Author Archives: Grace

Visit to Paul and Kelly’s

Posted on by

The snow last year prevented our visit to see Paul and Kelly, their new daughter and their new house so finally, months and months later, we finally had a chance to visit. I couldn’t believe how big Eimer had grown already! As much as she has grown in the last eight months or so it was rather entertaining to watch her unwrap the present I got her – it was nearly as big as she was!

What a little cutey!

It was great to catch up with Paul and Kelly and see their new digs. Kelly cooked us up a delicious lunch including a gorgeous pasta – white, just how I love my pasta sauces!

Royal Ascot 4.0

Posted on by

This year is the first year that we’ve been to Royal Ascot where the weather has been really sh!tty – that didn’t stop us (and many others) from making the most of the day though and, actually, it was quite nice to change things up a little bit. Never mind the fact that I destroyed my shoes (my brand new heels!) within the first half an hour of being track-side! Ha ha. Just as well I’d brought another pair of shoes (flats) and my thongs! LOL!

Getting to Ascot is always a good move any year but in particular this year when space under tents and tables were at the premium. We were rather amused to watch the people around us and how people were sneaking chairs away from tables where they could!

It was pretty civil to begin with …

… but got very crowded and crazy later on …

… and I love this moment where we were surrounded by the granny brigade! I felt bad about not giving them our seats but they soon found seating around us anyway.

Due to the rain this was the closest I go to the Queen this year. She was in a lovely peach outfit and was looking very bright considering the weather on the outside.

The weather might have been a downer but the race results were pretty good for me this year. Was it because I’d promised the guys at work that I’d donate all winnings to their 100km walking effort in the South Downs? In either case my race plan of choosing by name and choosing horses with larger odds worked quite well with wins in four out of six races. And its always nice to win on the last race of the day – so was very happy to be celebrating along with owner of the horse Mark Owen 🙂

The boys and I had a lovely day and we’re looking forward to Ascot 2012. Let’s hope for better weather though!

The Mercer Restaurant & Bar

Posted on by

A groupon deal promised a 7-course tasting menu at The Mercer and it seemed like good timing with Rache visiting London for work that we could go and dine in her local ‘hood. The Mercer has a very city-feel so the diners this evening were, in the majority, suits. But, we had no problem with that as long as the food and the service was good 😉

You’d be hard pressed to actually call every dish that we had tonight an actual course so to describe it as a 7-course tasting menu was a bit ambitious, it was more like 3 or 4 full courses with 3 or 4 half-courses. However, there could be no complaining about the quality and taste of the food and actually it was probably just the right amount for a satisfying meal tonight.

We started with a spring pea and mint soup with crumbled feta. This was divine and one of the best tasting pea soups I’ve ever tasted. The feta (with fennel), however, didn’t really add anything and was the first thing that Rache and I tried to get rid of.

Smoked mackerel spread, capers, malted toast was okay though I’m not the best person to judge such dishes as pates and like are not really my thing. They could have been more generous with the toast – we couldn’t finish even half our spread despite best efforts as there wasn’t enough toast! and it was simply too rich to eat on its own.

Next up – Watt’s farm asparagus hollandaise. The hollandaise was delish – again like the spread we could have done with more than just two pieces of asparagus!

The Mercer pie. This deserved a “The” – it was great tasting (though would have preferred a bottom on the pie) combination of beef flank, field mushrooms, Guinness, and short crust pastry. Even the ladies next to us had cause to comment that the pie was so good they couldn’t help picking off the pastry from the side of the bowl. They were practically licking the plate!

Eton Mess was more like a shotglass than a full dessert – think it could have done with more meringue.

And finally we finished with British cheeses, biscuits and chutney (could have done with an explanation of what the cheeses were) and Devils on Horseback consisting of prunes, smoked bacon and chutney. This had a bit of bite or some sort of heat which was a good touch. And was more like a mouthful than a whole dish.

Really pleased with our dinner tonight at The Mercer. Service was excellent and very approachable. Food was yummy and well-cooked. I would definitely come back for The Mercer Pie again!

X-Men: First Class

Posted on by

I was a bit skeptical about X-Men: First Class as having seen the trailers I was left feeling a bit under-whelmed. However, the movie actually turned out very well and I think that was due for the most part to the back to basics story-telling and less on just it being about special effects (though there was enough to keep the action going.)

X-Men: First Class tracks back to the beginning of the X-Men, back to the end of WWII when all these secret experiments were still going on, back to when mutants first start to discover their powers and the alliances of heroes and villains start to form.

I loved the focus on the relationships between all the characters, especially that between the two leaders, Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr (who is later known as Magneto.) Good acting. If there was one thing that I think was slightly mis-balanced it was the final battle which seemed overlong and never-ending. Otherwise a “first class” movie.

