London on £20 a Day

As I've mentioned frequently on this blog, Jenny and I don't eat out much here at home. This poses a pretty big problem when we travel, in that we have a hard time getting mentally and biologically adjusted to eating out 3 meals a day.

I'll admit it, we're a bunch of cheapskates. The idea of paying so much for a meal that we could make ourselves is hard to stomach at home, let alone in the expensive city of London. We also just don't like eating lots of heavy foods when we're on vacation. It slows us down, and it also counteracts the exercise we get while sightseeing.

After our first £40 dinner, we decided something needed to be done. Fortunately for us, on the second day we discovered that most markets offered a huge line of pre-made sandwiches and other lunch items at pretty reasonable prices.

Now that sound you heard was the collective screams of horror from our British friends. I'm sure that pre-packaged sandwiches from Tesco, Marks and Spencer and Benjys are the British equivalent of a hot dog from your local gas station, but from the viewpoint of a couple of health-consciouss cheapskate Americans, it was a gift from Heaven. We could eat relatively cheaply, and keep track of our nutritional needs thanks to awesome labeling. They even had packaged fruits and vegetables.

The food is of good quality, too, especially compared to convenience foods in the US. Everything is packaged in transparent containers, so you can actually see the food before you buy it. The nutritional information is complete and easy to read, and the majority of places have a good selection of lighter items.

But the biggest effect wasn't related to food. We soon developed a routine of going to a local shop, gathering lunch, and finding a scenic place to enjoy our food. For example, the meal shown above was eaten in the gorgeous Green Park, close to Buckingham Palace. The weather was beautiful, and it being a bank holiday the park was full of Londoners soaking up the sun. There isn't a restaurant around that can match that kind of ambiance. Lunch became our daily siesta, where we'd kick off our shoes and relax.

Sure, we missed out on a few restaurants and eateries, but we also got to enjoy lunch under a tree near the Greenwich Observatory (lunch in the western hemisphere) and a few bites sitting in the square overlooking Parliament and Big Ben (a little noisy, but what a view).

An additional benefit was that we could sample some more, uh, interesting foodstuffs. My favorite was a curiosity called a scotch egg. The full size version, which I didn't sample, is a whole hard-boiled egg covered with sausage and a layer of breadcrumbs.

The miniature version replaces the egg with a dollop of egg salad. The wrapper said to eat them hot or cold, but I think they'd taste about 10 times better heated, especially for breakfast. Oh, and each mini egg was 1 point. Personally, I'd never thought to wrap eggs with sausage and breadcrumbs, but the combination wasn't bad, especially after walking for 5 hours to build an appetite.