Caning Camden in a few hours

As Margarita is now living in London Aaron put us in contact so I could at least show her around my neighbourhood and that’s what we did on Sunday – an afternoon in Camden.

I met Margarita and her friend Marcello in Brewdog to start off the exploration with a quick pint.

Brewdog makes it’s own beer – it’s famous for its super strong bottles – and also has guest beers. The staff are really good at recommending a beer for you and give out samples for you to try before you buy. I don’t think this would be the case on a busy Friday or Saturday night – but on a Sunday afternoon they have the time to chat and do this.

They also run a beer school so you can learn more – apparently the minimum number of people for this is one!

After tasting a few beers I settled on a light Dead Pony Club – the lager was decent too – I also sneaked in a wee taste from the hopinator. This is where they keep some of their beer in contact with the hops and this week with the addition of flavour in the form of blackberries. An interesting combo!

From Brewdog I guided M&M up Camden High Street. We passed Inverness street with its restaurants and bars hidden behind market stalls – including the Good Mixer pub – the original hangout for Brit pop bands back in the day and Amy Winehouse in her time too.

The shops on Camden High street are decorated individually even if they all sell the same toot!

Inside the market hall is quite spacious and there is lots of original detailing.

We made a short detour through – but neither Margarita, Marcello or I was interested to buy anything. So instead I took them to one of my favourite shops – Chin Chin Laboratories.

Here they freeze ice cream with liquid nitrogen while you watch! Cue large volumes of ‘ice smoke’

There’s one of the staff filling up the liquid nitrogen pot for another batch of ice cream!

I know it’s a gimmick – but it’s a very tasty one! They always do a gorgeous vanilla and a decadent valrhona chocolate flavour and then have two specials each week. I had the passion fruit with chilli and lime powder and chocolate sauce – yum! 🙂

Next stop was Cyberdog for a proper Camden experience! It’s now a huge space for the shop with UV lighting and blaring music – the original clothing and accessory supplier to the rave generation! They don’t allow photos of the shop – but you can view their products online. It very different to what everyone else is selling!

Check out their website here

We wandered on through the market and made our way through the Stables up to Proud. Here we stopped for another beer, an impromptu game of table footie and happened across their open mike afternoon.

This guy was an impressive Italian singer/songwriter – he had a great voice and sings with a band usually.

Proud is an art gallery come club – so around the room with the stage they are currently exhibiting photos from the golden era of Motown.

Moving through into the old horse hospital area, the original stable block is now a selection of bookable areas, all with different themes.

Yes we tested the pole, no I’m not posting photos!

The horse theme continues through their advertising!

The horse-pital, sorry – Marcello that’s one for you!

After our Proud experience we headed back to Chalk Farm road to find a restaurant we could sit down at – whilst there was lots of tasty options at the market there isn’t much space to sit – especially dry areas when it’s raining…

We ended up at Porky’s BBQ. This is a new chain – the other restaurant being Bankside and they focus on Southern American style MEAT! which probably wasn’t the best place for vegetarian Margarita, but they did have a couple of veggie options on the menu.