Bon voyage

I departed to Heathrow on the one day when London hid its rare, persevering sun and threw out a layer of grey, indifferent clouds, as if it had decided to say farewell by serving a taster of what I'd get when I come back in September. (Hopefully not.)

Terminal 3 of London Heathrow Airport's departure hall is pretty much an actual hall, huge and oblong, lined with shops like Starbucks, Boots, WHSmith, YO! Sushi, duty free, etc.

Breakfast for me was a Ham & Egg Salad sandwich from Boots (£2) which was so-so. I mainly tasted peppered egg, but it filled me up nevertheless.

It's been a year, but I still don't understand why the English don't mind cold sandwiches. In fact, they probably eat more cold sandwiches than warm ones, because they can be taken straight from the fridge in any supermarket or a pharmacy with snacks. Warm sandwiches are so much nicer – there's more taste, and the meat tastes like meat, instead of cool rubber.

Yes, this is a breakfast menu from Singapore Airlines. Having forgotten to take a picture of the menu, I contacted Singapore Airlines, and they kindly scanned me a copy of the menu from that particular flight within a few days, even though they've probably got better things to do!

I got the Tandoori Salmon served with raita, vegetable curry and Kashmiri pilaf – it was a good choice! The Tandoori salmon was cooked well and tasted great, with fragrant, fluffy pilaf rice, and a decent vegetable curry. The bread roll that came with it was as soft as a pillow, and light-tasting, it was pretty much perfect!

This mango chutney tart served atop salad intrigued me. It looks a little dodgy, but it tasted very interesting! Under the chutney is ground chicken tikka, and the flavours all went together wonderfully in the firm pastry.

Pad Thai for breakfast sounds outrageous to some people, but noodles for breakfast happens sometimes in Southeast Asia. These noodles were average, they didn't reeeally taste like Pad Thai, but reguler fried broad noodles with seafood, egg and veggies. The bread roll was ten times tougher than the one served during dinner. *insert pout face here* There was also a random butter cake at the side, along with raspberry yoghurt and fruits... there was a lot on that breakfast plate!

Now that I'm in Singapore, I'll be attending the best culinary school in the world, held exclusively and privately in my home kitchen, led by Chef Mummy. Progress and updates will be slow, because I've got many other things to do during my time here. I'll also be visiting eating places that I've heard about and always wanted to try!

However, don't ignore my blog for this month just because you're in London! Singapore has a brilliant food culture which I will be exploring from a whole new perspective, having experienced many other international foods in London.

Greggs

I didn't have a good impression of Greggs right from the start.

The first time I heard about it was when I chanced upon an article on the Daily Mail, in which a Greggs employee acts like a gassed eight-year old and decides to badmouth artisan bread-maker, Paul Hollywood, for doing the plaited loaves all wrong and speaking like an Enid Blyton narrator. Accompanying the article was this picture of a Greggs shopfront:

I am not a big fan of the storefront. It looks more like a bookstore than a bakery to me.

The other thing is, you can't insult Paul Hollywood, you simply can't.

Just look at all that adorable-ness.

Bam. No one can make bread-making look more epic than the Hollywood.

The whole thing was probably a publicity stunt by Greggs, but nevertheless I chose Greggs, out of curiosity, as a lunch option while shopping in Hounslow.

The café section was preceded by a bakery section. I think. There were about two shelves, which contained doughnuts, muffins, and loaves which looked very neat and identical.

Moving on to the café section, they had yogurts, salads, pasties, cakes, Danish pastries, croques, sandwiches, pasta, coffee, and other quintessential café food items. The prices were really appealing, with pasties costing about £1.50 and a bowl of pasta for £2.99. 

A steak bake pasty and an iced apple cream Danish cost me exactly £3.

The steak bake was puff pastry filled with beef stew. I loved the warm, creamy and hearty taste of the beef stew, which were quite generous chunks.

Emma, my food buddy for the day, tried some of my dessert. After the meal, I commented, "I do wish that there was more apple in it, though."

She replied, "It was supposed to have apple in it?"

The Danish pastry sandwiched a thin layer of apple and sauce under a thick poof of whipped cream, storybook style. The apple's taste was drowned out under the cream which was a bit much, and I could only occasionally feel its gooey texture.

Greggs is a good option for a cheap café lunch, with tasty-looking pastries and a few other limited options for savoury items, which includes customisable sandwiches (Emma: "The lady took forever to make my sandwich, and look, all my onions are falling out.") and fish fingers. Not somewhere to return to day-after-day, but alright when on a budget and for convenience's sake. Their next step will be to redesign their banner and stop being so cocky and dissing my Hollywood.

Greggs (Hounslow)

181 High Street

Middlesex

TW3 1BL

Tel: 0208 577 2890