipating free wine or a huge discount on the food bill or even both. I was wrong – Brick Lane is home to one of the freshest bakeries around town and apparently this place has proper street cred, especially for the three am crowd. Mmm, smell the hot salt beef.

This is breakfast for me, it’s Saturday at time of writing, and I’m standing on the steel sidetables just inside of the bakery. It looks really dirty by the way, but I don’t care, this place is so seeped in character, that it feels like I’ve just stepped back in time …. to 1975, and oh yeah, I wish I could grow a proper afro.

Right so tasting notes: Wow. That’s pretty awesome. That, my dear friends is a proper salt beef sandwich. It’s fleshy, it’s moist, it’s filled to the brim with intense salty flavours and it’s lashed with proper out of the plastic bottle mustard and it costs four quid. Forget the posh salt beef bar in Selfridges that weights exactly how much beef they are suppose to serve you – this one goes down just as appetisingly and as smooth.

Sensation

In addition to the savoury stuff, there’s pastry too. I spotted apple strudel on the menu. I also tried a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel, costs about three quid and yeah it tastes like it was freshly baked. Yummy.

Finally the cheese cake was alright, not too sweet, not too cheesy, just a little sugary and crumbly. For fifty pence, I wish I lived closer the twenty four hour bakery – fancy that, smell of fresh bread when you wake up, the smell of fresh bread when you come home from work and the smell of fresh bread when you retire to bed.

By the way guys, because it’s a bank holiday, I’ve been trying all kinds of wacky things with the camera, so I hope you like the pictures that are coming out – Expanding myself creatively you know – and it’s all for your reading pleasure, hope your weekend is going swimmingly, I’ll try to squeeze out another photo essay for the rest of my Brick Lane tour tomorrow if I can, if not, then be back here on Tuesday for a review on Vietnamese food!

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