Category Archives: Going Out

Beach Blanket Babylon

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Tonight I met up with some of Mirela’s Greek friends, Costas and Poppy who were visiting from Athens, and Chris and Dimos who have been here for over a year and live in Covent Garden, at Beach Blanket Babylon (or BBB as its known to locals.) When we got there at just past 11pm the bar area was absolutely heaving and it was almost like a one out one in system just to get inside. I’ve never been to BBB but I must admit that it was absolutely sumptious with gorgeous interior decorating and beautiful cocktails (if a touch on the expensive side.) And despite the noise inside the bar the bar staff were amazing at interpreting what everyone wanted. According to Mirela BBB is actual very similar to how Greek bars are fitted out so it wasn’t surprising to realise there were a lot of Greeks at BBB tonight.

How long can a 24 hour day really be?

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Damn long! The last 24 hours have felt like the longest of my life. Well, okay technically 24 hours is 24 hours however it feels like I’ve lived at least three days in the last 24. Still I seem to have survived it for now, except for picking up a feeling that I’ll soon be coming down with a cold, so its all good.

So, where has the last 24 hours brought me?

It all started with waking up at 4am yesterday morning to get to Shaftesbury Ave for 5am for crazy peoplethe broadcast of the AFL Grand Final. This idea, when suggested by Pauline, seemed all fine in theory leading up the day but I did find myself wondering why it was that I was getting up at stupid o’clock to go watch a final which didn’t even feature my team (the Brisbane Lions) in a venue (Walkabout) that I have sworn I would try my bestest never to step into! Still, at 5am Pauline, James (who had even less reason than me to turn up!), Brendan, and Cameron found ourselves in a line outside Walkabout. More on this here.

After watching the Grand Final, by which time it was about 8.30-9am, of course I was hungry so we ended up grabbing some breakfast at Giraffe over the river from Embankment. By the time we got across to Giraffe, as Grace, yes that’s me, thought it would be a good idea to walk, we had all been up for nearly six hours so it was basically lunch time. The breakfast was very welcome but boy was it a mistake to have something so heavy because it immediately sent me into a feeling of needing a nap immediately!

Thankfully the walk back to Leicester Square and then from there up to Oxford Street woke me up some as I had to meet Caro for another wedding dress fitting at Vera Wang, Selfridges. Unfortunately signals got a bit crossed and there was some confusion about her fitting time but I did see the dress she was planning on wearing (an interesting red number) and had the chance to catch up with her and Maud over my second lunch of the day! However, I was still stuffed from breakfast so limited myself to a butterscotch milkshake. Mmmmm ….

After all this it was mid-afternoon by the time I got back home and although I was hoping to grab a quick nap before heading out again in a couple of hours for Christy and Scott’s “Cuban Night” an engineer was coming to try and fix my internet and there was no guarantee when he would turn up. And as much as it was Inside the Museum of Garden Historytempting to nap before he got there I thought it would have scared him off when sleep-rumpled-grace-who-just-woke-up-from-a-nap-and-is-therefore-still-in-her-pjs-with-shocking-hair-and-most-likely-crazy-eyes answered the door.

After the engineer came there was time for a quick shower before heading off to meet Scott and Christy, and their former housemate Jenny, for a quick drink before making our way to the Museum of Garden History for a night of Cuban Jazz, where we met up with Craig and Mark (or Bartie). Quite a strange venue and in fact I hadn’t even realised there was a museum dedicated to Garden History! More on this here.

After the jazz Craig wasn’t quite ready to finish off the night so we all headed over to Bar Thompson for a bit of Sing Star Superstar. It was very entertaining though has just further proved to me that I should never never never sing in public again – ha ha! Admittedly I was having quite a bit of fun, and perhaps the laughing didn’t help with the keeping in tune aspect of the game, but nevertheless I had to move on to the final engagement of the night – an appearance at Club 49 in Soho.

James’ friend, Tara, was having a birthday do at Club 49 and she’d arranged to have a VIP area in the club. It actually didn’t seem all that big a venue but the line to get in was definitely large. Just as well I was on the guest list though I still had to pay a cover charge to get in. In addition to the guest list the benefit of the VIP area is having your own bar! Definitely makes getting in your drinks a lot easier. 🙂

The dance floor on the bottom floor of the club was absolutely ram-packed and hot as anything but for the most part the music played was pretty awesome – though it did hit a few blank spots now and then. And towards the end of then night it got totally rubbish – maybe their way of getting people off the dance floor and out of the club! Some of the photos below:

And so, after making our way through the crowded streets and to the crowded bus stops, which at 3.30am in the morning were heaving, I finally got home at 4am Sunday morning. The End.

