November with Horn Ok Please - Where to get your Indian Streetfood fix

November at HOP

The lead up to Christmas is a busy one at HOP HQ and while I get our schedule together for a comprehensive list we can confirm that every weekend (Fri to Sun) we are at Real Food Fest and Tuesday's with Kerb at Kings Cross. Will update more details this week. Sorry for the lack of updates over the last month.

Pitches for this week

WEDNESDAY - Kings Blvd with Kerb / Eat Street

THURSDAY - Kerb launch party Kings Cross St Martins Collage

FRIDAY - Street Feast LDN Hackney Downs Studio

FRIDAY to SUNDAY - Real Food Festival Southbank

Dosa and Chaat in Sept

Thank you everyone for stopping by and the lovely feedback on our stint on BBC 2.

Here is where you can find us in the weeks to come:

Friday 21/09

- StreetfeastLDN (Camden Town Brewery)
- RealFoodFest (Southbank)

Saturday 22/09

- RealFoodFest (Southbank)

Sunday 23/09

-RealFoodFest (Southbank)

Tuesday 25/09

-Eat.st (Kings Cross)

Thursday 27/09 to Sunday 30/09

- Urban Night Feast (Newcastle)

Wednesday 3/10

- Eat.st (Kings Cross)

Thursday 4/10

- Launch Party (more details to follow)

Kerb Launch party 04th October 2012

Update on Dates

So the Olympics have come and gone and all in a whirlwind. Due to issues beyond our control (AKA the Ghost Town that was London over the last two week) we pulled out of the Newham Like Site but we will be taking our Chaat and Dosa to Newham soon (see details).

We made the best of the situation and got a chance to try lots of new traders and soak in the atmosphere of the city. Great times at Exhibition Road, Eat.St and StreetFeastLDN ensured that we were kept busy.

This week also saw the start of the new Lorraine Pascale series 'Fast Fresh and Easy'. We did some filming with Lorraine recently and are looking forward to see it on BBC2 soon.

So the next two weeks sees us as:

Wednesday 15/8 - Eat.st King's Cross

Thursday 16/8 - Ridley Road Market Bar (PM)

Friday 17/8 -  RealFoodFest AND StreetFeastLDN (PM)

Saturday 18/8 - RealFoodFest AND Ridley Road Market Bar (PM)

Sunday 19/8 - RealFoodFest


Wednesday 22/8 - Eat.st King's Cross

Thursday 23/8 - Newham Under the Stars

Friday 24/8 - Newham Under the Stars

Saturday 25/8 - Newham Under the Stars

Sunday 26/8 - Newham Under the Stars

Rainbow around the corner

Among all the horror stories going around about what to expect in London over the Olympic period there is a rainbow among the gray clouds. HOP, with all its colours, will be popping up in several locations to bring you amazing Indian Street Food to brighten up your day. So grab a bhel puri cone while watching hockey or some pani puri in-between sets at tennis or even grab a dosa or samosa chaat before events.

Here is where you can find us starting this week (dates for ParaOlympics will be published soon):

JULY

FRIDAY 20 StreetFeastLDN

SATURDAY 21 Newham Mayor's Show (including Olympic torch relay)

SUNDAY 22  Newham Mayor's Show

TUESDAY 24    Kings Blvd

THURSDAY 26   Taping for new BBC cooking show with Lorraine Pascale (Location TBC)

SATURDAY 28   Exhibition Road Show

SUNDAY 29   Exhibition Road Show

TUESDAY 31  Kings Blvd

AUGUST

THURSDAY 2   Exhibition Road Show

FRIDAY 3    Exhibition Road Show   AND  Real Food Fest at Southbank (TBC)

SATURDAY 4   Exhibition Road Show  AND   Real Food Fest at Southbank (TBC)

SUNDAY 5   Exhibition Road Show   AND   Real Food Fest at Southbank (TBC)

WEDNESDAY 8  Newham Live

THURSDAY 9   Newham Live

FRIDAY 10   Newham Live

SATURDAY 11   Newham Live

SUNDAY 12   Newham Live

Eat.St, StreetFeastLDN, StockMKT, RealFoodFest, Time Out and more

Hello.

The start of these blog posts are starting to sound like the emails I send to friends back in Australia...'I know it has been long since my last email but things have been crazy busy' Now that is out of the way let me set out some pics and details of what we have been up to.

The most exciting news of late is that we are now part of the Eat.st collective of street food traders. With them have started trading on Monday at King's Cross. Feedback has been excellent and in the two weeks we have traded there we have picked up a whole lot of new Indian Street Food converts.

Here is a pic of our set up at King's Cross:

Early summer nights have also seen us at two night markets...StockMKT in Bermondsey and StreetFeastLDN in Brick Lane. This is a 12 week event and we will be there for 5 more weeks after the Jubilee Weekend.

Photos at StockMKT

Photos of StreetFeastLDN 

Two weeknds in April saw us pitch up at Southbank behind the Royal Festival Hall for the 'Taste of India' Festival in conjunction with events happening at the Festival Hall.  This was organised by the people behind the RealFoodFest. It was nice to stand out from the crowd of traders who were presenting the usual curry, rice and naan. Moong Dhal dosa and Samosa Chaat were a hit and toward the end of each day it was all about pani puri and bhel puri - was like being back on the streets of India. As a first the organisers also asked if we can do a demo on street food...my first but I think it went well.

Video of the first weekend.

At Taste of India we met some great people. One of which lead to our first canapé event held in May for an art exhibition 'Hope Amongst the Ruins' showcasing stills from movie by Deepak Verma (of EastEnders fame) called Mumbai Charlie. The money raised was going to charity so HOP was happy to help out. Mini Bhel Puri, Aloo tikki, and pani puris were all served to a very receptive crowd. We look forward to working with Deepak on future events.

We have also been at Brick Lane on our weekends off and where possible at Surrey Street in Croydon.

Along the we have picked up lots of converts to Indian Street Food and some great reviews (thank you to all who wrote lovely things)

http://lizzieeatslondon.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/horn-ok-please.html

http://aquestionoftaste.wordpress.com/2012/04/27/the-stockmkt/

http://thebotanicalbaker.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/tastes-of-india/

and the one that came out of nowhere and made us smile was the mention in Time Out London magazine - London Food Walks

'Getting back on to Brick Lane itself, at No 152 you’ll find the Boiler House Food Hall. You’ll be spoilt for choice here, but don’t miss the bhel puri (spicy, fruity puffed rice with pomegranate seeds) from Indian street food specialist Horn OK Please.' Thank you Matthew Lee

We have also been working with Walk.Eat.Talk.Eat as one of the stops on their food tours through East London - most memorable was feeding 13 people on a 'dating tour'. Charli is also working on a  'guidebook that guides people to wonderful and weird food and drink places in East London. But you get to build your own food tour. So you get what you like, when you like, how you like, where you like.' Finishing the book requires funding though so please support on http://www.pleasefund.us/projects/create-your-own-food-adventure

On a different note we did some filming for a new SKY TV show and have another appointment with a different potential show but shhhh I can't say more :)

After that run down of what has been happening here is what we have coming up in terms of festivals and markets:

World Street Food Festival - 1 to 5 June
More nights at StreetFeastLDN
Taste of the World Sussex - TBC
Purley Festival - 30 June to 1 July
Newham Mayor Show - 21 to 22 July
Newham Live Sites (Olympic) - more info soon
Newham Under the Stars - 23 to 26 August

Make sure you don't miss out on visiting our stall and sampling what everyone is talking about.

Ciao (and as I would sign off any email to friends back home 'I promise I will write more regularly')
xx