ITV1’s Red or Black

Posted on by

Rather excitingly Rache was selected to be part of Simon Cowell’s new £15m TV gameshow on ITV called “Red or Black”, to be hosted by Ant and Dec. Top prize on the live show was going to be £1 million! This weekend was the start of the elimination rounds to cut down thousands of contestants to just the lucky seven people who over seven nights on live TV would get a chance to become a millionaire … simply by choosing red or black on a giant roulette wheel. The chances of Rache getting through were pretty small – there were ten of these stages to get through!!

The lead-up to the giant roulette wheel was that contestants would have to choose from one of two outcomes on a series of challenges – one would be marked black, one red in keeping with the concept of the show. The challenges are supposed to be fun and exciting and exhilarating and involve celebrities.

I was very happy when Rache asked me if I wanted to be part of the audience (contestants get to bring along a guest) and of course I jumped at the chance. It ended up being a very very long day! Fun, but long. I’ve been to my fair share of TV recordings so shouldn’t have been surprised at the level of disorganisation there was today. I guess we have to be slightly forgiving in the sense that this was the first day of the whole program so there were bound to be a few teething problems. But my biggest nitpick with today’s event was the lack of communication – not only a lack of it actually, but also the total mis-communication. For example, telling us we needed to be in seats or at the arena by a certain time (10.15) but actually they didn’t start moving us in until 11.30, or when there were delays in the stunts we were told there would be sweets and prizes distributed and that delays would only be a moment (when in fact in most instances the delays were over an hour), etc. etc. They didn’t even really ever tell us what we could expect during the day which was really annoying.

The way it worked today, from how we worked it out and from gossip amongst various people, was that the contestants were separated from their guests and sat in various sections of the Arena. This was so when they were filming who got chosen to choose red or black it would seem like random blocks of the audience when in fact people had been pre-selected. We had to practise the cheering and contestant selection a few times.

There were actually a couple of thousand contestants who came down to Wembley for today’s event (with several more thousand coming later that tonight and more tomorrow) and from speaking to everyone around me found out they’d come from all over the UK including as far away as Scotland (like Rache.) There were about four “groups” to get through in the day session we were attending. Luckily Rache was in the second group – because of how long the day took with all the pauses, re-shoots etc. she didn’t get done with her bit until nearly 5pm … not sure what the other two groups are going to do!

It was lucky I was sat around some pretty friendly +1s – from what they were saying the majority of them were professional game show applicants – having applied for every game show there was to enter! Ha ha. One of them even knew a person who won £0.50 and another who won £30,000 from Deal or No Deal.

The first “challenge” featured the “celebrities” for the day: Jedward. I know. I was like really? Well, I guess they have links to Simon Cowell and, say what you want about them, they certainly have plenty of energy and are great for getting the crowd going. The event was Twinball – which basically involved each of them getting into a human hamster ball and running around an obstacle course with little tippers batting them back like they were in a pinball machine. It was absolutely hilarious. I don’t think they really practised with the balls before hand because it ended up being a lot tougher for the twins to get through the obstacle courses than producers imagined. Unfortunately one of the twins, Jonathan, actually got injured so had to get stretchered off. Oops! Too bad for the people who chose his colour!

Rache’s challenge was Overdrive which basically involved two stuntmen on top of the roof of cars who then have to race to the end of a straight course whilst jumping and ducking under various poles. They were going to run a few practise runs in front of the contestants but changed their mind and got the contestants to leave before they did their runs … which was probably a smart move because the practise run said everything. One guy was terrible! The rumour goes that one of the original stunt men had got injured the day before so his replacement hadn’t had a chance to refine his skill …

Rache, pictured below, unfortunately chose Black, who was the replacement stunt guy. It wasn’t quite the wipeout that we were all expecting it to be … though one suspects that was a bit of a ploy by the producers to make it a little bit more interesting (the race was best out of five.)

Ah well … guess she’s gotta find another way to make £1 million …

Covent Garden Cocktail Club

Posted on by

So apparently this is what happy hour at the Covent Garden Cocktail Club looks like. Heh heh.

And this is what happens to those who have consumed the drinks! It just doesn’t look right does it!

Lord of the Flies

Posted on by

I’d been very worried that the weather would ruin our evening at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre tonight but thankfully we arrived at the park to this …

… and thankfully conditions stayed pretty much like that for the rest of the evening.

The Open Air Theatre was a very fitting venue for tonight’s Lord of the Flies theatre performance. The outdoor element of the theatre really emphasised the island feel and though I couldn’t quite say that I felt like I was only the island with them (we were sitting too far away for that! Side note: Great tapering on the seats!) it certainly felt like we were perhaps sitting on a boat not too far from shore. Heh heh.

