Author Archives: Grace

Mayor’s Thames Festival 2009

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Every year the Thames is host to the Mayor’s Thames Festival which celebrates London and the river. The format changes every year but there is normally a parade of stalls, exhibitions, music and small acts along the Thames, a parade (similar to the Notting Hill Carnival parade but much much smaller) and a finale of fireworks on the Sunday evening.

After our day of tennis and sporting adventures Rita and I decided to check it out. I haven’t been to the festival for a few year’s now with the last one being back in 2005.

We were starving by the time we got to the Thames so headed straight to a very early dinner at Giraffe. We were extremely tempted by all the churros stalls along the way but didn’t think it would be right to start with dessert … so we saved that for after. The queues for the churros were huge! Worth the wait though for the yummy liquid chocolate the churros were served with. Mmmm …..

There was heaps going on by the river it was almost overwhelming. The Night Carnival had started by the time we finished with our churros so getting a good position to watch the parade was darn near impossible. Not that we didn’t try our hardest. Eventually we did manage to get a spot to catch some of it even though I had to use my camera to take photos of what was going on so I could see over the tops of everyone’s heads!

The Fire Garden, an installation in the Tate Modern Forecourt by fire alchemists Compagnie Carabosse, also sound intriguing. And it was. I could have watched the fire all day …

… but we had some fireworks to get to. We waited for what felt like ages for the fireworks. And though it was good I felt that it felt like it was over before I knew it! During the wait we entertained ourselves though and made a friend of the guy behind us who was laughing at the word games Rita and I were playing to pass the time.

Tennis and Urban Adventure – Part II

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After two nights out dancing plus a day of baking I thought there was nothing better to cure the excesses than some exercise so I caught up with Rita for a game of tennis and then play-time at her local urban adventure.

Last time we tried that swinging thing but just for a little bit as I was late to meet my brother and his friends Mike and Vanessa for lunch. This time we had the afternoon for leisure so we tried out a few of the other pieces of equipment. The first piece of equipment was a bit baffling – kind of like a rope climb but up a pole and using this black rubber hand grip and steel steps. It was damn difficult to haul my fat butt up the pole though (and damn scary too!) though one the kids hanging around didn’t seem to have a problem!

Then we moved on to the giant spider-web which was a heap of fun even though I somehow gave myself rope burn on my upper leg.

School Disco at Sway

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School Disco is a UK institution and no visit to London, at least, is complete without night at a School Disco Club night. I’m sure everyone holds their school memories close to their hearts, nice or not so nice, but the chance to get back into uniform and experience your first taste of rebellion is something no one should miss.

It even has its own wikipedia entry.

Officially School Disco is held at The Great Portland Girls School but for some reason tonight’s event was held at Sway in Holborn. I’ve never been to Sway but tonight it was rocking and Rita, Laney, Mei, Annie, Jo and I certainly made the most of it.

Hummingbird Bakery 1.03

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Another day another bake-off!

This time Caro and I decided to try our hand at one of the cheesecakes from the Hummingbird Bakery book. The Raspberry and Dark Chocolate cheesecake was astonishingly rich and smooth. The chocolate part of the cheesecake in particular was divine and that’s high praise indeed from a non-chocolate-dessert over like me.

The day went very smoothly and seemed so simple. I guess the main difference was the fact we were only sticking with one recipe instead of three! Ha ha! As a result I got to spend some time with little, or not so little, Gaspar! He is growing at a tremendous rate and I hope Caro doesn’t mind me mentioning this but he is such a hungry little eating machine that he has tapped his mummy out! LOL! He’s gorgeous though and remained surprisingly cry-free most of the day.

Guanabara

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I’ve been meaning to head to Guanabara for a very long time after having done salsa lessons all those years ago. Though the salsa lessons are now a distant memory the beat of the music is still in my blood and with Notting Hill Carnival on my door step Brazil is never far from my mind!

I hadn’t actually planned for a big night out tonight as I thought I’d just be grabbing some dinner with Pauline and Anna however Pauline had other plans so we found ourselves in the line for Guanabara. Once we got inside it must have been just after 10.30 and the place was jam packed and full of energy. Apparently the band which had won this year’s Notting Hill Carnival steel band comp (or something) was on stage and they were drumming up a storm!

