Author Archives: Grace

Afternoon with Akh and Batool

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My afternoon with Akh and Batool started off with eating a mini chicken. It was pretty tasty b07.ut surprisingly I couldn’t finish it off:

We then decided that it was such a lovely day that we could go down to Hyde Park and have some ice cream, take a walk and …. row a boat! At £9 per person per hour its not a particularly cheap excursion but this never seems to be a problem for hordes of people lining up to give it a spin.

On the way to Hyde Park we walked by Marble Arch and what a transformation that has happened to it. I did some research and apparently Westminster City Council have earmarked £1.5m to renovate the spot starting with rejuvenating the three fountains which have been out of operation for a number of years, installing lots of new benches, creating a green area and also, it seems, erecting interesting statues like this horse one:

It was very pretty.

We thought that an hour wouldn’t be long enough out on the water but actually rowing a boat is much harder work than it looks like. Especially trying to get both arms going at once. Akh did some rowing for a bit but by the end of it we were all chipping in to take one oar each. As you can imagine that took some co-ordination to ensure one person wasn’t rowing harder than another and as a result sending you way of course. I must admit that we did spend some time by the side and also, er, intimately engaged with other boats/pedaloes. Not always our fault mind you!

But we also managed to achieve our goal which was to reach the far end of the serpentine (that is, to where they’d blocked it off.) I loved how Akh had a giant smile on his face the whole time we were out on the water!

I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow ….

Green Carnation and Freedom Bar

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After having dinner with Sandra and Jules I ended up in Soho hitting a couple of bar/clubs with Jenny. It was her friend’s boyfriend’s birthday so she invited me along for a night out. I think she was hoping to get me hooked up with someone! Ha ha. We started at Green Carnation. Only about two years old its already become a hip hot venue. I found Jenny and crew upstairs where it felt pretty relaxed. I could see soft leather lounges everywhere and it actually felt a bit plush and posh. The music seemed pretty good as well and might I just say that there were quite a few nice looking young lads around us. Just a shame they were not available to the fairer sex! By the time I arrived at Green Carnation, however, the group were ready to move on to the next venue – Freedom Bar!

Upstairs Freedom Bar is a comfortable, if crowded, lounge bar but downstairs is where the action is at with the night club. The space downstairs is not particularly huge but I like the fact that the dancefloor was bordered by a set of padded bars where you could both put your drink and lean on to watch the action. The room is decorated with what seems like hundreds of disco balls and around the dancefloor some cushy couches.

What drew my attention, and actually everyone else’s attention, were the three stripper poles spread throughout. In addition to some adventurous patrons getting up on to the poles and flashing their stuff the club also has a dancer to show everyone how its really done. She was quite fit if not particularly pretty but the things she could do on the pole. Wow – I can’t imagine how many hours of practise or training she put in to be able to pull of some of her moves. Throughout the night she changed costumes a few times starting including disco girl and catwoman. Catwoman sure got everyone’s attention!

The other thing that got attention was apparently my cleavage. Considering the clientele at Freedom it’s the most action I’ve got in ages – I mean getting groped by three gay men. What’s that about? It was all in fun though and I couldn’t really take offence.

The music at Freedom was kind of a bit hit and miss. There were a few good hits played but for the most part it was surprisingly doosh doosh music. Or maybe not so surprising. Still we were pretty much out on the dancefloor for a few hours straight and not only was it stinking hot my feet were absolutely killing when I finally crawled into bed this morning …

Smithfield Bar & Grill

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Its been a while since I’ve been out to dinner with Jules and Sandra (with the two of them together that is.) They certainly keep themselves busy, especially with Jules training constantly for his latest interest (triathlons) and with the both of them filling their weekends with either training or actual races! So we decided it would be nice to go out for a meal – especially as how they were both going away for a week’s leave and also I thought it would be nice to see Sandra before her birthday on Friday… We ended up going to Smithfield’s Bar and Grill which is actually only about five minute’s walk from my brother’s place!

Normally on weekends the area around Farringdon, which is where Smithfield’s Bar and Grill is, is fairly quiet until evening falls and then it starts to become quite a big party – especially with clubs like Fabric in the area.
Smithfield’s Bar and Grill is what is says – a bar at the front and a grill (restaurant) out the back. The bar bit, which you have to walk through to get to the Grill, was fairly busy and very noisy but as soon as you got to the restaurant some magic meant it was fairly calm and you could actually talk to each other without having to shout. A pleasant change.

