UK: Fish & Chips + the Victoria & Albert Museum

I’ll tell you a secret, I like going to museums. I never get tired of looking at “stuff.” And I really enjoy architecture. When I went to Boston for the first time a couple of years ago, I realized I needed to be there a week to get to everything I wanted to do. A few days into touring London, I realized I needed a lifetime. Or perhaps more than the time I had. And I was there 10+ days. After going to the National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery and Tower of London, I was still pumped to check out more museums. We landed at Victoria and Albert which is an eclectic collection of “stuff.”

I was slightly sad that the costumes exhibit was closed but there was a special Yohji Yamamoto exhibit. The museum is free but the exhibit was 7 pounds (ouch!). I didn’t think it was worth it though as you couldn’t take pictures and you looked at everything in about 10 minutes. We lingered a bit, flipping through his book, watching videos and taking a tour through the 30 some odd ensembles. Later, I would see some of his clothes displayed elsewhere in the museum where I was able to take pictures (no flash photography though!).

One of my favorite parts of the museum was the section on entertainment. There was a whole exhibit of Kylie Minogue’s dressing room from a recent tour. Check out her shoes!

My favorite costume though was Dame Edna’s food dress.

For more pictures from the museum, check out my Flickr set.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Cromwell Rd, London SW7 2RL, UK

We still had a bit of time before dinner so we went to the Natural History Museum. We didn’t have much time but the fossils were cool.

When I was at the museum, this was just days after the horrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The NHM had a display from the 1995 quake. One of the things I took away from the exhibit was Japan had a lot of quakes/ tsunamis. To the point there was even a story of a giant catfish named Namazu which causes the quakes. Going through the exhibit was just too raw and fresh.

For more of my Natural History Museum pics, check out my Flickr set.

Natural History Museum

Cromwell Rd, London SW7 5BD, UK

A bit more subdued, we headed to the Golden Fish, one of London’s oldest fish and chips places. Every time I said Golden Fish, people thought I was referring to the Golden Hind. Next time, there’ll always be a next time.

The cafe is split into two sections. There’s a take-out counter for take-away and then a small dining room. We  were ushered to sit down and they took our order. After hearing the description of the fish and chips, I opted for the large order but in retrospect, a large could have easily fed the three of us.

I discovered just how fresh the fish was after eating a few bites and discovering the fish skin. I’m used to American fish and chips.  We don’t have fish skin on the fish for fish and chips. I ended up having to scrape it off which defeated the purpose of the lovely fried covering.  It was great though. I made liberal use of the brown sauce (missed tartar) with the snowy white fish.

After that, we headed to 69 Colebrooke Row.

Golden Fish

102 Farringdon Road, EC1R 3EA, UK