The club itself was smaller than I thought with a teeny tiny dance floor surrounded by loads of long communal style tables and as a result the dance floor was packed! Especially with all the keen salsa and latin dancers out there who were obviously regulars. Strangely enough by about 1 or 2 am the areas away from the dance floor were quite … well, quiet and not as busy as I thought it would be on a Friday night or Saturday morning …

I liked the live music and its different from most other clubs in the area.

Buddha Bar in London

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When Buddha Bar came to London it was apparently one of the most anticipated launches in 2008. Literally located under Waterloo Bridge it is dark, lusciously red carpeted, intricate and of course features the world reknown giant Buddha statue. I had been to the one in New York early this year so I was interested to whether the concept had been brought over in full in London. It pretty much had though I don’t remember the restaurant in New York being quite so dark – tonight we could barely make out what we were eating! Ha ha!

Just like in New York when you walk in there are a plethora of wait staff to direct you to your table or take your booking. At first we didn’t really know who to look at as they all kind of just looked at us without any particular person taking charge!

Just like the visit in New York we were not sat in the main room with Buddha presiding over us. Not sure why but actually it turned out okay because we had our own little Buddha’s surrounding us in the area we were in and actually it was a little more private and less loud than the main room which suited us girls (Pauline and Anna) for our catch up.

And just like our visit in New York our waiter was really funny. He had me cracking up but he was super attentive not only in his presence when taking our orders etc. but also paying attention to each of us girls!

Food-wise it was actually not too shabby and with the top table 50% offer was decent value (without the 50% off offer I think very seriously over-priced) though servings were not particularly generous. The problem, I think, with the Buddha Bar concept in London is that there are sooooo many uber-cool Pan-Asian restaurants in London already that the market is just over-saturated with the cuisine. As a result it makes it difficult to deliver food which is unique. Still I was pretty happy with our main options in the shrimp tempura with spicy dressing and the surprise of the night for me was the five spiced grilled chicken. Ordinarily I’d avoid chicken being what I would, probably unfairly, consider to be a fairly bland option but the five spiced one was tender, moist and superbly marinated. The lamb rack was unfortunately not great though … tough and, to me, too much lamb flavour! Ha ha! Photos are a bit rubbish – I’d brought my camera but left the battery at home!

We didn’t actually check the bar out but I read that its proven to be popular especially being open with their late licence until 4am!

Ciao Bar Caffe

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Rita loves love loves her dessert so its no surprise that she was able to walk into what looked like an ordinary Italian café near Leicester Square and find to her delight not only a selection of pretty good gelati but some pretty astonishing ice cream concoctions and all at a fairly decent price.

I’m not sure if there is an ice cream parlour or dessert place or café anywhere in London that serves you spaghetti ice cream, or ice cream pizzas or fried eggs or ice cream lasagne! It was great! In addition to these novelty ice creams there is also a great selection of huuuuuuge ice cream sundaes. Oh I can’t wait to go back! But I almost want to keep this café a secret!

Here is my spaghetti and Rita’s black spaghetti ice creams:

Rache’s Ferrero Rocher ice cream sundae and Claire’s ice cream scoop. Hilariously they served it on a plate with a cone turned over on top so as to make it look as dramatic as our other dishes. When we added some nuts it looked kind of clownish on the colourful plate …

Of Rache’s sundae I only had a spoonful but it was delightfully decadent.

I’m sure I’ll be returning …

Exercise for a change!

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So, I went over to Rita’s hood, Mile End, for a game of tennis this afternoon. She’s actually got quite a cool sports facility right across the road from her with swimming pool, an olympic track (including facility for hammer throwing!), tennis courts, a basketball court and soccer fields. In addiiton there is this kind of urban adventure park thing where it looks like a playground but is actually more of an exercise venue. But fun exercise equipment like a giant web etc. We didn’t have time to go on much as I had to run off to meet my bro and his friends for lunch but we did go on to this piece of equipment. Well difficult!

