You never know what you’ll see wandering the streets of London. You may just find a hidden garden (apparently winner of Best Wildlife Garden for Camden In Bloom 2009):
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Or random blowup doll looking out of a window:
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The treasures of London.
Author Archives: Grace
Phoenix Palace Golden Custard Buns
Its nearing Chinese New Year so Chinese restaurants across London are starting to bring out some special dishes. We have been waiting for the golden custard buns to become available at Phoenix Palace for a while now and how happy were we to find out they were available today! But one custard bun a meal does not make so we made a slight detour to have some yum cha dishes and to sample something new. What I love about Phoenix Palace is that although it has some of the usual sorts of dishes you expect on the menu they also do some dishes, and not a prohibitive prices like Hakkasan or Plum Valley, which you wouldn’t find in many other Chinese restaurants. Our new dish of the day was Yin Yan Fried Rice (Chicken in Tomato Cooli & Prawn in Egg Glazed on Fried Rice). It was gorgeous! I’d have eaten the whole thing if I wasn’t leaving room for the custard bun …
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And then the dish we were waiting for – the golden custard buns:
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Remind you of anything?
The buns were delicious though we have subsequently deducted that the cause for the liquidy goodness inside was a heck of a lot of butter! However that won’t stop me having another one next time I’m in the neighbourhood …
Boardroom view
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Laney’s Sushi Party
Laney got back to London a couple of days ago after spending a couple of months back in sunny Perth over Christmas and New York. To welcome her back her flat hosted a sushi party. Sushi is a great idea and I love going out for sushi but when you put it into practice at home you generally end up with a whole load of sushi made with only one ingredient! because as you can imagine you don’t need a whole lot of ingredients with the main component being rice!
Therefore the idea of a sushi party is great because you get to share your sushi creation with a load of people which means a wider variety in what you’re sampling.
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We had a great night tonight. The superior sushi maker was definitely Randy, who took to it like he was an expert (he’d done it once or twice before) even going for an inside out roll and attempting ngiri. My sushi roll, though not the most professional, was the most definitely the largest though I had a hard time sealing it with all the ingredients I’d stuff into it. Tasty though. Heh heh.
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How cute is Laney’s rice cooker (the little one on the left)!
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Espelette Afternoon Tea
I thought it would be nice to bring Caro out to an afternoon tea for her birthday. I’d read about the “Chic and Shock” afternoon tea at the Espelette in the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair from Timeout so was eager to try it out with Caro. Afternoon tea is served in the Conservatory which overlooks Carlos Place and Mount Street. When we arrived the place was abuzz with other fellow afternoon tea goers. Interestingly many of them, or the men at least, were kitted out rather casually in jeans and trainers! Still, afternoon tea is I think an opportunity to indulge in my girly girly side (which doesn’t really come out that often!) so I was happy to make an effort!
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We were guided to a seat by the window which gave us a view out to a most amazing day. After a quick sneaky mention to the waiter that it was Caro’s birthday we settled down to an afternoon of overeating! Ha!
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First of all we started with the tea selection – the variety included the usual variants of black, white and green tea. Whilst Caro opted for a mix of a number of teas with the Connaught Blend (Darjeeling, Lapsang, Keemun and Oolong) I went for a black tea which a hint of lemon, bergamot, caramel and vanilla (a blend called Paris.) If I ever come here again I’d be interested in trying the Caribe blend: Black and green tea infused with hibiscus, guava, coconut and strawberry accentuated with Marigolds and cornflowers. All those flavours!
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Served at the same time as our tea were our sandwiches. Two usual suspects in the cucumber and dill cream and egg, mayo and watercress sandwiches and then the two sandwiches with bite: prawns, mayonnaise with chilli and fresh coriander leaves and smoked salmon and wasabi cream. Interesting! My favourite sandwich was definitely the prawn with chilli mayo with the egg and mayo coming a second. I liked the wasabi on the smoked salmon but I’m not a fan of smoked salmon itself.
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After a second round of sandwiches (which we didn’t in all honesty need) it was on to pastries which are always the highlight of the afternoon tea. We had quite a few to choose from so we decided that we’d split everything to try it and then if we wanted anything else we’d just ask for more. Our pastries, starting from the bottom layer and working up were: Tirgre, marzipan and chocolate sponge cake topped with caramelized rice crispies, Praline cream with and hazelnut crumble, Tarte Montblanc, then Tiramisu tart, coffee financier and mascarpone mousse, Lime bar, milk and almond glaze topped with hazelnut gianduja cream, and Choux paste with caramel pastry cream and finally on top a shot glass of Coca Cola jelly and marinated pink grapefruit in whiskey along with our clotted cream for our warmed plain and apricot scones. We also got a variety of jellies to go with our scones: strawberry, chestnut, orange and marmalade.