Girl’s Night Out – Benihana and Jewel

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Pauline decided it would be a nice idea to have a girl’s night out so she got on the case to see who would be interested. Pretty quickly we had a pretty good size group of 11 of us. Somehow, in all this organization, Pauline convinced me to find a venue for dinner! Catering for everyone’s taste (read pickiness – ha ha), finding an interesting

The meal

Benihana is a Japanese teppanyaki experience where they cook the food on grill tops live in front of you. There are few venues scattered across London but the venue we selected was near Piccadilly Circus for is central location. Upon arriving at Benihana they guided us to the bar which is a good idea for when you are meeting a large group of people but also quick way of spending your money! The (non-alcoholic) pina colada was very tasty though so I didn’t mind 🙂 We’d booked for the offer of “7 courses for £16.50” off top table – the booking stating that it was imperative that you arrive on time otherwise they would cancel it. A bit harsh but I think in most cases, especially when there’s a large group of you, the restaurant won’t mind if you’re a little bit late. As it was they kept us waiting anyway for our table.

Because there were 11 of us we couldn’t all fit around one cook top so we were split into two groups and taken care of by two chefs. Our chef was very cute, and very Spanish, whilst the other girls got the head chef. I think we were better off because our chef was quite flashy including setting fire to the food (deliberate of course) on numerous occasions, creating a little flaming volcano of onion rings and generally tossing food all over the place. At one stage he even did the throw-the-food-into-your-mouth trick with Jenny. Thankfully it was her and not me! The head chef did try some tricks but I get the impression it wasn’t impressive as the display we received. Our chef was very flirtatious and friendly too and somehow I ended up with his chef’s hat (which I promptly returned as it was extremely warm to wear!) Fair to say there was a lot of interaction with our chef.

As for the food, the “7 courses” got us two “meats” (choice of beef, chicken, salmon, prawns, and another fish), fried rice, salad, vegetables, soup, and California rolls (the rolls were delish!) I didn’t think it would be enough food but actually I was fairly filled up by the end of the meal. The only negative to the concept was that the meats were cooked at different rates so we were all eating at different times and sometimes the food was overcooked. I couldn’t complain about the service which was at all times friendly and impeccable.

Overall I think Benihana is a good fun place to go with a group of people to experience something a little distinctive from the usual dining experience even if the food is not the highest quality or best tasting you’ve had. Its definitely a place to be entertained if you get the right chef. Be warned, however, that it can get quite pricey if you add bottles of wine to your meal.

The after

Only Pauline, Jenny, Agatka and I made it to Jewel for a drink after dinner. Jewel is actually a lot bigger than it seems when you first walk in and, what I really liked about it, was that there are plenty of places to sit and be comfortable. It seemed quite good for small groups of people. Unfortunately table service was quite slow which was surprising because you’d think in a place like Jewel they’d try to push as many drinks on you as possible.

30 Years in the Making – Part Deux – Babylon Restaurant at the Roof Gardens

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For my birthday Akhlaq arranged for a small group of us to dine at Babylon at the Roof Gardens. As per the website the Roof Gardens is “Sir Richard Branson’s urban oasis in the heart of London” and is 1.5 acres of green sitting on the 6th floor of a building in Kensington High Street. Normally the gardens are open to the public but tonight they had been booked out for a private function and wasn’t the man at the front door a bulldog about letting us up! I only make a point of this because it was funny watching this small old man (think great grandfather!) interrogate everyone coming to the door. And even though we had a booking for the restaurant it felt like he still gave us a grilling.

As we were slightly early for our booking we were escorted to the balcony to enjoy some drinks and views over West London. The Restaurant is located on the 7th floor so you can kind of look down over the balcony into a part of the garden. It was a nice clear evening so the view was fantastic. It was unfortunate a private function had taken over the gardens as it would have been nice to see it in the day time (we did later go down but it was rather dark by then.)

I could probably go on and on about Babylon so I’m going to review it on the following basis:

Atmosphere. From the moment you step out of the lift into Babylon Restaurant you know that you are stepping into one classy joint. From the sunken “reception” area surrounded by a colourful aquariums, to the coat checking room, to the classy bar that you walk by to enter the restaurant proper, to the rest rooms with Molton Brown products (liquid soap and moisturiser), to the tables that are overflowing with glasses so there is no room for your food, to the wall of stones and lights, to all the beautiful wood and glass panelling, to the fireplace, and to the sheer number of waiters and waitresses running around, all with a friendly smile and word for you.

