Author Archives: Grace

Babylon at the Roof Gardens

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I had a £50 voucher for the Virgin Group and it seemed fitting that I spend it on one of my favourite activities: eating! LOL. Babylon at the Roof Gardens is part of the Virgin Group so I decided to treat my brother and I for lunch.

The day wasn’t as sunny as my last visit but it was still a pleasant venue to spend the afternoon. Plus we had a rainbow!

The only problem was that I was suffering from a cold and could not taste a thing! Still, it looked yummy enough though Pat says the food was a little over-salted.

There was even a magician for the children there today.

After lunch it was a mandatory stop to see the pink flamingoes:

Ripley’s Believe it Or Not

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Sandra and I thought we’d do something a bit touristy today with a visit to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not in Piccadilly Circus.

You’ll find all sorts of weird and wonderful things here at Ripley’s Believe It Or Not – including the fact that you’re pocket is nearly £27 lighter (if you also do the Mirror Maze which is arguably one of the highlights though at £5 is quite overpriced!) – believe it or not. Top advice if you don’t want to feel ripped off, and you will if you pay full price entry, is to look for a deal. (Sandra found one for us on lastminute which saved us a bundle of money.)

Next bit of advice is to get to Ripley’s when there aren’t a lot of people there – either first thing in the morning or maybe late at night though I can’t vouch for late at night (its open until midnight (last entry 22.30)).

So what’s inside? There the good old shrunken heads, the Tower Bridge built out of matchsticks, animals with two heads, circus acts (that is, humans and animals born with defects), etc. There is even a painting by a horse! And portraits of royalty made by pennies.

Then there is the midget in a cage.

Can you guess what these are?

There is enough inside to entertain you at least for about an hour, 90 minutes if you really take your time. However I do admit thinking, that as we made our way through the three floors, when is the big ticket item going to make an appearance. It never really did.

We did, however, spend about ten minutes in the mirror maze trying to get out! Ha ha!

New Moon

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That was a pretty long movie considering that most of what Bella did in the book version was cry, whinge and just be an all around sook (can you tell I hated the second book!)

I was very surprised that James wanted to go see this second installment of movies from the Twilight series. I don’t think he was quite picked up that the movies and the books are very female-targeted. He reckons that the audience was about 50/50 boy/girl but I’m thinking it was more 20/80 if that. At any rate, though I hated the book, I was keen to check out just how much buffer Taylor Lautner had gotten for the movie. It was £8 well spent ladies (and gay men!) – very well spent indeed. The scene where he takes of his shirt – lets just say that if the collection of sighs of appreciation in the audience were anything to go by he has picked up a few more fans. Taylor was hoooooooooooooooot! Very hot. Mmmmm … let me just have a moment.

This moment needs a picture. Thanks to Summit Entertainment:

How and why does Bella keep picking the vampire over the werewolf. What’s wrong with you girl! Give me the werewolf!

The movie was surprisingly more engaging that the book was, even shirtless Taylor aside. And though Bella’s character does spend a lot of the movie in a funk about vampire boyfriend Edward leaving her at least it is mostly fast-forwarded and we are left for the most part with a lot more action. The third book is much more action and drama packed so I’m looking forward to seeing how that is translated on-screen.

Galvin At Windows

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Elvira recommended Galvin at Windows to me just under two years ago but I’d never quite managed to make my way here. Elvira really rated the experience and I must say she was quite right to do so.

Rehana and I started our evening with a drink at the bar. The restaurant and bar is situated on the 28th floor of the Hilton at Park Lane and with the large windows in the bar (and in the restaurant) it has prime views over the sights of London. Before visiting Galvin I never even realised that the Hilton went up that high! Stunning views.

I could tell that Galvin was aiming for something grand – a Michelin star perhaps? Extremely attentive staff, the posh surroundings, the amuse bouche (seems stock standard for the more higher class restaurants these days), foam on food … even dining off the special set menu Rehana and I were in for a treat. In fact the set menu is one of the best I’ve seen in any restaurant with some really decent options.

