It’s also not all about calories, I wish that old chestnut would die out. When you have folk adding dates and then claiming to not add any “sugar” it is to me at least just amazing, sugars do the damage and folk get used to a level of sweetness and then require more, it’s amazing to me how when you curb that issue normal real food is sweet enough, also a damn sight healthier without the sugars. Fake vegetarian milk, mostly calcium (not good) and emulsifiers (also not good).
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My dad lived on cheese in a lot of different ways and it was prostate cancer that got him in the end at nearly 90, not the cholesterol or anything to do with dairy.He never believed in cheese, butter and milk being bad for you but then he was always walking, gardening or doing some other activities and not sat still all day . He also would not touch fast food nor anything “foreign”, meat and two veg or fish cooked from scratch even when living on his own.
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I freeze bananas in foil and eat them frozen like a lolly, the grandkids love them. Better than factory made “stuff” in containers that have god knows what in them. I used to like Magnum lollies until DIL looked up their rating, very very bad so never again.
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The forgotten art of real ice-cream
I made lemon meringue ice cream yesterday. Very naughty as full fat LL cream and some Marscapone whipped together, then the juice and fine rind of a lemon plus a jar of crème de citron (lemon curd) and then crushed home made meringues. Some bad stuff there but you can only eat a little bit at a time its so rich so it cancels out devouring factory made stuff in larger servings.
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Do you have a recipe?
A silly invention—water with a few percent almonds or oats mixed in: I’d rather munch on a handful of almonds and drink a real glass of water!
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Yup Lisboa Patisserie.
Not the one on the corner opposite which arrived much after Lisboa and is not as good.
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Sort of. I have a basic recipe that I have adapted, I chuck in chopped dates and sometimes a mashed banana.
I’m away from home until the 23rd , I’ll send it then. How were your sweet potatoes? Are they growing?
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OMG! I thought you were talking about Pastel de Nata. 
As an aside, I’ve been in London for a couple of weeks and didn’t hold out much hope for these guys, not least as they’re now a mini chain, and because they seem to have been founded by bankers. But I have to say I’m very impressed actually. Probably not to the standard of Lisboa but head and shoulders above anything else I’ve tried for a long time. They get my seal of approval 
I wouldn’t dare mess with that recipe. I’d have the Portuguese mafia after me.
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Oh dear Kirstea, they look very good.
Certainly more variety in the actual natas than Lisboa.
On my list for next time in London… Fortunately this won’t be for a while.
Which one is best for sitting in with coffee? Is it the Old Compton St one? (I think that’s the one in the picture.) Unfortunately I think it’s only a few doors down from the French patisserie in London that used to be my favourite too.
How is it ‘silly’? It’s not water with a little almonds or oats ‘mixed in’ any more than cow’s milk is water with a little bovine hormones and protein molecules mixed in.
Many of us are dairy or lactose intolerant (or allergic). What would you have us put on our cereal or in a hot drink or in a recipe?
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Oat milk is an ok choice. Almond milk is pretty high impact so we don’t touch it.
I’ve only been to Brompton road (which had quite a few seats) and Old Compton St which just has window seats, but since I was working around Soho i just grabbed coffee from the Algerian coffee store and took it up to Soho Sq to eat in the sun! Cafe de Nata have great coffee, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the Algerian Store.
I call highly processed plant-based beverages “silly”—the ones that contain thickeners, sugar, flavorings, and so on. You can make them yourself, it’s better for your health, your budget and our planet 
Yes me too. Some of the first bean coffee in London I ever bought came from there. It’s decades since I went down Old Compton St - I gather a lot of the old businesses have gone or changed. My newsagent for years was the Italian one about 3 doors into the street, there was the Algerian Coffee Stores, the whisky shop, Valerie’s in the original location before they expanded, Maison Bertaux when the old couple (then youngish) had it… Lina Stores close by for real Italian staples… and all the rest but I rather suspect all gone now.
You can be very sure I’ll be in Café de Nata somewhere next visit though, the strawberry natas and the pistachio ones won’t be found at Lisboa
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I loved Old Compton Street when I worked in the West End, the Camisa deli and Del Monico’s off licence amongst others. I shopped there a lot.
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I’d say it’s a good mix of old and new. Brewer Street however is a complete change, you don’t feel like you need a wash after walking along it now I think when we did London Fashion Week from the car park a decade or so ago it was the final nail in the coffin, all bar one of the sex shops packed up and left 
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