The Service. The service was excellent and you are certainly treated like royalty from the minute you enter the restaurant including ensuring you were well liquored … I mean, ensuring you were never without a drink. The great thing was that although there were waiters and waitresses moving about constantly in the background it never felt like they were intruding – just seemingly appearing when you needed them. I noticed though that many of the waitresses were Australian so it almost felt like I was in a restaurant back home!

The Food. The menu at Babylon is almost overwhelming with its diversity and descriptions of strange ingredients. I wanted to try everything but sadly could only stick with three courses (though I did pick at Akhlaq’s cheesecake dessert (weakness!). My dishes were as follows:

Salad of Grilled Quail with soft boiled quails egg, golden raisins, quince chutney and red chicory Griddled Kilravock Free Range Pork with bubble and squeak, baby onions, fried sweet potato, baby leeks and jus with a side of Brocolli and Snap Peas with Almonds Peach Melba with poached peach and vanilla ice cream, candy floss

Great presentation on the food and taste-wise it was all pretty divine although I must say that I found my Quail salad start a touch oily and the Pork main was just a little over-cooked. I also especially liked the novelty of candy floss on my Peach Melba and was quite amused by Sandra’s starter of Langoustine & Crab with other bits and pieces. Look at this face … it was almost too cute to eat!

Value for Money. Hmm … tough call on this one. We averaged £60 per person for three-courses. Admittedly there was one bottle of wine in that total but I thought the final bill was a just a little bit steep. Having said that we did have very good quality ingredients. Unless you’re made of money you probably wouldn’t eat at Babylong everyday but it made a nice treat.

Overall Babylon Restaurant provided an elegant rooftop dining experience with a nice ambience, great service and quality food. Thanks to Akhlaq for organising the night out. These photos are just for him:

Obligatory Akh shot Jenny and Sir Cartier Sir Cartier soaking up the atmosphere

30 Years in the Making – Part Un (Day 2)

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Waking up with a cooked breakfast was definitely a nice way to start my birthday. Although these poor bits of bread got the life toasted out of them Jules did pretty well with the rest of the nearly Full English. Considering he didn’t actually have a toaster I thought he managed to balance the cooking fairly well. It was delicious and certainly filled a hole. Thanks Jules!

After our Lakes District plans were skuttled we had to come up with a game plan to occupy us for the rest of the weekend. I was willing to let Jules and Sandra off the hook so they didn’t have to feel obligated to spend the whole weekend with me. However they seemed game for whatever I could come up with so Planning-Me kicked into action.

The weather was actually fairly decent (in comparison to the day prior anyway!) so I thought since we were fairly near the St Alban’s Pitch and Putt it would be a brilliant day to tackle it. We managed to drag Akhlaq along for the outing as well and we splent a pleasant few hours out on the course.

We saw some bunnies and then Akhlaq just had to kill our driver! It was pretty funny and wish I’d captured all our reactions to seeing the driver head fly off into the distance. Sadly, the head went further than any of our balls did on that particular hole! I did, however, manage to get some photos of everyone in action – I love the silly grins the three of them had on their faces:

This took us to mid-afternoon. Jules then had to spend a couple of hours dropping Sandra and I off out our respective homes for a bit of a rest before we all joined up again for dinner at Abracadabra. James joined us at what was one of the strangest venues I’ve been to in a long time.

Abracadabra Restaurant, located near Piccadilly Circus, is a magic-themed Restaurant and Night Club. It actually is a fairly funky venue though strangely quiet for a Saturday night. I’m fairly sure that at one stage we were the only diners!

The Restaurant itself has many little sections – from a bar at one end, to tables in the middle, to alcoves with their own personal CD players (bring your own CDs or if you’re lucky, like we were, the manager will rustle up some Justin Timberlake for you 🙂 ), to a revolving table (albeit revolving at a very very slow rate), to bondage themed tables/rooms!! Little screens in the alcoves allow you to put up any sort of message (and funnily enough these even appear on mini screens in the toilets! but more on the toilets below.) You can even do shisha if you wish (currently Abracabra are rebelling against the no-smoking indoors laws – one negative.) Then there is the night club down stairs which was actually very cool looking.

The service was very friendly and accommodating – though I do wonder how they would have coped under a bit more pressure. I get the feeling that as there were not many other diners in the restaurant at the time we were getting quite focussed attention (we even later got a tour of the restaurant hence our finding out about the bondage table!)

The food, if a little on the expensive side, looked and tasted good from what everyone said. I found the veges that accompanied my steak slightly greasy but the steak was cooked perfectly and the serving portions were quite generous. The wine prices, however, were on the killer side price-wise – we found one bottle (admittedly it was Cristal) selling for £29,000!!

