On the way to lunch Sandra and I stopped in at Selfridges as she wanted to check out some furniture. Weirdly Bo Concepta had a spread put out – free cookies, cake and drink!
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Had to pass on the cookies and cake but I had to grab one of water bottles which were pretty cool.
To say that cupcakes are huge in London at the moment would be the mega understatement of the century. The latest to enter the scene is Cox Cookies and Cake located in Soho. The one thing that Cox Cookies and Cake does is that it adds something a little different to the cupcake scene – in terms of the looks of the cupcakes at least if not the flavours.
Staying true to its Soho location, the shop is themed out to be almost a night club – ridiculously loud music, at 
least when Sandra and I turned up just before lunch, included. The interior is painted black and window displays are all kitted out with neon lights. The shop is actually rather bare except for a bar along one wall and then, of course, the cupcakes at a counter on the other wall.
The cupcakes themselves looked pretty schmick – there are regular ones (or classics) priced at £2.50 or you can indulge in a specialty (£4.00) which can be covered in skulls, an Andy Warhol Marilyn, or sparkling sugar ‘diamonds’, and a giant pair of lips and then you could go for the Coxxx (get it?) Cakes (also £4.00) such as the Titty Cake, Man Cake, the Beef Cake and the Bum Cake. The flavouring of the Beef Cake sounded the most delicious and unique flavouring – hazelnut praline cupcake with praline icing and nothing to do with the bulging bicep attached on top I promise … the guys said the menu was kind of still being played around with but I do like the fact that the cupcakes themselves aren’t just vanilla or just chocolate (e.g. bases included choc and cherry, carrot, banana and raspberry.)
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Sandra and I were going to be having lunch at Phoenix Palace not too long after so I didn’t go for one of the richer specialties or Coxxx cakes – instead I tried the Lemon cupcake with lemon frosting and shaved white chocolate curls. It was very good but very very sweet!
Oh the other thing to be said about the store is that the guys in the store are very cute!!!!
Cadbury were running this Spots Versus Stripes competition thing in Leicester Square – basically it involves mini-competitions between those on the Spots team and those on the Stripes team. It was quite an atmosphere in the Square today and all sorts of people were out – including this one guy walking his giant lizard!
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I was surprised that the guy with his white minks wasn’t around too. He normally hangs around Leicester Square or Trafalgar Square at the latest.
So, I managed to convince Sandra to play one of the games called Slide and Dunk. Basically you slide down this rather massive slide in a potato sack and then shoot the ball into a hoop when you got to the bottom. The slide looked pretty big from the ground but when we got to the top it was pretty scary – even for someone like me who likes that kind of thing!
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We did it though … and for friendship’s sake we will call it a draw 😉
My play date with Sandra today started off with a visit to the London Transport Museum. Yes we are just big kids at heart! The Museum is located in the heart of Covent Garden and underwent a re-furb not too long ago. At over £12 to get in, it’s a little expensive for adults (or kid-ults like us) to get in but free for those under 16. Luckily we were able to use a 2-4-1 offer for the day to reduce the cost a bit.
The Museum has effectively three floors and there is definitely plenty to occupy for the little ones … and a little bit less so for the bigger ones! Still, if you have a interest in the history of London Transport, its quite a good museum and there is heaps of memorabilia, such as copper tokens (as opposed to tickets), old maps, adverts etc. to get through.
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The lift amusingly goes up (or more technically down) by years rather than floor numbers.
The top floor is dedicated to 19th century London.
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Level 1 starts to see the Growth of the Surburbs – and it is on this level that a kind of interactive bit for the kids exists e.g. they get to dress up and drive a bus, play interactive quizzes, and there is even a Guess Who of London Transport workers to play.
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Finally the bottom floor has all the demonstrate buses etc.. and also exhibitions on London during the war (quite sobering) and a closer look at the workings of the Underground.
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It took us just over an hour to work our way through the museum but that was probably because we didn’t read every single little thing … on the other hand we did waste some time climbing every demonstration bus and playing in the kids interactive area (the clothes were very tiny – we could only fit the caps on – heh heh!)
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I can see this would be a great place to bring the little ones to play – next time I’ll have to borrow one! 😉
Laney dragged me along to see the most random show tonight “A Guide To Sexual Misery”. Wolfgang 
Weinberger, professional sexologist, was aiming to answer any and all questions about sexual relations and why, quite often, it goes wrong!
I wasn’t really sure what I was in for – was it going to be like Your Days are Numbered: Maths and Death, a presentation using statistics to demonstrate why a large percentage of our population was due for sexual misery?, was there going to be embarrassing crowd-participation moments? was it sex therapy? was I going to be laughing? was I going to be laughed at?
Turns out that it was a bit of a combination of everything. Wolfgang is at heart an academic with a degree in economic and MA in Filmmaking. Very random then that he should turn to this particular topic without much 
academia to support him. The show contained mostly clichéd presumptions, generalisations and reactions about sex. He tried to get the crowd involved by asking us questions like “does size matter”, “do you masturbate more than once a day/daily/weekly/monthly” … this was after separating the men from the women to give a kind of wall of silence between partners with humming being our way of secret voting. Hmmm … not that anonymous really! This part was rather awkward to say the least!
