During term time, you are so busy with lectures and seminars that you don’t know which places to go to for lunch, or even more so, which places offer an affordable and decent meal. Worry not! This blog has gathered some good and affordable options, both on campus and within walking distance of campus.
- The Fourth Floor Restaurant
Located on the fourth floor of the Old Building, the Fourth Floor Restaurant offers a variety of food from several world cuisines. The menu is more diverse during lunchtime (approximately 11.30am to 1.30pm). Specifically, the stir-fried rice bowl and noodles bar is available only during lunchtime. I have already tried both and quickly became a regular at this restaurant. What I like most about the stir-fried menu is that you can choose your own vegetable toppings and the sauce. If you don’t know where to start, Hoi Sin mixed with sweet chilly sauce can’t go wrong.
The all-day menu rotates each day, and you can see the menu for the week at the restaurant. It is open between 8am and 6.30pm, which means that you can even come here for breakfast (they have a separate menu just for breakfast) or dinner before heading back home.
Expected cost: £7
- LSE Garrick
Unlike the Fourth Floor Restaurant, this lunch spot, located on the lower ground floor, is open to LSE students and to the public from 12pm. The daily menu rotates, following a specific pattern – ie, every day, the menu features either beef, fish or a vegan option. Only the cooking style is different. Also, the same dish will normally fall on the same day of the week (eg, every Tuesday, they will serve a sirloin steak which is my favourite and makes me come back every week).
A tip to save you money: order your lunch as a takeaway and enjoy it elsewhere on campus.
On the ground floor of this establishment is the LSE Garrick café which serves all kinds of coffee, beverages, pastries and light meals. It opens at 8am, so you can stop by to grab your morning booster.
Expected cost: £6
- The Leather Lane Market
This is an interesting spot outside campus but easily approachable in 10 minutes. Leather Lane Market is a weekday market aimed at office workers in the City of London area. It is sneakingly situated near the Chancery Lane tube station, not far from LSE. The market is spread on two sides of the road from Holborn street to Clerkenwell street. And it features a varied world cuisine, with more than fifty food stalls. Spanish, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai are examples of dishes available here.
I can recommend two of the food stalls which I have tried. They were both phenomenal. One is the Dope Thai stall serving Thai food (yes, I’m Thai, and I approve this one!). Another is the Yum Bowl, located at the far end of the road on the Clerkenwell street side. It serves crispy pork rice bowls.
Every dish at every stall is very affordable and the portions are generous. Most of them cost less than £8. The only catch is that the market as a whole closes quite early, with stalls starting to wrap up their till as soon as lunchtime is over. So not get there too late in the afternoon.
Expected cost: no more than £8.5