Will try and go on more things next time I’m in the hood.

Anyone for Saturday night bowling?

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So Pauline and I were trying to think of something a bit different than our norm to do on a Saturday night and I suggested we go bowling! I know – not a totally cool thing to do on a Saturday night but hey – it was fun. Even if our game lasted like all of about 20 minutes! Ha ha!

We went to All Start Lanes in Bayswater which was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. We could see about six lanes with two separated off and four in our area. I think I heard that there was also a private room with its own lanes. So, anyway there were less lanes there than I thought plus the actual lanes themselves seemed rather short … not that it helped us with our scoring … LOL!

After “working up a sweat” with our bowling we moved to the attached restaurant for dinner on the Eat Drink and Bowl offer. The food was not bad with our chicken quesadillas being quite tasty but Pauline was not impressed with her pretty much rare cheese burger for her main! I quite liked my butter roast cat-fish with succotash though I suspect the butter roasting made the fish much oilier than was healthy. Tasted darn good though!

Dinner left us surprisingly full but you can always make room for dessert. We decided to head in to Leicester Square for some Haagen-Dazs which would give us some time to get less full. The long line of Haagen-Dazs also helped. We had an idiot and annoying maitre d’ or waiter though who must have asked everyone in the line at least five times how many people were in their group – ever heard of a paper and pen mate?

Goose Fat & Garlic

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Jenny has been living in her current home with her boyfriend for I think over a year now but I haven’t yet had the chance to visit here … she lives all the way in Harlow which is in Essex! Its miles away so Jenny thought it would be good to have an overnight stay.

We spent Friday night at Goose Fat and Garlic in Sawbridgeworth (along the way we drove by Beckingham Palace – heh heh), had a gorgeously long sleep in on Saturday morning, a lovely cooked breakfast by Sean, when we had some deliciously sinful butter on lovely fresh bread, followed finally by some shopping Lakeside. Phew!

Goose Fat and Garlic is a bar/restaurant which I’d put on my “to eat at” list ages ago when Jenny first told me about it. I love eating with Jenny because she gets so excited when we go out for a meal. I’ve probably mentioned it before but the game we like to play is to “guess the other person’s meals choice” for the evening. Sure you may think it takes a bit of the surprise element out of it but we usually spend quite some time poring over the menu before hand just for fun!

Goose Fat and Garlic offer an a la carte (predominantly European) menu plus a tapas menu. The two didn’t seem to really go hand in hand but its clearly something that works well for them if they continue to offer it. The restaurant area of Goose Fat and Garlic seemed quite posh with the wood polished floors and white cotton tablecloths. Service was efficient and friendly though I’m not convinced our waitress new the menu very well. Jenny asked her about one of the sauces and she appeared to just make up something on the spot! Still, she nearly redeemed herself when she came back later to say that she saw someone else has ordered that dish and she could tell us exactly what was in the sauce …

For our starters we both opted for seafood options – Pan fried spiced king scallops served with an aubergine purée for Jenny and King prawns in crisp ale batter, served with garlic mayonnaise and sweet chilli salsa. Jenny was quite pleased with her scallop and my tempura prawn wasn’t too bad though the sweet chilli salsa did appear to be the kind that came out of a bottle.

For mains Jenny continued on with her seafood theme going for a Pan seared cod fillet with a pea and bacon velouté and roasted fondant potato whereas I decided to go a bit carnivore and went for the Pan fried fillet of Hereford beef served with rosti potato, Mediterranean vegetables and Café de Paris butter.

Both dishes weren’t too bad though I think Jenny thought her velouté was a touch salty and my rosti potato was a bit dry and over deep-fried. The Mediterranean vegetables were cubed bits of carrot and not exactly generous. It could have been a slightly more balanced dish. The winner at mains though was our side of creamed cabbage. Really really good!

Finally, even though we were really really full already, we had some dessert. A strawberry millefeuille served with crushed fresh strawberries for Jenny and a delicious Ginger crème brulée served with coconut shortbread for me. Loved my dessert but hard to go too wrong with crème brulée.