Living in London: Student Housing, “Cheap” Eats and The Fob

Living in London is quite the challenge, especially when staying in student housing like Chapter Kings Cross where space and kitchen safety turn living and cooking into a nightmare. 

Space:

Our bedroom, bathroom and kitchen could all fit into my dorm room back home with room to spare. The entrance to the “flat” triples as both the standing space for the kitchen and the bathroom exit, making movement difficult and resulting in several cooking disasters. Kitchen safety is also a great worry and, due to that, we only have access to a microwave, electric kettle, mini fridge and a fob.

There aren’t many solutions to this problem except to find out who your roommate is as soon as possible (we were not told until arriving in London, which was horrible) so that you can negotiate who is bringing what. You have no idea how much space a straightener really takes up until you have two of them in a micro-closet sized bathroom. Beyond that, be respectful. There isn’t room to fit any tension.

The Fob and Fob Hacks:

I can’t speak for all fobs, but this two “burner” electric stove top is the bane of my existence. Fit with a number of safety features, only some are bearable, such as the need to flip a switch and press a sequence of four buttons to turn it on, while others are ridiculously over the top. Such as needing to change the fob’s temperature gauge every 2 minutes (a time frame that narrows the longer the fob is on) to prevent it from turning off. The fob also automatically shuts off every 30 minutes of use. 

The fob is also very weak, making the above fairly redundant. My third morning in London I went to fry a singleegg. With the fob at top heat, it took 20 minutes to fry. Boiling a small pot of water takes about 45, meaning you will have to re-turn on the fob at least once during this process and at least one more time when you actually have something boiling.

However, being the creative college students we are, we’ve found ways to make fob cooking a little more bearable.

1) Avoidance: The best way is to avoid using the fob. How to do this? Become a microwave expert. Did you know you can scramble or hard boil an egg in the microwave? What about an omelette? We didn’t- but we sure did find out and were surprised to find it surprisingly tasty!
2) Use the Kettle, Luke: Less exciting than the Force, but more useful in this situation, the electric kettle has saved me many a late night. How? Boil water in the kettle and pour it into your pot on the fob. It will still take a few minutes to reach a continuous boil, but it does save you at least 20 minutes!
3) Microwave meals: So, I didn’t do this one. Microwave meals are expensive here in London. Everything is. Personally, I learned how to steam pre-packaged breaded fish (meant to be cooked in an oven-oh well) and boil chicken (I thought it would be disgusting, but I was wrong) as an alternative to these meals and saved SO MUCH money. It was wonderful.
4) Eat out: Again, A nice occasional alternate as eating out is expensive. These are a couple of our “cheap” go-to places (Can I get paid for this?):
a. Tesco/Sainsbury’s/M&S where they have really cheap lunch deals where you can get a sandwich or salad, snack or small pasta, and a drink for only a few pounds.
b. Hunter Street’s King of Falafel where you can get a really good Lebanese chicken shwarma (£4.75) or falafel (£4.25.)  
c. Franco Manca is a pizza chain that I haven’t actually been too, but it’s supposed to be good and the price isn’t horrible. An “individual” size pizza (comfortably split between 2 people) goes for £6.55. However, it is healthier, and apparently tastier, than the Pizza Union alternative.
d. Any café- however we really like Caffé Tropea in Russel Square, where I get £4 arancino.
e. Craving Pub food? We always tried to go local over touristy, so our go-to pub is Lucas Arms, which hasreally wonderful food for a more reasonable price than most others we’ve tried.
5) Cook in Bulk: Just… avoid it. I personally make almost all of my meals from scratch. If you cook in bulk and freeze it, you save a lot of time: especially during a busy work or class week.