Smithfield’s Bar and Grill is very attractive with very modern dark colours and bright lighting and white throughout. On corner tables they had round leather booths which were pretty cool. I quite liked the look and the toilets were pretty cool too – each one is individual with its own sink and air dryer.

The menu is described as Modern European with pretty much a mix of everything on their. Being situated across a meat market you’d expect there to be a lot of meat on the menu – and there is in the form of steaks and meaty pies but surprisingly also a huge variety of seafood offered on the menu. There are so many options its almost too overwhelming to make a choice. Funnily enough despite the variety both Sandra and Jules went for the same starters and the same mains (steaks – but different sizes!) ha ha. But this situation is not that unusual and actually normally I would have gone for the same things as they did except for some reason tonight I felt like going for completely different things but with similar themes (seafood followed by meat.) We all obviously have great taste. 🙂

Before our proper food came we had some bread that didn’t come pre-sliced. Sandra wanted me to point out that because of this it went absolutely everywhere!

Our starters – Salt & Pepper Calamari for Sandra and Jules and Mussels in a Coconut, Chilli, Lime and
Ginger broth. Looks pretty tasty right? I don’t how Sandra and Jules felt but I actually felt quite full after finishing with my mussels! Probably a good thing that I didn’t indulge in any of the bread to start with.

For my main I opted for the Ostrich (I can never resist unusual meat on a menu – even if I have tried it before.) It was served simply just garnished with caramelised onion so I also ordered a side of broccoli and cheese & chive mash. Mmmm … As I mentioned before Sandra and Jules both ordered steak (beef) with the difference being in the size. Unfortunately Jules steak was cut very thickly and as a result it was more rare than medium – it was very bloody though that didn’t stop him finishing it. The ostrich for me was just okay but didn’t really have that gamey flavour I’ve tasted previously in ostrich. It could have been beef steak for all I know. The mash was delicious however I couldn’t finish it because I started to feel really full and still wanted to leave room for dessert. Heh heh.

Dessert was delicious though Sandra’s grilled bananas with toffee and ice cream were literally bananas grilled – before peeling! Be warned when ordering this dessert though as there is a 15 minute wait it them.

Smithfield Bar and Grill was excellent value at 50% off. For all our food plus a round of softdrinks and service it only came to £26 which is pretty good considering what we actually ate. Good atmosphere too and fairly good service. The only minor complaint was that we were sat under an air-conditioning unit which was blasting the cold air straight down on us. Until they turned the temp up a bit it was a bit uncomfortable.

Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot redux

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A certain someone promised me that they would control themselves this year at Royal Ascot and that they wouldn’t get into any trouble. The first message I received this morning as I was getting ready was that they’d lost their underwear. Hmmm … an auspicious start. But continuing on. I had such a fun time on Ladies’ Day at Royal Ascot last year that I couldn’t say no to going again this year.

We decided that we would repeat what we did last year and enter the Silver enclosure with our picnic food and this time also some drink. Not only did that save a lot of money but it also meant the drink was right there and we didn’t have to go hobbling all over the racecourse to line up in long giant queues to get any. 🙂 We decided Silver Ring too because finding the right dress would have been too much hard work (plus I haven’t found a dress yet that suitably covers my cleavage …) I thought that finding a reasonably priced hat or “substantial fascinator” would be a problem as well but it turns out I had to go with a hat anyway as I couldn’t find a fascinator to match the colour of my dress. For some reasons fascinators, in Accessorize anyway, were coloured cream, black, hot pink or blue this year!

Speaking of dresses – due to how busy I’ve been in the last two months I only had one afternoon after work to find a dress for today’s event. Talk about poor planning! However, its not like I meant to leave it to the last minute – I’d done some browsing previously but was really disappointed in what was around and I just couldn’t find anything I liked. I was pretty desperate really to find something but thankfully I found a dress in Debenham’s. Ironically the dress at £35 was nearly the same price as my hat ensemble!