The set was quite awesome to be honest. They’d even dragged on what seemed like to be the back part of the plane but could have equally been a cleverly built set. I love the luggage strewn all over the ground and clothes up in the trees. And for a set which really couldn’t take too much the production crew did well to transport us from one part of the island to another with just a few changes in the scenery and where the cast members were standing.

Most people are pretty familiar with the story behind Lord of the Flies and it’s a rare person (Laney being one of them!) who has neither studied the book at school nor seen any of the film adaptations with the 1990 version starring Balthazar Getty being the most recent. In contrast with Laney I both studied and the book and saw the movie! The basic story is that a group of British school boys are stranded on a deserted island who have to learn to survive, and more importantly, learn to govern themselves. It’s a commentary on human nature and the effect of selfishness versus the greater good. The dark themes are strong in this one.

There was some very decent character acting by the kids who displayed a certain amount of maturity in their acting that I was quite surprised by. The play is also very physical requiring the young actors to run and leap absolutely everywhere. And they all handled it with aplomb. The other unexpected element of the play was the number of musical scenes which involved much music, dancing and chanting. Along with the lighting it really added to the menacing tone over the overall play. Very well choreographed.

An all around fantastic evening of theatre.

Butley

Posted on by

I’ve never saw the hugely popular tv show The Wire, but knew enough of it to recognise lead Dominic West. When I saw he was going to be in a play on West End of course I jumped at the chance to go see it – without even reading what the play was about! Rehana was my willing accomplice.

Butley is revival of a play from the 1970s about an alcoholic English lecturer Butley, played by West, who loses his wife, and as we find out later, his male lover in the same day. He is both a bully and a coward, self-destructive, hypocritical and yet strangely charming. I couldn’t help be lured in by West’s energetic and lunacy! Seriously.

Centering around an English lecturer the play is very very wordy so you can’t check your brain at the door. I think it kind of helps if you had studied some English literature as there are many references during the play to various pieces. There must have been some English teachers or professors in the crowd tonight because there were certainly some rather outrageous and over the top laughter at particular moments that you suspect were insider joke moments.

The cast was very impressive and everyone really embraced his or her character. West and his timid male “lover”, played by Martin Hutson. The play itself was incredibly witty but as I said you have to concentrate to make sure you catch everything.

Overall an entertaining evening all around.

Grand Imperial Yum Cha

Posted on by

Avoid Grand Imperial Yum Cha at all costs! Laney and I had been told by a friend that this new restaurant at Victoria had an all you could eat offer on their yum cha on Sundays. We arrived disappointed to find that this wasn’t offered to us and, after looking at the prices, we were too embarrassed to even broach the topic with our waitstaff – tea, for a start, was priced at £4.00 per person (!) and dim sum dishes started at about £4.00 (on average they should start at £2.50ish!) Hilariously I don’t think I’ve ever had quite a large teapot for my Chinese tea before. I could barely lift it!

Deep Fried Ice Cream was intriguing at £6.00 (on the menu outside) but a total turn off when we looked at the menu inside and it had jumped to £8.00! Oh boy. Anyway, we had made our reservation and now had to eat it. The Grand Imperial is attached to the Thistle Hotel just outside Victoria station so it couldn’t really be in a more convenient spot. You’d think we would have been wary of a restaurant attached to a hotel but to be honest there are so many restaurants attached to hotels in London that I didn’t even think about it. No doubt about it Grand Imperial certainly looks the business – high ceilings, black lacquer tables and chairs, chandeliers, and embossed serviettes but did it deliver on food?

I actually had Grand Imperial down on my to-eat list, but that was from the regular dinner menu. My mistake for thinking that just because that menu sounded good the yum cha would be good too! At the prices we were being charged I was expecting something spectacular – plain and regular was what we got instead. And tiny! Our steamed prawn dumplings (priced at £4.80) was absolutely miniature (that I didn’t even bother taking a photo) as was the steamed pork bun. Two staple dishes done very disappointingly.

And our Prawn Cheung Fung seemed to have had a third cut off! The only highlight was the Pan-Fried Foie Gras and Beef Dumpling (3 for £4.20), which was actually quite delicious, in an otherwise ordinary meal.

Since we had our wallets out we also opted for the Chocolate Dim Sum “Platter”. Don’t be deceived – it was a mere four pieces of various different chocolate dim sum: Canton Cracker, Coconut Delight Pumpkin Bundle, and Cashew Crescent for £6. Pretty is about as positive I can be about this platter.

I don’t think I’ve ever walked away from a yum cha meal quite so hungry. Still, there are good reviews out there for this restaurant so I’m willing to give it another chance to see if their other food does the reviews justice.