The Perfect Picnic: Mangal style

Mangal I, 10 Arcola Street, E8 2DJ

Picnic for two: £10.50 

One of the things I love about East London is the proliferation of makeshift BBQs, which fill up our open spaces as soon as soon as the temperature hits twenty degrees. By contrast, the residents of Clapham, whilst favoured with a spacious Common, are generally more law abiding when it comes to park regulations. However, there is a downside to the Victoria Park BBQ anarchy: food envy. How can even the most luxurious of hampers compete with proper grilled food? It can't but, fortunately, it doesn't have to.

Get Forked for less in Istanbul

Nevizade sokak at night

There are plenty of reasons to love Istanbul: its long warm summers, its location by the sea at the point where two continents meet or the proliferation of historic buildings which feature on the list of things one is supposed to see in a lifetime. However, for a glutton such as myself, Istanbul offers more than enough to justify the journey on that count alone. Moreover, if you find yourself there without many liras to your name, as we did, it need not affect your enjoyment of the city's culinary delights.

Though I generally prefer cities to the countryside, even for a holiday, some places are incomparable in their atmosphere and style (and have bloody good restaurants). Whenever I visit one of these cities for the first time, I irritate Mr Fork by declaring a desire to either move there or, if it has been a truly successful trip, to rearrange history so that I can be from there. I mention this merely to illustrate my sincerity when I say Istanbul is a marvellous place, peerless in its happy mix of cultures and lately top of my list of places I would leave London for.