Lots of people opt for driving or being driven to Royal Ascot which I can’t really understand because the train is just so convenient. There’s no traffic, it comes fairly regularly (every 15 minutes) and if you time it right you can generally get a seat. I heard some horror stories of people being stuck in traffic for hours thereby missing most of the day!

We ran into James and D who it seemed had the same plans as us so it was like our anniversary event! Clearly they enjoyed themselves last year too and had been planning to attend Royal Ascot for a while. We all arrived fairly early on the day and like last year were able to snatch up a table which was so much more comfortable than being on the ground. Especially for us girls in dresses.

The second time round we felt like regulars at the racecourse knowing where to stand (basically on top of your chairs!) to get good views of the racecourse (as a result I had slightly better luck of getting a decent snap of the Queen), we placed bets with the bookies. One called Kenny was our favourite for a while – I could barely understand what he said half the time but he cracked Pauline and I up. But when our luck dried up with him we moved on to another bookie and so on. Overall I think I was down for the day but I did have a few big wins.

The only disappointing aspect of today was the lavs. Last year they were amazing – women never had to wait, the buildings themselves were huge so plenty of space to touch up your hair, dress, make-up etc. by the mirrors and were generally quite hygienic. This time around for some reason they’d opted for basically small demountables with about six loos in each. Not only were they small but in our area the men’s demountables (four) outnumbered the women’s (two)! Really bad planning. Plus by about halfway through the day the loos started to flood.

But other than that the day ran pretty smoothly, no one got too drunk (heh heh) and we all retired to Belgo’s in Covent Garden for a satisfactory half chicken dinner and …beer.

Aubergine

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Jenny and I continued our good eating quest to knock off another Michelin-starred restaurant. Aubergine is a French restaurant located a bit of a hike away from South Kensington tube. Its not a huge restaurant but strangely more than half the restaurant is not taken up by tables for dining but a sort of lounge area at the front. The dining room, it seemed, was located at the back. Further, in an interesting strategic move – rather than fill the front part of the dining room up with patrons they sat most people right at the back. We had a lovely table right under a sky light so it made the atmosphere feel very bright and cheerful. Look out for the aubergine theming too from the aubergine place holders to aubergine stamped cutlery.

We were dining off a set menu meal so options were limited. I would have loved to have been able to afford the chef tasting menu which looked absolutely gorgeous but our 3 courses for £34 was pretty good value for the quality of the food we got.

I was extremely pleased with the bread that they brought out to us. Not only was it homebaked stuff (so really fresh and apparently straight out of the oven) but they kept bringing it, and bringing it and bringing it. Nearly as fast as we could finish the bread! Along with the butter we nearly made the mistake of overdoing the bread and leaving no room for our dinner!

As with any top class restaurant we were served an amuse bouche at the start of our meal. I think it was a spoonful of tuna or something served on a small toast with pickles. Not bad.

Interestingly despite the fairly limited set menu both Jenny and I went for different starters and mains. Jenny went for a seafood dinner with scallops to start followed by skate.

And I went for a warmed duck salad followed by a boiled pork cheek dish.

We both, however, couldn’t resist the cherry beignet dessert. It came recommended by the waiter and it was very good, even if the cherries were on the tart side. Overall the food was excellent and good quality coming served on impressively hot plates, not just warmed. Probably my pork cheek dish could have done with a bit more seasoning but my warmed duck salad was perfect and actually surprisingly substantial. Thankfully food was also not rushed out and came at a good pace.

Service was excellent. We were served by at least four or five different people from our waiter who took the order and brought the bill, to the wine guy, to the girl serving us bread, to the girl giving us new cutlery, and to the girl delivering our food. Despite all the wait staff involved in the process service never felt intrusive though at times a little OTT like running ahead of you to the toilet door to open it for you, or running after you as you came back to pull out the chair for you. Toilets, by the way, were surprisingly not that special though they did have hand towels (fluffy stuff) and proper hand wash and moisturiser. Strangely enough they did make a few mistakes which included dripping water from the wine decanter on our butter when pouring Jenny’s wine, or bringing my drink down on the lip of a wine glass, or charging us extra for wine and juice which should have been part of our offer.

A lovely experience.

