 The breads! 
This Little Piggy Went To Market!
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Recommendation added: 25/05/2007 09:43
By: dewberry (YSUK rating +702)dewberry has been thanked 2 times for this contribution
"We decided to take advantage of an unseasonably warm London day to have a picnic 'somewhere' along the River Thames and just watch the crowd go by, although being cooped up in a lovely but restrictive hotel left us kind of without a clue of where to go to get some munchies for this planned picnic. I asked the receptionist at the hotel for some ideas and she immediately recommended a trip to Borough Market, where she assured me we'd be able to find everything we could think of and more to make our picnic as unusual and special as we liked.
Borough Market has been located in this area since the Romans first launched themselves onto the history of England and has occupied its present site for over 250 years now, remaining as popular as ever with London residents and tourists alike.
Well, as soon as I walked into the market I was lost. The front of the area looks well signed and simply laid out and I thought it'd be a doddle to find my way around to the different shops and stalls, picking out little picnic treats as I went. Hmmm… how wrong I was… The entrance to the market is deceivingly spacious, but as soon as we turned the first corner that was it – we just had to go with the flow. The thing is the market has no real structure once you're inside and there are small alleyways and side 'streets' literally everywhere, with most of them bearing absolutely no relation to the rest of the place at all! It's a really odd layout, but fun at the same time as I felt I was wandering around aimlessly when really I was doing the mundane chore of shopping!
I didn't have any specific items I needed to buy, apart from a loaf of bread and some butter, so I could happily mooch around the market and pick up what I thought would go down well for our picnic lunch.
The first place I spotted was Neal's Yard Dairy which specialises in a range of cheeses; this seemed as good a place to start my shopping as anywhere so I strolled over and had a browse. Blimey, I've never seen so many different kinds of cheese in one place! I picked out a mature cheddar and was torn between a ripe looking Stilton and a creamy Wensleydale; the guy behind the counter saw my indecision and offered me a small sample of each of the cheeses I was considering purchasing and eventually decided on my behalf that the Wensleydale would probably suit my needs better as I was planning on eating the cheese with salty crackers.
This customer-friendly attitude is pretty much the norm at Borough Market, while looking at the various stalls I was surprised by how friendly and helpful people were with the majority of traders being more than happy to help with any questions you might have about the food they sell. There's so much to see (and buy!) at the market that I won't bore you with a list of stalls and their wares, rather give you a more sweeping impression of the place so you can decide whether you think it's worth you visiting.
Once you get into the market proper you'll see everything is set out in a kinda higgledy piddledy way with a sausage stall next to a fruit stall, which is in turn next to a stall which specialises in all kinds of olive oil. There looks to be very little organisation within the market, although this is obviously not true as the entire place seems to run like clockwork with very few major queues or crushes of people all trying to get to the same stall. I loved the quaint way all the stalls seemed to run into one another, and while many of the traders sell delicacies from far flung nations and exotic ingredients, this still has the atmosphere of a good old British marketplace.
I particularly enjoyed buying from the several bread and fruit stalls which are dotted throughout the market. The breads available here are just mind blowing, completely putting my weekly loaf of Warburtons and Soda bread to shame! I felt like such a dunce while choosing what bread rolls I wanted for our picnic as I'd honestly never heard of most of them, luckily another friendly trader advised me of which particular breads would be most suitable for our day out and again I was offered a sample of a certain Ciabatta loaf which I thought in all honestly looked much better than it tasted! I eventually opted for some excellent quality soft bread rolls and a selection of fruited breads which could be eaten either with a filling or just buttered. I thought the prices were actually very reasonable considering the excellent quality of the bread and they were smartly packaged in brown paper bags to keep them at their optimum freshness for as long as possible.
