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Top Asian fusion restaurant and Fairtrade café join Queen Mary’s Mile End campus

A contemporary Fairtrade coffee shop and a new branch of the popular Asian-fusion restaurant Drunken Monkey, are the latest additions to Queen Mary, University of London’s Mile End campus.

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Reflecting the international student body and the diversity of east London, Mile End campus is fast becoming a ‘foodie’ hub, with a growing range of global eateries and bars, as well as a popular weekly farmers’ market.

On Monday 4 February, ‘The Foyer’ in the People’s Palace will open as a vibrant modern café for coffee lovers and those with a sweet tooth, offering a wide range of cakes, pastries and ‘retro’ sweets. The Foyer aims to become a beacon for coffee lovers to relax or work over a cup of expertly roasted and brewed Eros Fairtrade coffee, or exotic teas from the Fairtrade London Tea Company.

January saw the launch of the Drunken Monkey’s Mile End branch, alongside the Regent’s Canal at the back of the campus. The company, run by Simon and Stephen Chan has two other sites in Shoreditch and Clapham. While it is famous for its exciting cocktail list, “dim sum and then some” menu - small portions of a variety of foods, including steamed or fried dumplings - the restaurant also offers a menu of noodles and rice dishes. Dim sum dishes start from just £2.50.

Drunken Monkey Mile End runs a buffet style lunch service between 11am and 3.30pm, with four special main dishes served every day as part of a daily lunch deal.  At 4pm the full menu is then available and will include a range of options such as special “drunken rice”, noodles, soups, roasted meats and hotpots. Their twist on the traditional Sunday Roast will arrive in the next few weeks.

The restaurant describes its happy hours (5-7pm) as “infamous”, with cocktails reduced to £4.50 and beer on offer at four bottles for £10.

Melissa Bautista, Events and PR Manager at the Drunken Monkey says: “When setting up the original Drunken Monkey, we found that with dim sum cuisine, traditionally a lunchtime fare, we could actually be as innovative as we wanted it to be.

“Our dim sum as tapas, and cocktail bar format worked so well at our Shoreditch branch for our eclectic mix of clientele, from tourists, to hipsters and bankers. Ten years on, we wanted to keep things just as interesting – Queen Mary just seemed a perfect fit. It’s a new crowd, a different type of energy, and all against an entirely different backdrop to Shoreditch. As a business, we get to play around with different ideas that may not have worked had it not been in a London university campus.”

 

Further information on catering at QM:

  • The new venues at Mile End join Queen Mary’s established restaurants, including Drapers’ Bar, Ground, and the Italian trattoria Mucci’s, which recently introduced new pizza flavours, pastas and starters, alongside current favourites. The Curve continues to serve a full range of Starbucks hot drinks, Fairtrade snacks, fresh fruit and baked goods at its café counter. The restaurant’s deli bar has weekly themed menus, including Chinese, Italian, Thai, Indian and Mexican food, all cooked fresh in-house daily a skilled team of chefs.
  • Queen Mary became the first London university to have certified Farmers’ Market in 2010 and the Thursday market (9am – 2pm) at Mile End continues to be a huge success, offering fresh, healthy local produce, wild game and fish, baked goods, cheeses and hot dishes. Stallholders include the Giggly Pig Co, Sweet Tree Bakery Ltd and Woodwards Farm
  • For more information on QM’s Catering and Hospitality service visit http://www.catering.qmul.ac.uk/
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