UPDATE: On January 2010 Aubergine lost its Michelin star. 🙁

Raoul’s, Kensington Palace and The Orangery

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Teesh’s last day in London and Europe I guess started off rather leisurely with a breakfast at Raoul’s. I wanted to show Teesh just how orange the egg yolks were plus I was craving an Egg Benedict like I couldn’t believe. Surprisingly it wasn’t very busy though I guess it was just about 9am when we arrived. We were seated outside thankfully so we could enjoy the glorious day that was developing.

Service today wasn’t that fantastic. A little slow, a little disinterested but I didn’t really care – I just wanted my eggs benedict. When it arrived it looked really good but actually it wasn’t as tasty as the one I’d had previously at The Wolseley. Still, it was enough to satisfy my craving … for now. 🙂

After breakfast we headed to Kensington Palace to do a tour there. Considering I’ve lived about five minutes walk from the Palace for the last five plus years I’ve never actually been inside the Palace! Today the Palace is the official residence of The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester; the Duke and Duchess of Kent; and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent but is most well-known for being the former official residence of Princess Diana. Every year on the anniversary of her death the public lay flowers and wreathes on the fence in her memory.

I must admit I’ve seen much plusher abodes. Most of what we saw were exhibition rooms including featuring all the beautiful dresses that Princess Diana wore. You get an audio tour to take you through the highlights but halfway through the number of the audit lets you down and soon enough I’d stopped listening to it as the numbers either started to disappear or not match! The most interesting bit of the palace was reading all about debutantes and the things they used to go through. It was absolutely astonishing all the rules that governed the presentation of the debs not to mention the amount of money spent in one season or even on one dress and all the accoutrements.

What better way to end Teesh’s visit to London with an afternoon tea. As we were conscious of the time and also we were in the area we decided to try afternoon tea in Kensington Palace’s Orangery. You can’t book it the afternoon tea so it’s a case of wait and hope you are seated quickly. The day was an absolutely glorious day so quite a few people had turned up for afternoon tea. There are a large number of tables outside but they were hot commodity and, speaking of hot, it was a very hot day so inside suited us much better. The room inside is long, white, with a very tall ceiling.

There were hundreds of wait staff milling about. Okay, more like about ten for about twenty tables so service was pretty good. In keeping with the spirit of our visit to Kensington Palace we opted for the Debutantes’ Tea service which consisted of Cucumber, cream cheese & chive sandwich on poppy seed bread, egg mayonnaise vol-au-vent, warm sausage roll, pineapple and cheese cocktail stick plus a fruit scone with Cornish clotted cream & strawberry jam (substituted for the slice of chocolate cake) plus pot of tea. It was lovely but if I were to be entirely honest at £14.75 I felt it was a tad overpriced.

Great Queen Street

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After a hard day’s sightseeing we fully deserved a fantastic meal. We met up with my brother at Great Queen Street. Teesh was really surprised to see how my little brother had grown up – the last time they saw each other he must have been about ten years old – a chubby little thing wearing cute little pjs!

Great Queen Street looks like a gastro pub but is actually more of a restaurant. Bookings are pretty much essential at this venue, especially on a Saturday night. We were seated by the window so we could see the goings on outside the window. Service was very relaxed and I was impressed that they didn’t try to rush us out the door.

There really was only one disappointment and that was the offerings on the menu. There wasn’t really much that caught my eye and disappointingly the desserts were pretty unimaginative. I can’t believe I didn’t have any dessert! So unlike me!

For our mains Pat and I ended up sharing this gigantic beef pie. It was pretty darn tasty and pretty darn huge. Big chunks of beef under a very thick crust pastry – parts of it actually needed a steak knife to get through it. Heh.

If I ever come back here I just hope the menu gets a bit more interesting for me.

Wax figures, art and vistas

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Today felt like the longest sight-seeing days ever! Well, not really but by the time 10pm rolled around both Teesh and I were ready to hit the sack! The last month traveling, and for me long hours at work, have obviously started to wear us down.

We started the morning waking up very early to get to Madame Tussaud’s at opening. I had purchased our tickets months and months ago to make sure we got opening entry times (to save us standing in long lines) but I knew from past experience that if you don’t get there early enough and before most the crowds arrive – trying to get around getting photos of all the wax figures inside could prove very challenging. Madame Tussaud’s was apparently supposed to open at 9am but by the time we got to Baker Street it was still quite early at about 8.25. Even at that time, however, there was already a long queue forming. We were going to head to Regent’s Park for a quick stroll but thought it would be best to get in line and wait. Lucky we did because the line got infinitely longer after we joined.