The highlight of the Restaurant though was the restrooms – boys and girls. Logistically sometimes the toilets didn’t really work but man they were fun to look at! Check these pics out:

I had a great day today thanks to everyone who could celebrate it with me. Thanks to Jules for breakfast and generally driving us around. thanks to Sandra for surprising me with chocolate birthday cake and thanks to Abracababra Restaurant for playing every birthday song known to man! 🙂

30 Years in the Making – Part Un (Day 1)

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The scenerySo, Friday saw us attempting to drive up to the Lakes District. Anyone who has been in London for the last month or more knows how bad the weather has been lately so I’m not sure why, faced with a dire weather warning for the weekend and with the rain that has so far fallen this summer, we even thought we’d be successful this weekend. I guess I was just hoping that if we drove far enough we’d escape the rubbish weather. I was so wrong.

We’d been on the road for about an hour and a half with rain still falling hard when we decided to pull over and make a decision about whether it was worth continuing. Bearing in mind we’d already seen one crash site, one car on fire!, and the motorway flooded on the other side from us, it wasn’t looking good. To add insult to injury the first service station we pulled into lost its electricity. Armageddon much! We had to vacate as it was apparently dangerous to still be in the service station. That pretty much decided us so we made the decision to turn around.

We were still hungry though so we stopped first at the service station across the road. After a meal fit for a King (KFC burgers and Burger King Ice Creams – yummy!) we headed back to London. Turns out we might as well have just stayed in the service station for a bit longer. Not only did it take us about two hours to get out of the car park, Jules and Sandra nearly came to blows with this dude who was in front of us and not letting people into the line of cars trying to get out. He was surprisingly agressive and wouldn’t even allow one inch of space between his car and the back of the car in front of him! Terribly unusual. Check out how much space he wasn’t letting in!

Finally we got out of the car park only to find that travelling on the motorway was even slower – it ended up taking about four hours to travel what must have been only about two or three miles!

So, after about eight hours of being on the road we ended up in the same spot that we started from Jules’ car park. Our journey was so thrilling I’ve put together the following compilation which includes footage of our drive on the way to the Lakes, the Armageddon that was the service station and then footage of our driving through flooded waters. All set to our theme song for the weekend Rihanna’s Umbrella:

Good times. I know you’re jealous.

We wrapped up the day with a delicious meal at Chutney’s in Uxbridge (which was delicious) and a visit to the cinema to see the latest Die Hard (yes the summer of sequels continues …) Review to follow eventually. The movie happened to finish just about midnight and so we were around to see the keen people lining up to get their copy of Harry Potter. I think the funniest aspect of the whole event was the people heading out for a night out clubbing or whatever jumping into the line to get their photo taken with the Harry Potter fans and then running off laughing hysterically.

30 Years in the Making – Part Un

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So the weekend has finally arrived – my 30th Birthday!! Aaargh! Though I don’t actually feel different now that I’m 30 Years and One Day old, leading up to this weekend I felt some pressure to try and celebrate the Monumental Day in some sort of manner (when I say pressured I mean from a global perspective of course and not any group of people in particular 🙂 )

All year long I have been planning to have a pre-30th birthday celebration so I hadn’t actually planned anything for the Monumental Day itself. Note that this celebration has now turned into a “I Survived Turning 30” party (invites to follow when I get around to it) because the first six months of the year have ended up being busier than expected. As it turned out the Monumental Day ended up falling on the weekend that Sandra, Jules and myself planned on trying our luck at getting to the top of Scafell Pike in the Lakes District (our second attempt.) Unfortunately Mr Rain, the kid known as Bad Flooding, and Miss Plain Old Bad Weather all objected and instead this weekend has ended up being a strange mish-mash of events over a long weekend. A fun weekend thanks to some very good and much appreciated friends – click the lnks below:

  • Day 1. Attempted drive up to the Lakes, Chutney’s and Die Hard
  • Day 2. Homecooked breakfast, St Alban’s Pitch and Putt and Abracadabra Restaurant
  • Day 3. Thorpe Park

    • Afternoon Tea at The Lanesborough

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    The perfect way to celebrate a summer’s afternoon and E’s birthday was with an Afternoon Tea at The Lanesborough. Making up the party was Dodo, Caroline, Moira, Lidia and Mike. Having been to The Ritz and Claridges already my expectations for The Lanesborough were very high. Not as glam as The Ritz and not as formal as Claridges The Lanesborough was still an experience.

    As it was E’s birthday we went with the Champagne Afternoon Tea which entitled us to, in addition to the usual courses, a glass of champagne (which, after drinking half a glass, I proceeded to feel very sick … will I never learn!) and a bowl of beautiful strawberries.