Our amuse bouche tonight was a lovely butternut squash, truffle oil and parmesan foam. Such intense flavour though the fact it was cold was a bit of a surprise. Following this amuse bouche was our starters: Slow cooked hens’ egg, warm salad of Charlotte potatoes and smoked haddock, whole grain mustard beuerre blanc for Rehana and Ravioli of braised beef short rib, roast beetroot puree and horseradish veloute for me. Both dishes were suitably fou fou in their presentation but at least for once the taste lived up to the presentation. Rehana’s hen egg was perfectly poached and my ravioli was filled with some very nicely cooked beef rib. The horseradish wasn’t as strong tasting as I expected it to be but other than it was a perfectly balanced dish.

For mains Rehana and I were both tempted by the Fillet of royal bream, gnocchi, shellfish and trompette. More foam on this dish! Loads of taste and the gnocchi was actually pretty tasty (considering I don’t really like gnocchi at all). One problem – there wasn’t enough of it! Ha ha!

2009 seems to be year for chocolate desserts for me. Normally it would be the last choice on the menu for me but I’m having this love affair with fondants for some reason. The fact it was accompanied by salted caramel and praline ice cream didn’t hurt any either. The melty chocolate bit of the dish was perfect and though I’ve actually tasted a better chocolate cake at Volt (seemed creamier and more melt in your mouth) it wasn’t half bad. Very rich dessert though. Rehana went for the more mature (heh heh) cheese option which came with an interesting selection of crackers.

Dark chocolate petit fours accompanied our mint teas and home made marshmallows our bill. What a perfect end to the meal.

The only very minor negative to tonight’s experience was that I felt the waiters didn’t spend time explaining our food to us. Normally you get an introduction once your food is delivered which was something we didn’t really get tonight.

This is definitely a restaurant for a special occasion with loads of things going for it: the views, the food, the service, the thoughtfulness, the location.

UPDATE: On January 2010 gained Michelin star. 🙂

ATP Tour Finals 2009

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After coming back from Edinburgh, Rache and I had just enough time to drop our bags at our respective homes and then return back out to the O2 for the ATP Tour Finals.

The finals are still in the group stages so we didn’t know what matches we’d end up with. Luckily we had two pretty good matches on our card tonight: for the doubles Bhupathi / Knowles v Cermak / Mertinak and for the singles Federer v Verdasco.

Aside from the tennis we were also able to see a few of the players, including Novak Djokovic, playing an exhibition type match on the practice courts. Actually, I don’t recall seeing any tennis racquets, but they were certainly doing something on court. That Djokovic is a nice looking young lad …

Our seats for the tennis were pretty far back so I got to make full use of my 12x zoom camera!

Bhupathi / Knowles won the doubles. Do you think the do this jump quite often?

When the singles match started between Federer and Verdasco it looked like it was heading to an upset with Verdasco taking the first set. However in typical Federer fashion he came a stormin’ back to take the match. Rache and I loved that Federer won but I didn’t like the fact it made me miss my tube!

How cute are their butts?

Federer celebrating

And in another demonstration of how small London is – I ran into one of my clients tonight at the tennis. What are the chances that she’d be in the same section and watching the same game!

Whirlwind in Edinburgh

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Well that was certainly a whirlwind visit to Edinburgh. Didn’t really see much of Edinburgh itself this time around – mainly Becca’s flat (that’s where Rache and I dossed for the weekend), the inside of a couple of pubs/bars, and the rugby stadium!

Rache had invited me to Edinburgh to see “the rugby” a few months ago. I agreed but it wasn’t until this week that I found out we were actually watching a a Wallabies v The Scots game – an international! I’m not much in the union code of football – I prefer the rugby league or AFL but I was definiltey keen to test out my 12x zoom to check out some union butt. Heh heh.

Rache and I caught the train up mid-afternoon on Friday afternoon. We were sat next to some lovely ladies who chatted with us the whole way up. Turns out that one of the ladies was actually Suzanne Shaw’s cousin! Quite a bit of an older cousin – the ladies were on the way up to Edinburgh to attend a friend’s 60th! Rache and I were in stitches over some of the things the ladies were saying. I must say it was certainly one of the most interesting train journeys I’ve had in a long time.

We arrived in Edinburgh just in time for dinner. Becca and her boyfriend cooked us up some curry and we had a quiet night in with a couple of bottles of wine.

We had a leisurely start to Saturday with a long sleep in followed by a giant lunch meeting up with a bunch of Rache’s other friends who were in town and another friend of Becca’s. The size of the Yorkshire pudding with my roast was unbelievable. The weather was typically Scottish – grey and wet so the first order of business after lunch was funding a pub to hide out in until it was time for the game! Luckily the rain held off long enough that when we found the only spot was in a beer garden of sorts we didn’t get soaked.