Having said all that I couldn’t help but laugh for most of the show, albeit nervously at times! I don’t think the show would have been half as funny if it hadn’t been presented by someone like Wolfgang, who was endearing in his bumbling way and his Austrian accent. I wouldn’t recommend this show for anyone actually seeking answers to resolve their sexual misery but you will, at least for 90 minutes, be entertained.
Michael Cera and comic-book-video-game-esque story-line – how could the combination really go wrong. It didn’t take much convincing for me to go check this movie out that’s for sure! The movie is vastly entertaining on so many levels though I’m not sure to the non-gaming or non-geeky public how much they would “get it”.
Michael Cera is a young musician who falls for this amazon delivery girl, Ramona Flowers. To win her he must first beat her seven evil exes (one who interestingly turns out to be a girl!) who are coming to kill him in a street-fighter /mortal kombat type reference. Kieran Culkin makes an interesting and actually engaging appearance as his gay roommate.
The visuals are simply stunning and inventive (its not like many movies you’ll have seen) but what really entertained me was the quick-witted, punny and even sometimes plain silly, but appealing, dialogue. It had me wetting my pants with laughter. Additionally, I love the fact that the movie had a lot of pop culture references.
No doubt about it this is a movie for geeks – but one that deserves to be watched again and again and again.
The Wolseley is one of those places where everyone should go for brunch or lunch at least once when in London. I’ve been to the have brunch there before but only in their little sun room at the front. This time around Connie managed to snag us a booking for lunch in the main room. I’ve given the description of the interior before so there is no need to bore you with that again. Nothing much had changed from the last visit – the same sumptuous interior, the same la-de-da clientele, the same excellent service (although they weren’t very efficient with the serving of water!)
Heaps of celebrity sightings this time – we were first sat next to Dawn French who was having a meal with her ex Lenny Henry (we later moved to a bigger table but sadly away from the gregarious couple) and also Sir Ahmed Salman Rusdie (author of the Satanic Verses.) I guess this is one of the reasons that you’re not allowed to take photos inside – to stop the stalkerazzi!
Lunch was a very relaxed affair despite the surrounds and again there was no feeling of rushing us out and away from our table. There was a minor boo boo by the restaurant as one of our desserts was forgotten. However the waitress was very apologetic and they were able to produce it very quickly after we asked.
Near my home is a relatively new Sichuan restaurant called Seventeen. It does not look like the kind of place that I can drop in for a takeaway, unlike my favourite local restaurant New Fortune Cookie, or even eat at on a regular, say weekly, basis. Its one of the new modern dark sleek looking places and if looks would count for anything you should expect a very nice meal.
Not to judge a book by its cover I took advantage of a groupon deal to dine – £16 for £40 of credit. Now for our typical oriental meal this would do Pat and I pretty nicely … but at seventeen we actually ended up spending another £18 which means that the meal was nearly £60 all up. Admittedly that included the cost of two drinks (one of which was a lychee martini Pat couldn’t resist.)
Food-wise it wasn’t the most impressive I’ve ever tasted nor were the portions very generous. Further, I guess we didn’t really take advantage of the Sichuan offerings. Maybe it deserves a second chance?
Every now and then you just gotta go all meat crazy so I met up with the lads tonight for an All-You-Can-Meat at Comida, a rodizio grill restaurant. This is where they come around with meat sticks and serve you your meat. It’s quite a small venue located on South Molton Street so unless you knew about it I guess it wouldn’t exactly shout out eat here!
The Cons (because you should always end up on a positive note)
The Pros
Overall, I guess at £20+ for the food you could do worse. We at least had a pretty good night – even if the boys were paying out on me for not keep up with their meat-scapades!
I’ve quite often walked past Kettner’s in Soho, admiring the piano inside and the newish décor (white furniture and sterling silver candelabras.) Apparently Kettner’s is one of the oldest restaurants in London dating back to 
the 1860s! I thought it was a fairly intimate venue but according to the website inside there are four areas – a brasserie, champagne bar, pudding bar (for tea) and The Apartment (a club, as in private club not nightclub …)
Taking advantage of a top table offer I met Jenny there for a catch up tonight – I think however that prices at Kettner’s are pretty reasonable all around (e.g. with offers like 2 courses for £14.50) and even their a la carte menu isn’t too steep. The food is seriously good value for money and both Jenny and I were very satisfied with our main dishes – I had a grilled fish served on this fried greens and this was simply divine.
Unfortunately, there was a bit of a mis-understanding about Jenny’s dessert as the waiter couldn’t quite explain 
what the Peach Tart was going to be. Tarts seem to be somewhat of a specialty at Kettner’s if the fact that they have a Tart of the Day AND 4 tarts on the dessert menu … unfortunately, the tart for Jenny consisted literally of a pastry crust filled with fruit. Don’t think there was any sort of other preparation. And the Peach wasn’t even ripe! On the plus side our waiter was very good about changing it to another dessert (which ended up being a much better dessert – so much that I’m pretty sure Jenny licked the plate? 😉 )
The drawback to Kettner’s as a venue is that it was very very noisy in the room we were in. If we weren’t competing with the man at the piano we were competing with everyone else talking loudly (no doubt required because they couldn’t hear each other either!)
I’ve read some pretty average reviews of Kettner’s from their service to their food but I must say from tonight’s experience I’d have to disagree with them. Great food and nice friendly service. If only they had a volume control for the other diners …