to clarify, model market is not a market for or of models. it's just the name of the food market. already had to explain that one to my mum... second disclaimer: i was a guest of lewisham shopping centre on this occasion.
i've found a local friend! i met claire through instagram when it turned out we lived a few minutes' walk from one another, so it's been nice having her introduce me to local hot spots as i settle into the new neighbourhood. what's not so new to me is model market, which i have been to before but not since moving to the neighbourhood, so this was a first of sorts.
for the uninitiated, model market is street feast's south east london home, sat in an 1950s converted outdoor market hall behind lewisham shopping centre. it's the smallest of the street feast markets, but still has some excellent food and drink options for the locals to enjoy. we headed over on friday night to see what this season had to offer, and though it was only just getting started for the night, i gotta say that there sadly wasn't as many choices on offer as the last time.
don't get me wrong: there was a variety of foods, in that there was a burger place, a pizza place, a vegan place, etc, there just didn't seem to be as much to choose from as last time, and actually, almost as many bars as there were food stalls. i don't know about you, but i'm less fussed about drink options at a food market, so would have prefered a bigger split personally.
a number of the stalls had their shutters down with "more food coming soon" signs painted on them, which is great to see there are more options coming, but the season is almost over so it might be a little too late. the market only opens for the summer (it's outdoors after all), so between may and september i guess, which means "coming soon" could very well be... next year. still, we were hungry and ready to order.
we opted for steak and fries from growlers, and tropical drinks from the rotary bar. the steak was perfectly cooked, seasoned in garlic and butter ideally, and was served on a giant portion of double-cooked chips. for £10 the portions were exactly enough to fill us both up and not overfill so that i couldn't still get a dessert, so a pretty good price for street food i'd say.
we grabbed a table and sat and chatted, drank our tropical drinks, and petted aaaall of the doggos that came past for a good couple of hours. the lewisham high line is a beaut place to watch the sun set (i think that's the point) so we did that before heading on our way. and of course, before we did that, i made sure to grab a peanut and honeycomb frozen custard from secret nicky's. it was a different taxture to the frozen custard i had in brooklyn (home of the frozen custard!), and it was very rich and creamy. the flavours were incredible though, and some of the daily specials sounded amazing so i'll definitely be back for another.
i'll also be back to sample the margherita from wandercrust pizza and the two-x-four burger from zephyr burgers because oh my god they both sound incredible. and, seeing as they're only a ten minute walk from my flat, i bloody know i will be back again before the season is over.
big thanks to lewisham shopping centre for inviting me down this time around!
