Borough Le Pain Quotidien

 A snowy afternoon in London Borough Market. The snow gave Borough Market a Chrismassy and slight romantic feeling. I was looking for somewhere warm indoors to eat preferably a hearty bowl of soup to warm me up. At one end of Borough Market is Le Pain Quotidien. As soon as you walk in, there are lots of freshly baked bread on the shelves and a display of delicious looking cakes. The special soup of the day was scotch broth. I had a cup size so that I could also try another daily special recommended by the waitress Chorizo and potato frittata. The scotch broth can with a chunk of their freshly baked bread. Their bread was delicious, had a crunch on the outside and fluffy white bread on the inside. The scotch broth was filled with lots of veggies, however the soup came warm instead of piping hot and some of the barley had a slight bite to it. I think barley should be soft? Or maybe the slight bite ones were there to add a bit of texture to the soup


The potato and chorizo frittata came with dressed salad leaves and some bread. Their bread is delicious so I really cannot complain about the amount of bread that came. The frittata came with what looks like tomato ketchup, however when you tasted it, it tasted like ketchup mixed with Dijon mustard. That surprise mustardy kick in the ketchup was delicious and gave the whole dish that lift it needed. The frittata itself was filled with potato and egg and not enough chorizo. I like chorizo, when you eat it you should get the hit of smoked paprika and spicyness of the sausage, however this frittata need a little more chorizo. The frittata need that spicy kick to lift the dish which was lacking. The tomato dip that came with it definitely brought that kick where the chorizo was lacking. All in all a nice dish.

To finish, I had a baked apple flan and a hot chocolate. The hot chocolate comes in bowls rather than cups which give it a unique warmly feeling when you're drinking it. You can just imagine sitting next to a log fire, snowing outside and you sitting there with a bowl of hot chocolate. Yummy!!
I wasn't sure what to expect with the baked apple flan. Perhaps like an apple tart. The flan came warm served with whipped cream. The flan was eggy with sweet apples on top. If you don't like egg as a dessert or custard tart as a dessert this is not the dish for you, as the egg was prominent. However I like egg and custard tarts, so this dessert was delicious. Even though it was made with egg and looked a little dense, it was actually delightfully light, with a bite from the pastry bottom and a slight crunch with the sweet apple top. Yummy. I wonder why this is only a special and not a regular addition to the menu?

All this came to £20.64 inc service. I know this was a bit much for lunch and there are many other places you could go to get a filling 3 course meal, however the freshly baked bread and desserts are a real treat for once in a while