There are loads of stalls selling bread and they all seemed to me to be as good as each other as far as choice and prices went, obviously there is the occasional trader who is stocking the more exotic breads and he will be significantly more expensive, but you do get what you pay for at markets such as Borough. Having said that, there are plenty of bargains to be had here if you have time to look for them. Fruit I noticed is generally cheaper than at my local grocers in Birmingham and the more unusual varieties of veg are much less expensive than if you were to buy them in the supermarkets. Most of the fruit stalls stock an excellent range of English fruits at extremely reasonable prices, while some of them tend to sell only exotic fruit although again the prices seemed to me to be very good. I bought some strawberries, mangoes, blueberries, bananas and peaches from one guy and this cost me less than a fiver – an absolute bargain when you consider the same size punnet of strawberries alone would have cost £3 in Sainsbury's!
The veg stalls are so interesting; despite the fact that I wasn't looking to buy any veg today I couldn't help but have a mooch as I passed one stall where I couldn't quite specifically identify ANYTHING on show! It turns out this stall specialised in African cooking ingredients and, judging by the amount of people picking out yams and other weird and wonderful foodstuffs, it was doing an absolutely roaring trade! The lady behind the stall seemed really helpful and I could overhear her answering questions and making recipe suggestions to various customers without missing a beat – every question that came at her she knew the answer to!
You can also buy your meat from Borough Market. I picked a stall which sold only cooked meats as I needed something to put in our bread rolls and, again, I was surprised at the sheer choice of meats available. There were lots of different varieties of ham, chicken, pork as well as the more exciting salami and pepperoni end of the market. Prices here were, I thought, slightly on the high side compared to butchers' I use back home but the quality and freshness of the meat made it worth the extra cost. Then there are the refrigerated stalls selling only fresh uncooked meat; chops, joints, cutlets, whole rabbits and game are all well stocked and I got the impression that anything I wanted I could have sourced and bought at the market.
We spent a couple of hours wandering around the market and probably managed to see around three quarters of what was on offer so I'd set aside at least this amount of time for your visit, and preferably a little more so you don't miss anything. There are several cafes and restaurants within Borough Market which all looked of good standards with plenty of seating, I didn't go into any of these but judging from the signs on the windows there are places to get anything from a cup of coffee right up to a full meal if all that shopping has given you an appetite.
I was surprised at how clean the market is as with the amount of people visiting I'd have expected much more litter on the floor and general griminess. Now and again I'd spot cleaners making their way around the stalls and clearing up rubbish, mopping down spillages and generally making the place look as clean and tidy as possible. I was more than happy to buy food here because of the high standards of cleanliness and everything I bought was of the highest quality and totally fresh.
I can't really give you a 'proper' example of prices as I did my shopping at several stalls, buying just one or two items from each place but I found that although some of the stalls are more expensive than others it balanced out nicely as there are other stalls which are much cheaper than I'd have expected. I spent roughly £35 on stuff for our picnic, which sounds a lot for lunch for two but I'd really pushed the boat out and bought some luxuries which otherwise wouldn't have made it into my shopping bag.
Access for disabled people is fine as there are ramps, wide aisles and most of the stalls are fairly low meaning wheelchair users can reach to both look and buy. I will say that the market does, however, get very crowded and I'm not sure if I were using a wheelchair I'd feel entirely comfortable with the amount of people milling around on all sides of me. Similarly I noticed a few pushchairs being jostled and bumped around by shoppers who simply hadn't noticed them, kinda scary for your average two year old I'd imagine!
Borough Market is open three days a week; Thursday 11am – 5pm, Friday 12pm – 6pm and Saturday 9am – 4pm. The easiest way to get there is by taking the tube to London Bridge Station and then following the simple signs to the market once you leave the station, this walk will take you no more than three or four minutes and is a nice easy walk. Otherwise there are loads of buses which will drop you in the general vicinity of the market, the 381 and the 133 are just two I spotted but judging from the amount of bus stops in the area I'd say the market is pretty well served by public transport.
Borough Market
Southwark Street
London
SE1 1TL
Tel – 020 7407 1002"
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