Sichuan Food and Sleep - Half a Day in London

En route to Malta we decided to stop in London for two nights, both because London is the most Christmassy place on earth (that I've been to so far) and also because I don't think my mental health can handle a layover and a connecting flight with a toddler. Maybe not my physical health either, because my knees and back HURT after that nine-hour flight. But Elowen was an angel and slept almost the entire flight, so that was a relief!
 
We survived! In the taxi to the hotel. 

We landed around noon and were soon at our hotel, St. Ermin's, which was very quiet and looked like it should be a reformatory for troubled girls in a movie. Actually, it's been a hotel since 1899 when the block mansions were converted, and two floors housed Winston Churchill's Secret Army and MI6 during WWII. The drinks at the bar are even named after some of the double agents who worked there.

So excited to be in her own little bed for a post-flight nap. 

It's a gorgeous hotel, and the Christmas decorations were lovely...and while it's a bit far from the bits of London I've come to love, like Mayfair, the quiet of the rooms more than made up for having to Uber around (and it's very close to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey and walkable to Buckingham palace, so certainly not like we were in the middle of nowhere).



The hotel also keeps its own apiary (with 350k bees!) to supply honey for its bar, restaurant, and proprietary gin.


It's also very close to one of my favorite restaurants in London, Ma La Sichuan, so after resting for a bit we headed there for dinner, passing by a statue of one of Queen Elizabeth's corgis (Carol) on the way. There was a whole corgi statue parade several years back, with corgis dotting the city, which I'd have loved to see (they've since been auctioned off for charity).


I had the dry fried beans with rice and xiao long bao (pork dumplings), while Taylor had soft crab and Elowen ate an extraordinary amount of fried rice.






Then it was back to the hotel for a few cocktails and bedtime...it always takes a few days to recover from the flight, at least for me given that I don't/can't sleep on a plane. 


Sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce and clotted cream gave Elowen a lot of joy. 



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