By 4.30 it was getting dark and also closer to the start of the game so we headed on over to the stadium after a few pints. Upon arrival at the stadium we found we were up in the rafters, great because we could avoid the rain and had a nice view to the Castle, surrounded by Scots!

The Scots proved to be more entertaining than the game – in 27 years the Wallabies haven’t lost to the Scots but apparently they decided this was the weekend to do so! The game wasn’t bad because the Wallabies lost, more that both teams did not play very well and there were a lot of injuries.

Nevertheless we had a great time even with the good natured ribbing by the Scots around us.

Then we went and drowned our sorrows at a pub back in town. Unbelievably I got asked for ID at the door. Think the bouncer was a bit shocked.

Biggest shock of the night, however, was for me. Edinburgh is so small you can actually walk home and on the way we went past several bars. Right out the front of one of these there were these two girls going for it. And not just snogging, which you might expect, but one girl had her hand right down the other one’s pants! (Not related to the photo above of Ben and Cam by the way …)

And then some chips for the walk home from the best fish n chips shop in Edinburgh.

Mariah Carey Switches on Westfield Christmas lights

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Mariah Carey was supposed to switch on the Westfield Christmas lights today at 6pm so I thought that getting there for 5 should be plenty of time to get a spot to see her. Boy was I wrong. I got to Westfield about 4.45 and by then it was pretty much packed. Most areas where you could stand to see her were already at least three if not four people deep. I managed to get a spot on the first floor looking down on the stage but still behind quite a few peole.

For about an hour or so, with time dragging really slowly, until just about 5.45 it was relatively civilized, no one was pushing, no one was shoving. Security had actually closed off our area with a reasonable amount of people however, come close rot show time, as much as security tried to stop people coming in there was no way they were going to be able to stop a mass number of people hoping the small wall that bordered the area. By the time 6pm rolled around there was a wall of people behind and above me.

Surprisingly most of the people around me were teens or college kids and they were not above creating havoc.

Slowly people started to get really pushy. Next to me one girl was so pushy that two people in front of her actually left – and considering they’d been standing waiting for Mariah for about two hours you know she had to have been really annoying. And then directly in front of me a fight nearly broke out between two women. I couldn’t understand why because they’d been fine for the hour or plus I’d been standing there but obviously something happened to trigger the tension.

In true diva style Miss Mariah Carey was an hour late coming to the stage. She seemed like a really lovely person but I don’t know why she has to act so ditzy. Anyway, she did her little twirl, swung her magic wand and the lights were switched on. It lasted about all of three minutes!

She left the stage but did return about 30 minutes later to start signing her albums and take photos with the lucky few who had won a competition. Of course she was wearing sunnies.

I read somewhere that she’d asked for real live butterflies to be a part of the switch-on! There was a compromise with paper butterflies. These were littered everywhere outside!

Seeing Mariah switch on the lights at Westfield was a rather stressful experience. Glad I did it though!

Kash’s Leaving Do

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I doubt in the history of my work it will ever see a leaving do the likes of which we saw tonight. My boss is retiring after having worked decades here, basically his entire career, and he threw one huge party tonight to celebrate. Most people will just pick a venue and then let the night happen – instead Kash went to the effort of hiring out a massive venue, hired caterers (with a pretty decent spread – they even had mini burgers!), and put a huge amount behind the bar. What a man! He really has a most generous spirit.

It was clear from the leaving speeches tonight that Kash has made an impact on so many lives, on a personal and professional level, during his career. And it is also clear that there is no one else quite like him. He will certainly be missed.

Kiasu with Jo

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Caught up with Jo tonight for some Singapore Chilli Crab. We went to Kiasu since it seemed the most convenient and also the last Singapore Chilli Crab I had there was fantastic. Jo wanted to try the soft sell crab this time around so that was rather different. Infinitely easier to eat but if I’m totally honest it wasn’t as good as the hard shell variety. I guess there is just something to getting your hands totally dirty which adds to the taste experience.

My only problem with Kiasu is that service is utterly atrocious. I can handle disinterest if our food comes but not once but twice they forgot to bring dishes tonight and the ones they did they brought in all the wrong sorts of order. Any other restaurant and I’d never come back but, lucky for them, I can’t go past their Singapore Chilli Crab.