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Do you think that once we went through the above that we felt like seconds? Ha! Not at all – were so stuffed but then they brought a little plate for Caro and, though we’d forgotten about it, our final round: cakes! Slices of chocolate cake with a Gianduja glaze and lemon cake with ginger and Earl grey tea. I wish I’d been less full to do justice to the cakes.
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We had a lovely time at the Esplette though surprisingly the waiter who we’d been assigned was a little bit remiss in his attention. I think he was caught up trying to keep on top of the big group of women that were seated next to us. Other than that though the other waitresses and waiters were fine. On a clear day like today the Conservatory was a perfect setting for an afternoon tea – light and airy and a good slightly buzzy atmosphere.
Note also that afternoon tea here is definitely at the higher end of the scale (£35 before service and sans champagne!)
Ice Wharf
After dinner at Viktor I headed across town to meet up with the trainees at the Ice Wharf in Camden as it was results night and they were all celebrating/commiserating passes/fails. The Ice Wharf must have expected some trouble because they were IDing everyone – irrespective of how old people were. Pete had to head across to a pub on the other side of the lock as he’d forgotten his ID!
I knew that turning up at the Ice Wharf gone 10pm was dangerous as the rest of the group were going to be at least 4 hours of drinking ahead of me! Ha ha! When I turned up James had already pressed a champagne glass into my hands and topped it up within a few seconds. Rather amusing. More amusing was the fact that at one stage a bit later that night Charlotte got a little carried away trying to drink champagne – there were five empty bottles on the table and she tipped each one into her mouth to get the very last drops! LOL!
Jenny sure was happy with passing her last set of exams:
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Viktor
I was expecting quite a bit from Viktor, a “Modern Japanese Restaurant, located in Knightsbridge. The location seemed right, the menu seemed interested … its just a shame that no one told me that in just a few days time it was closing for renovation! If I had known this I would have thought twice about making a booking for dinner tonight. Over half the items we wanted to try were not available as the kitchen was apparently running down their supplies …
Walking in at 7.30pm on a Friday evening the restaurant was practically empty except for one or two other diners. This was not a good sign! However by the time we left a couple of hours later it did start to fill up a bit though not by much.
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First impressions were pretty good – we were seated quickly at a window seat in a room which was dominated by browns and dark colours popular with modern Japanese restaurants. Loads of mirrors line one side of the wall, presumably to make the restaurant feel bigger than it actually is. Our serviettes were folded up like a little suits and our soy sauce saucer was in a cute little fish dish. However things soon degenerated when choice after choice got shot down. Perhaps if the waiter had told us from the outset what was unavailable our expectations might not have been so disappointed.
Nevertheless we finally settled on a combination which was actually available. We started off with two sushi dishes: Grilled Spicy Salmon and Viktor eel (Avocado, cucumber, tobiko, eel on top)
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The sushi wasn’t too bad to be honest though we would have had a lot more had there been availability.
We followed this with a few main dishes of Almond Honey Shrimp Tempura, Duck Leg Sake, Lamb Ribs Teriyaki and a gorgeous grilled Aubergine which was the standout dish of the evening. The tempura was average, the duck leg was salty and the lamb ribs … tasted too much like lamb! Ha!
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Although we were quite full at this stage we still pushed on with some dessert. Pat went for his favourite green tea ice cream and I thought I’d try something different: wasabi ice cream. It was surely the oddest thing I’ve ever eaten – it was sweet but also not sweet. Strange and, admittedly, very difficult to get through. I was almost grateful I only had one scoop – even if the dish was priced at over £6!
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With the 50% off the meal was still quite expensive, though admitted we had quite a few dishes, but I think at full price the restaurant would have been slightly overpriced. Service was a bit hit and miss – such as the not explaining from the beginning which dishes were unavailable and being a bit pushy on drinks.
I’d say our visit tonight was a rather average visit marred mostly by not being able to eat what we wanted.
grace kua night
I always get excited when I see my name has been used for a business whether it be a restaurant, a shop, a building so I got super excited when I heard there was a grace bar opening in London and even more excited when I heard there was a bar named for my last name. Therefore I decided to have a grace kua night for fun.
