London weekend trip: Fix Asian food cravings, Chatworth's House & West End Theater

If you live in Europe and crave for good Asian food, London is one of the best city to visit in order to fix those cravings and have tons of fun while being there.

London is basically an hour away from Dublin, Ireland. Occasionally, Aer Lingus offers reasonable return tickets to visit UK, so it's one of the best time to go for a weekend city break. Personally, I prefer Aer Lingus so much more over Ryanair for so many reasons (comfort, better service, punctuality to name a few). 😁

Evening #1: Manchester

Our weekend trip starts at Manchester and ends at London because my friend wanted to visit Chatsworth's House in Bakewell. It was a dream of hers since high school after reading and watching Pride and Prejudice. Upon arriving at Manchester Airport, we then took a train to the city center, it was a pretty straightforward process. We stayed at ibis Styles Manchester Portland which is not to be confused with ibis Manchester Centre 96 Portland Street, it was about 15 minutes walk after coming out from Manchester Piccadilly station.

One main reason we picked that hotel was because of the location convenience. It was a easy to reach from the airport and our car rental pick up was 5 minutes walk away - SIXT Car Hire Manchester Piccadilly. The room was clean and the beds were slightly stiff. We did not book breakfast from the restaurants as there's plenty of restaurants along the walk from Manchester Piccadilly station. Shoryu Ramen is just across the hotel and it was still open when we wanted supper. We ordered Shoryu Ganso Tonkotsu and Cheese Tsukune Yakitori. The portion was pretty good enough for 2 girls that's not too hungry.

Day #2: Chatsworth's House and driving to London

Had our breakfast across the street in Pret A Manger and went to Sixt to collect our car. We got upgraded to a Mini Countrymen Cooper 1.5 which was pretty cool.

Would not recommend renting a car in UK for a day using Sixt. It's pretty expensive. Since we're already driving to Chatsworth's House, we decided we might as well drive to London from there instead of taking a train. Besides, our route was a bit awkward, because we either drop off the rented car back to Manchester, Nottingham or London. London was best choice for our trip.

Driving from Manchester Piccadilly to Chatsworth's House isn't too complicated, the route is rather scenic with country side vibe. It's about an hour an a half drive. However, at the time of my trip (Sept 2023), there was some ongoing road works which extended the drive to two hours. The detour was slightly difficult to find as we're not familiar with the roads.

Chatsworth's House

We've booked the tickets a month prior to our trip from the official website. We got the (Adult House, Garden & Farmyard) ticket - which costs £32.00. However, due to the unexpected road works that delayed our journey, we didn't really checkout the farmyard. If you don't have children or if you're not interested in farm animals, I recommend that the (Adult House & Garden) ticket would suffice, it costs £28.50. The multimedia guide costs £3.50 - pretty worth it because you get to learn a lot as you tour the house.

You can spend about 2 hours at Chatsworth's House and another 2 hours at the garden. So it would be a total of 4 hours there if you want to finish the audio guide and walk around the garden.

Driving in London's Motorway

Driving on London's motorway can be slightly daunting, especially if you're used to driving on the right side of the road. But once you get the hang of it, it's manageable. It's about a 4 hour plus drive via the M1 motorway from Chatsworth's House to London. Cars are fast on the motorway and some of them kept switching lanes, so it's crucial to pay attention on the road.

London

Once we've arrived at London, we went to Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 to return the car. From there, we took the public transport to get to Central London. Since the main objective of this trip is to have amazing food and theater, we stay near SOHO area. I highly recommend this hotel - City Sleeper at Royal National Hotel due to it's prime location, reasonable pricing and comfort. The hotel room is quite modern and spacious for its price. Most places that we wanted to visit was within walking distance which was super convenient for our agenda.

Haidilao Hotpot

Since we stayed at a convenient location, Haidilao Hotpot wasn't far away. It was surprisingly packed for a Friday evening. We didn't make any reservation so we had to just wait there for our turn. Boy, it took almost an hour! If you like hotpot, or would like to try it, I would highly recommend Haidilao. Great service and their soup choices are amazing. It was almost midnight by the time we finished eating.

Day #3: London

Today will probably be the highlight of our trip, because we're going all out on food to satisfy our cravings 😀.

British Museum

At the time of writing this the China's Hidden Treasure exhibition was going on and we wanted to check it out. By the time we finished, it was almost noon time and the museum was absolutely packed!

The picture below is one of the many impressive craftmanship during my visit at the exhibition. If you look closely again, this is NOT a photograph. It's a realistic embroidery of a photograph.

Chinatown

Chinatown's origin interestingly dates back all the way to 18th century. Our main place to get all the cravings fixed!

Olle Korean BBQ

Korean BBQ is definitely something I missed dearly since I visited there in April 2023. This restaurant was recommended by a friend to me. They have a great selection of meat, you can also order a set menu here for BBQ. Their beef quality is great. The bulgogi was nicely marinated, juicy and tender. If you like Wagyu and price is not an issue, go for it! The entire experience was pretty authentic. We ordered the Olle Selection B, which was amazing.

Good Friend (Fried Chicken)

Good Friend serves reaaaally good Taiwanese style fried chicken. The experience starts from ordering. You can hear the person from the kitchen yelling the orders and order number. There's no digital display anywhere to show the order numbers.

West End Theater - Phantom of the Opera

I've always wanted to checkout West End in UK and Broadway theater in the States. This time, we decided on a classic, Phantom of the Opera instead of Lion King. The entire show was breath taking. Especially when the Phantom appears and his theme song started to play in the background. Gives me the chills. We got the E23 and E24 seat in Grand Circle. It wasn't too bad. But if I were to do it again, I'd pick Royal Circle or the Stalls if money wasn't an issue. I really enjoyed the performance, it was absolutely captivating the entire time, all the cast did an amazing job! The phantom's voice was truly amazing. Apparently the cast for this show has been amazing since they've reopened after Covid.

Day #4: London and back to Dublin

The last day here, we're basically just taking it easy. Shopping around SOHO area to kill time until our flight time in the evening.

Manchester and London Weekend trip cost

After coming back to Dublin a few days, I've gotten an email saying I had a traffic violation in Heathrow Airport. It must have been when I was trying to return the car to Sixt parking but couldn't find the entrance. Instead, I went on the ramp for drop-off at the airport which I think requires a ticket or some sort. 😭

The total cost breakdown our 4 day long weekend trip is here:

To be honest, I was quite surprised how expensive the 4 day weekend trip cost. When it comes to big cities like London, the sky is the limit as long as you're willing to spend. There's no shortage of ways to spend, the only limitation is the amount in your bank account.