Chop’d
Who said eating healthily had to be boring? One of the original Boxpark offerings, Chop’d is your one stop shop for locally sourced, organic, sustainable ingredients. Providing great flavours at every turn, Chop’d offers an extensive menu of salads, soups, stews, and flatbreads. While the chicken ramen with chicken broth is the perfect winter warmer, our favourite meal is Chop’d’s famous create-your-own salad, which offers you the chance to don the apron and get stuck in, unleashing your inner chef to create the perfect salad. Don’t just take our word for it; they sell over 20,000 salads a week.
FalafeLicious
FalafeLicious is the perfect spot to get your Middle Eastern food fix. The takeaway option is perfect for those on the go, otherwise have a sit down on one of the long wooden benches and wait while your expert chef brings the taste of the Middle East to the East End. Using recipes passed down over the generations, an array of mouthwatering falafel-based dishes are created before your very eyes from their simple menu. There is a wide range of accompaniments to eat along with your falafel, from hummus to salads, so there will be something to suit every palette. Our pick has to be the falafel in pita: a mouthwatering falafel in a fresh pita with your choice of accompaniment.
Cottons Rhum Shack
Do not let the name deceive you. While, yes, they do have more than 250 kinds of rum on offer, the food is definitely worth a visit too. Based on a traditional Caribbean rum shop, Cottons Rhum Shack is the perfect place to chill out after a stressful day. Get swept up in the steel drum music, limbo dancing, maybe a cheeky drink of rum (or two), and sample the delicious traditional food they have to offer. With an extensive street food menu, it will be hard to decide what you want to sample. The sharing platters are a great way to have a taste of everything with your friends, but if you don’t like sharing, the jerk chicken barbecue skewers are hard to beat and will transport you to the Caribbean.
Thai and Lao Street Food
Thai and Lao is part of East End history, having first catered for locals at the old Truman Brewery over 12 years ago before finding its new home on Bethnal Green Road. Offering tasty, unpretentious, affordable food, Thai and Lao does not care for fashion trends and their traditional menu has not changed in the past ten years, but they do create special dishes depending on what vegetables are in season. The pad Thai, the people’s favourite, is phenomenal. No wonder they didn’t have to change the recipe.
Dum Dums Donutterie
While not strictly offering a meal, Dum Dums Donutterie is simply too good not to mention. For those of you more inclined towards the sweet than the savoury, this is the perfect place. If you’re lucky, you can have a taste of the limited edition Dum Dum Cronut, which knocks the socks off its New York counterpart. There is a wide range of flavours and special edition doughnuts but best of all, they are guilt free. Our pick, the raspberry preserve doughnut, contains only 6g of fat compared to 17g of fat in the classic American jam doughnut. So you can have your cake and eat it.
Boxpark, 2-10 Bethnal Green Rd, London, E16GY
Dum Dums Donutterie | Courtesy Canoe Inc