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grace bar turned out to be where sugar reef used to be. I don’t know why they felt they needed to rebrand and refit the bar since sugar reef seemed okay as it was but hey what are you to do. We started with some dinner in the bar section of the grace bar (as opposed to the restaurant) and I’m afraid to say the experience was a little disappointing. Though our waitress was friendly enough when we got her attention – she was not very good at her job and as a result we barely saw her and she forgot one of our orders. Additionally the bar was extremely slow in getting our drinks ready and the kitchen super slow in getting our (overcooked) burgers out to us. Very disappointing and if we hadn’t had the 50% food and drinks voucher I might have had words.
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Hilariously I asked for a kahlua and milk drink for my second drink and they served it as two separate drinks:
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After our dinner and a couple of drinks we decided to head over to the second half of the evening – the kua bar. The kua bar is located in the Cumberland Hotel just behind Marble Arch. Unfortunately the closest we got was the door because apparently it had shut for the night (it was only 8.15!)! Apparently it’s a bar that the hotel keeps open for as long as they have customers … I guess tonight it was a quiet one.
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London Conference 2010
Random goings on at tonight’s post London Conference drinks … and I was only supposed to stay for one drink!
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Hibiscus
Its only recently that I’ve started to realise that sometimes eating off a set meal or special menu at these Michelin-starred restaurants is a bit of false economy – though you’re saving at least 50%, if not more, on your total bill you’re actually short-changing yourself on the experience because quite often the set menu will be quite limited in its choice and, whilst showing-casing some of the skill of the kitchen, is unlikely to offer the best options from the a la carte or official tasting menu. Still, it is a good way to sample the restaurant that’s friendly to your pocket and can pave the path for you to return should you like you’re experience enough. You do still get a Michelin-starred experience .. .which is what we got tonight at the 2-starred Hibiscus.
Hibiscus is chef Claude Bosi’s restaurant. Training under such big-name French chefs as Alain Passard and Alain Ducasse he earned his double starring for his Hisbiscus restaurant in Ludlow. He moved the restaurant to London in 2007 and managed to retain the double star rating.
Our dinner menu (4 courses for £48.50) read like this:
Appetiser
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Warm Royale of Parmesan & Walnuts, Salsify Veloute
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Poached Gurnard, Casserole of Pearl Barley, Carrot and Black Treacle Puree
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Roast Shropshire Partridge, Caper & Raisin Sauce, Glazed Savoy Cabbage, Smoked Butter
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Ice Coconut Parfait, Lychee & Rose Water Sorbet
I love how the menu had a disclaimer “GAME: We kindly remind you that some Game dishes may still contain traces of shot.” Ha ha!
Our meal started with some lovely warmed cheese rolls. Lovely and warm and extremely cheesy I could have happily eaten them all night! Then we had some slices of warm brown bread and a lovely butter served on a gray slate.
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We weren’t sure what to expect with our appetiser which turned out to be this:
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A multi-Moroccan spiced soupy creamy froth in an eggshell concoction. And though its not the first time a dish has been presented in an egg shell it was still pretty cute. The soupy creamy froth was pretty tasty too.
Quickly following our appetiser (really what would function as the amuse bouche in other restaurants) was our veloute and partridges (both Sandra and I opted for the bird over the fish, especially when our waiter described the Gurnard, I must google that later, as an ugly fish!) We had really cool if not exactly function knives to go with our partridges.
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The portion sizes of both dishes look bigger in the picture than they were in reality so we made sure to take our time eating the dishes. Both were quite nice and well seasoned though I think I’m a bit over game bird now – they are, well, a little gamey for my liking these days.
Before our parfait dessert we were presented with the sweetest little pre-dessert: Granny smith apple compote, celeriac jelly, chestnut foam. Very strong tasting though it was a bit awkward to try and get a spoonful of all flavours at once.
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Finally we had the lovely dessert which included all the flavours I love – coconut, lychee and rose. Mmmm … tasty and even though Sandra isn’t a big fan of coconut even she enjoyed the dessert!
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We had a lovely experience at Hibiscus tonight and though it may not seem like for all the food we appear to have eaten we were in and out of there rather quickly. It wasn’t like we were rushed or anything but I guess small portions don’t really take all that long to chow down! The service was very friendly and efficient. As an example when one of the waitresses was pouring the water out for us she accidentally spilled it outside of the glass so she actually took it away to replace/dry before bringing it back to reserve the water! Additionally because neither Sandra or I were up for a bellini the drink man produced a delicious non alcoholic cocktail for us which they went to great depths to explain the ingredients to us!
The room is quite intimate and small. You may also end up being quite close to the table next to you but despite that overall feel was of people carrying on discrete conversations rather than trying to shout at one another. We could probably make out the couple’s conversation next to us if we had concentrated.
An interesting experience and another 2 michelin starred restaurant ticked off my list. I would one day love to go back and try the Suckling Pig two ways …