As I suspected even with Madame Tussaud’s being open for only five minutes by the time we got inside it was packed. For the most part people were conscious of others around them but the odd few made it awkward for everyone. Still, I think Teesh and I managed to get our pics relatively easily. Except for when we sat at Barack Obama’s presidential table with him next to us. People there was just outright rude and pushy.

Despite the fact that the wax figures bear a remarkable resemblance to their real life counterparts taking photos which show this are really difficult. I think its because of where the figures are looking – you have to get your camera in the exact spot necessary to make it look like they’re looking into it. Oh – just to show how real-life the figures are there is one figure who had been posed to look like paparazzi, taking a photo of Mel Gibson and Will Smith. Teesh ran into the figure and actually apologised to it because she though it was real! Cracked me up!

At the end of our visit to Madame Tussaud’s we were famished so we headed to Giraffe at Marylebone for a yummy breakfast and then headed on to our next item on the itinerary – a (free) one hour tour of the National Gallery.

Tours at the National Gallery are offered at 11.30 and 2.30 daily and like the British Museum the tour you get is likely to be different every visit. The only drawback to free tours are the fact that there is normally no limit to the number that can be accepted in the group. Our group was surprisingly large nearing I would think about 25-30. Though the tour was good and gave a good snapshot of some of the collections in the National Gallery the group was really too big. For the most part I could hear the tour guide but seeing the art was another matter. Why do tall people always want to stand right at the front?! At least some of the more considerate people actually sat down when they got to the front.

From the National Gallery it was off to the London Eye – for only my fourth time! Heh heh. Even though we’d pre-bought our tickets there was a rather long snaking line that confronted us when we turned up at our allotted timeslot. Bit disappointing to have to wait (we were at least half an hour in the queue I reckon) but the line always felt like it was moving forward at least.

I never know what to think about the London Eye. Sure you have an absolutely amazing view point to see most of London but the fact you’re stuck in the pod for the half hour it takes to go around and though they limit how many go into the pod its still pretty chock full. Many end up hogging one part of a window or another which is not really fair to others in the pod. At least we had some pretty clear air.

Grease The Musical

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When I left Madrid last week I left Teesh to spend her last week in Europe, in Paris. Today she got back in to town and of course, to make the most of her time in London, I made sure to whip us off to another musical. This time – one we were both very familiar with – Grease! I think Teesh especially likes the show because she feels she can relate particularly to the tough chick Rizzo (she absolutely loves that whole bad boy thing.) For my part tonight’s performance made me feel quite nostalgic – remembering back more than fifteen years ago to the school production that I’d been part of.

Grease is a very enjoyable night out. It proved to be as cheesy as I have always remembered to be but in a very endearing way. It had its great moments but surprisingly some less stellar moments but overall a strong performance from the cast, a very colourful set and a very good band.

I must say, however, that Ray Quinn absolutely stole the show for me. The rest of the cast were superb and gave 150% but Ray Quinn was simply fab. He had his John Travolta character down pat – mannerisms, voice and all. And can I also say that he certainly fills a pair of jeans very nicely. Mmm … very very nicely. 🙂

Cyprus Mangal

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Cyprus Mangal has to be Notting Hill’s/Bayswater’s little-known secret. New to the area I’ve often walked pass this modern Turkish restaurant wondering why it didn’t have that many patrons. Please note that this is not to be confused with another restaurant called Cyprus Mangal located in Pimlico though if reviews are to be read that Cyprus Mangal is also a gem.

Toptable had a 50% offer and for something a little different we decided to try it out for a work celebration lunch. Although a bit of a hike it certainly was a welcome change to the usual places we hit at lunch time in Hammersmith. The lunch was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in a while. Not only did the 50% off make it an absolute steal (so nice and reasonable for Jules and I to shout the team) the food quality is actually very good. Portion sizes are also generous. So much so that after two-courses there was no way we were going to fit in dessert.

Service was exemplary during our lunch. Admittedly it wasn’t very busy at all but the service was at the right level and also extremely friendly. On Friday and Saturdays you can be entertained by belly dancers if that’s your kind of think.