Hackney in East London has an array of vibrant street markets selling food and products from all over the world. The video features three of Hackney’s best markets: Broadway, Ridley Road and Chatsworth Road.

• Find out more about Hackney’s markets and other markets across London.

This weekend, the largest Chinese New Year celebrations outside of Asia take place in and around London’s Chinatown in Soho. But did you know that London’s original Chinatown was in East London?

Limehouse was the site of a short-lived porcelain factory founded by George Wilson in 1746. It was one of many attempts to make a British version of the beautiful, white ceramic that was flooding into London from the Far East. Limehouse porcelain  looked Chinese but was made in East London. You can see examples of this porcelain at the Museum of London.

One hundred years later, a small community of Chinese sailors settled at Limehouse Causeway. This was one of two small, East End Chinese communities. The other was in Pennyfields in Poplar, where Chinese sailors from Shanghai had settled. Virtually all were single men, some of whom married British women.

By 1914, there were around 30 businesses and 300 people living in these small East End communities. Limehouse and Pennyfields became known as Chinatown, and many of its inhabitants made a living by running laundries.

During the Second World War, the Docklands area, including Chinatown, was badly damaged and many Chinese people moved out. In the 1950s, the market for Chinese food grew and restaurants and stalls began to spring up in Gerrard Street and Lisle Street. This was the start of the Chinatown we know today in Soho.

Find out more about Chinatown’s history or discover today’s Chinatown in Soho

Guest post by the Museum of London as part of our brand new Visiting the Past blog series. More fascinating facts about London’s history from the Museum of London next week!

The last Tuesday of every month is open house night at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Each month, the RIBA’s 66 Portland Place headquarters puts on a range of talks, tours, exhibitions and film screenings around a single topic.

October’s event, City Stories!, focused on great cities and their hidden histories, and included a fascinating talk by Dr Yat Ming Loo on London’s first Chinatown.

From the mid-nineteenth century Chinese seamen from Canton and Shanghai settled close to Limehouse Docks, with communities emerging on Limehouse Causeway, Pennyfields and Amoy Place.

Between the 1890s and 1920s the area become notorious as a place of gambling, opium dens and evocative smells – the legend of Fu Manchu originated here. However, the reality was quite different, with a very familiar London street scene greeting those who were curious, albeit with clinics, shops and boarding houses run by the Chinese.

The Blitz and various slum clearance projects before and after the Second World War saw the end of London’s first Chinatown, and there is little physical trace left today.

In the 1940s and 50s many families moved to the West End to capitalise on the growing demand for Chinese food, laying the foundations for London’s present day Chinatown.

Yat Ming Loo’s upcoming book “Architecture and Urban Form in Kuala Lumpur: Race and Chinese Spaces in a Postcolonial City” will be published in April 2013.

The next “Last Tuesdays” event on 27 November, Colour Me Vertical, will explore colour, light and architecture. Admission is free.

Follow @RIBA on twitter for #LastTuesdays updates, or visit www.architecture.com for more information.

Despite the Baltic conditions last Sunday, the Victorian bandstand in Arnold Circus, E2 was surrounded by music lovers assembled for the last Bandstand Busking gig of the year.

Founded in 2008, Bandstand Busking hopes to breathe new life into London’s many under-used bandstands, by enticing established and up-and-coming bands to perform free mini gigs. Acts have included Guillemots, She Keeps Bees and Wild Beasts at venues ranging from Lincoln’s Inn Fields to Hampstead Heath.

Forest Fire and Lulu & The Lampshades rocked the bandstand on Sunday, making good use of the excellent acoustics. Those Victorians knew what they were doing.

For more information and to find out about gigs in 2012 visit the Bandstand Busking website or follow them on twitter @bandstandbusks

We asked Independent Shoreditch for some highlights and advice on how to get the best from Columbia Road flower market this Christmas:

1) Closing time bargains. Although you – quite literally – get the pick of the bunch when the market opens at 8am, swoop in at 3pm for the best bargains. The louder the barrow boys shout, the better the deals.

2) Independent inspiration. There’s a total absence of high street chains on Columbia Road, giving your Christmas gifts the independent edge. Try Nelly Duff for art, Vintage Heaven for antiques, and Treacle for as many cakes as you can carry.

3) Christmas trees to make the neighbours blush. The market is a brilliant place to pick up a Christmas tree because of the variety on offer, from tiny potted trees to Trafalgar Square-worthy wonders. Check your ceiling height before you leave home.

4) Mouth-watering Sunday lunch. If you get peckish, try either Brawn or The Royal Oak. Brawn offers strictly seasonal fare, with as much as possible coming from local suppliers, while The Royal Oak still carries some kudos from its days as an early-morning watering hole for the market’s traders.

5) Strong arm tactics. All the plants and presents can add up. Be prepared to flex your arm muscles on the way home if you’ve over-committed yourself. Or alternatively, hope that Santa has also done his shopping on Columbia Road.

