One afternoon, I was back to Notting Hill, the first place I settled when I moved to the UK, a place of memory, growth and loads of innocent laughs. Strolling down the Portobello Road, I wanted to sit down in a hip and cool cafe that is so "Notting Hill" and found the Farm Girl.
This charming little coffee house is well-known for its instagram-worthy plates full of diverse colours that scream "Healthy". It is highly rated as a hot stop for anyone visiting West London. But is it as good as it looks?
The Farm Girl is quite popular I can tell. It was not weekend, not lunch time but there was already a queue of 4 people ahead of me waiting to be seated. "It must be good", I thought. After 15 minutes, the waiter called me in and seated me in a corner table with sofa. How kind! There, I could see the whole cafe, and I was very pleased with a spacious table for one.
Farm Girl is definitely a place for health-conscious young people who seek the best twists on classics with popular healthy ingredients. Beet Bacon in BLT is actually beefy beetroot. Certainly, vegans and vegetarians would be so pleased with the menu here.
My (very classic) order includes:
- Avocado Toast:
Bread: good, Avocado: good. But the twist is in the slices of unripe watermelon beetroot on top. Suitable for vegetarian and filling indeed.
- Acai Bowl:
The waitress recommends this to me. A bowl of crushed icy acai in coconut water topped with slices of orange, apple and some grapes. It's so refreshing but a little bit cold for these windy days. Still, me like!
- Liquid Gold:
Now this is a wild card. Considering me having a cold, the waitress suggested me to try the super-antioxidant liquid gold: turmeric (a lot!), black pepper, lemon and a dash of honey. Oh dear, it was tough. I really did try but i could not swallow this. It was a fail for me, but I think any healthy craze does involve this sort of challenging taste, isn't it?
A side note for the cafe is the toilet whose floor was wet, window was not tightly closed, and overall, not appropriately clean. A big disappointment!
Overall, the ambience of the cafe itself is really nice and the price was acceptable. I would not say it's a must-try but not a bad choice for anyone wandering around the area and preferring a much healthier alternative to touristy restaurants.