There's something about the English season that you've gotta love - mostly it involves folk roaming around a field, muddy as hell, clutching something alcoholic and searching for food. Happily at Taste of London, while some of those elements might be present, there are, at least, no worries in the food and drink department.
We headed down there for the first night of the festival to check out what all the restaurants had to offer. And we tried a LOT. You can check out pictures of what we had below (and on our Instagram feed) but of the dishes we tried on opening night, standouts were:
- Trishna's Moplah seafood biryani - Trishna on top form here - and they also won Best in Taste for another dish.
- Club Gascon's Waffle Delicacy - a savoury waffle topped with foie gras ice cream. Yes - just as good as it sounds - £12
- Duck and Waffle's Golden Graham soft serve - an ice cream cone topped with salted caramel sauce, crunchy marshmallow and a 99 flake - £5
- LeCoq's Smashed aubergine with dates, honey, walnuts and flatbread - a welcome veggie alternative to all the meat we had and one of our favourite (and cheapest) dishes of the night - £4
- Mole Taco Bar's award-winning braised oxtail taco with blackerry, crema and tomatillo salsa - £7
- Mirror Room's icon dish of sweetcorn and langoustine tempura - £12
- Shotgun BBQ's salted custard donuts - hot from the frier and oozing buttercup yellow custard - £3 (pictured above, one of the biggest queues of the night)
And - unfortunately for anyone who wasn't there on the night as it's not being repeated - the Daily Special by street trader Butchies. Their fried buttemilk chicken sandwich with bacon, guacamole and smoked chilli mayo was AMAZING.
Our top tip for the rest of the festival? If you're feeling weary, or just want to avoid the queues, head for the Deliveroo stand. They'll go and get some fo the key dishes (including the Trishna dish) for you and even bypass the queues.
Taste of London runs until Sunday 19 June 2016 at Regent's Park London. For more on the event, read our full guide.