Columbia Road flower market and shops are open from 8am until about 3pm every Sunday. The shops will also be opening late every Wednesday in the run up to Christmas, on 30 November and 7, 14 and 21 of December, accompanied by festivities, seasonal food and live music.

The Caribbean is being well represented in London at the moment. Rihanna’s in town (both in real life, and in waxwork), it’s Black History Month, and there’s this new exhibition of photos from the Caribbean at the Redbridge Museum.

So, if you’re looking for a slice of Dominica in London, Island to Island: Dominica, Barbados and Britain is the show for you.

Island to Island: Dominica, Barbados and Britain is a collection of photographs exploring the links between East London and the Caribbean at the Redbridge Museum. The photos are complemented by stories of migration and experiences of living on the islands of Dominica and Barbados, and in Britain.

Photographer Tim Smith, who spent his childhood in Barbados and Dominica, shares his collection of photographs featuring the Dominican community in East London and Bradford and images taken on the two islands.  There are also photographs by Tim’s father, Derek Smith, showing everyday life on the islands during the 1960s.

One image features 76-year-old Wade Bells outside a fish and rum shop in Wesley, Dominica. Wade lived in Ladbroke Grove in London during the 1960s and has now retired to Dominica. 

The museum is also holding Caribbean-themed activities during October half term week.  Young visitors can enjoy stories and songs about carnival in the Caribbean on 25 October or join an arts and crafts session to make your own mini Caribbean island on 26 October.

Island to Island is at the Redbridge Museum until 31 December. Entrance is free. Visit www.redbridge.gov.uk to find out more.

Here’s a great video from Westfield’s YouTube channel to celebrate the arrival of Westfield Stratford City later this month.

There are so many fantastic things about this vid. I love the music, the dance, and of course, seeing all the brilliant, iconic East End fashions through the ages.

BBC Radio 1 are hosting a huge concert in Hackney next year, as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad celebrations.

The line-up will include local stars Leona Lewis and Plan B alongside 80 international and UK acts.

The concert is taking place at Hackney Marshes, on 23 and 24 June next year – traditionally Glastonbury weekend. (Don’t panic – you won’t have to choose between the two: Glastonbury’s taking a year off in 2012.)

There’ll be around 100,000 tickets available for the concert, which Radio 1 is describing as “the most ambitious event in the station’s 44-year history”. The majority of the tickets will be allocated to people living in Hackney (one of the Olympic boroughs) and to the surrounding areas.

There’ll be six stages showcasing the best of the Beeb’s various stations, and the event will replace Radio 1′s One Big Weekend for next year.

“To be part of this event is so important to me,” said Lewis, who performed with guitarist Jimmy Page at the Beijing 2008 Olympics Closing Ceremony to signal the handover to London as the host of the 2012 Games.

“I’m so excited about the opportunities and the excitement it will bring to the area. Radio 1 is going to put on the biggest show in their history and it is happening in East London. I couldn’t be happier.”

Plan B said, “It is great to have a musical celebration in the area where the Olympics are being held.”

Hackney Weekend 2012 will form part of the opening weekend of the London 2012 Festival, the UK-wide cultural celebration and finale of the Cultural Olympiad, running from 21 June to 9 September 2012.

Ruth Mackenzie, the director of the London 2012 Festival and Cultural Olympiad, said, ‘We’re delighted that Radio 1′s Hackney Weekend is part of the London 2012 Festival line-up. It is a perfect fit with our ambitions for the Festival to appeal to young people, to showcase world class talent and to work with our partners in Hackney.”

More announcements about the line-up will be revealed in due course… Who would you like to see performing at Hackney Weekend 2012?

Tucked away opposite the Old Truman Brewery in London E1 is Sheba Brick Lane.

On arriving in Brick Lane we were greeted by touts for a host of Indian restaurants all claiming to offer the best meal on the busy East End street. Sheba, however, needs no touts – it has a steady stream of customers literally queuing for the chance to eat at the well-loved establishment.
 
Founded in 1973, this family-run restaurant excels in delivering delicious, hearty Indian cuisine at a reasonable price. We arrived at 7pm to a full restaurant. Many diners seemed to be regular customers judging by their familiar rapport with the waiters, which we took to be a good sign. The bustling, buzzy atmosphere gave a sense of theatricality to the whole experience.
 
The extensive menu was rather overwhelming, with specialties from award-winning chef Gulab Miah, Sheba house specials, a huge selection of seafood as well as all the curry house classics. We eventually decided on kebab ke karishma (grilled meats) followed by the lamb lucklow (lamb shank) and special tandoori korai king prawn.

The main dishes were particularly outstanding. We’ll return to Sheba for the lamb lucknow alone, with its rich gravy of cardamon, tomato and saffron. In fact, the food was so good and portions so generous that we were compelled to take home what we couldn’t finish.
 
Our evening was rounded off perfectly with a stroll back to Liverpool Street station through the charming Spitalfields Market, happy in the knowledge that we would be able to enjoy our Sheba leftovers for lunch the next day.

Sheba is open seven days a week and booking is recommended at the weekend.