    This opening “course” was followed up by the traditional three-tiers which had sandwiches on the lower level, mini-loaves on the second and pastries and cakes. As a bonus we were also served some small quiches. Lovely. But dare I say that it was almost too much! To finish it off we were served some scones and toasted fruit buns. The sandwiches at The Lanesborough are the best I’ve had to date. The smoke salmon was served interestingly in a sweet bun, the egg mayonnaise was nice without being too eggy, the tuna was fresh tasting and even the cheese and pickles was very tasty (loved that one.) The twist on the traditional chicken sandwich was serving coronation chicken in raisin bread. Delish!

    Although the tea menu offered quite a variety of teas strangely enough the first tea offered to us was the Lanesborough special. To me this translated to “a tea that doesn’t have such a great taste and therefore we have to sell it as The Lanesborough special”. It didn’t take long for Caroline and I to switch teas. Disappointingly we weren’t given individual little tea pots which meant having to be waited on if we wanted refills so I was often drinking luke warm team. Still I could understand why they didn’t give us individual tea pots – no room on the table with all the food!

    If there was anywhere The Lanesborough was let down it was in the service. Though friendly it was a little slow. It probably didn’t help that our non-English waiter was thrown by Mike asking for a Rum and Coke (I get the feeling not too many people at Afternoon Tea ask for such a drink!) But our waitress was very sweet and seemed to thankfully know what she was doing though she was often off busy serving other tables.

    I think I’m really getting into the swing of these afternoon teas but I still can’t help over-eating and over-drinking …

    Happy 23rd Birthday Lofty

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    It’s Lofty’s birthday today, or technically yesterday, so as a treat Jules, Akh and I decided to take her out for drinks and dinner. We wanted to try something different outside of our normal dining options and after much searching we settled on a short list of restaurants … all of which seemed to be located in the Mayfair area. We ended up going with Athenaeum (or Damask actually) which is in the Athenaeum Hotel.

    Damask, I guess as befits a Mayfair postcode, is fairly a posh restaurant but is actually quite intimate and seems set up for small groups of quiet diners rather than big raucous parties. Jules and I headed to Damask early to “set up” which merely involved tying some helium balloons to Lofty’s chair and dropping off her presents. I was actually quite impressed that they allowed us to change tables AND leave all the balloons in the room. I thought they might turn their nose down at it but everyone was quite friendly about it.

    That job done we headed off to meet Lofty and Akh to find someplace to have pre-dinner drinks. Its not too easy to find somewhere in Mayfair to have a nice drink (despite the fact we were already armed with a shortlist!) but after a bit of searching we ended up at Ye Grapes. Not the most spectacular of venues but it did the job.

    By booking at 7pm I was hoping that Damask would be a little less quiet but it was really really quiet – no music even! Still the staff were very accommodating and extremely friendly even when Nemo kept hitting them in the face and when Sandra was pulling out all her silly little presents. The giant hand was a hit.

    We were dining from the set course menu and I think it gave a nice variety of choice, if not necessarily adventurous, for all sorts of diners. Not sure what the others thought of their meals but my Asparagus soup, Grilled John Dory and Pudding were of good quality ingredients and presented nicely if not necessarily the tastiest. I think Akh’s Haloumi Cheese starter was the funniest out of all our meals.

    Where Damask fails is in the atmosphere department. Even if the restaurant was empty they could have done At Henry's Barwith some sort of background music to create some sort of mood.

    Overall Damask is not too bad a restaurant – great service, decent food (if not necessarily the best value for money in terms of portion sizes), plush surrounds – but it just needs to improve on the atmosphere department. Something that could change if you came on a Friday or Saturday night.

    Finally, we wrapped up the evening with a final few drinks at Henry’s Bar before sending Sandra off home juggling her gifts and her balloons.

    Hyde Park Calling

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    You know that its summer England when all the music festival start up. It was Glastonbury’s turn this weekend and whilst Jenny and Catherine were mad and crazy enough to actually their make their way to the muddy grounds that are Glastonbury, for those people still in London there was Hyde Park Calling, a music festival in Hyde Park.

    Its a relative newcomer to the scene starting only last year but it was such a success that it was immediately announced that it would be an annual event. Mainly featuring rock music its not ordinarily a musica festival I’d consider going to but as Sandra was lucky enough to win tickets I thought why not!

    Unfortunately as we were going to see Shrek 3 later on we couldn’t stay for today’s headlining acts – Peter Gabriel and Crowded House. Instead we settled for seeing Forever Like Red, Ghosts and The Feeling on the Main Stage and Under the Influence of Giants on the Pepsi Stage.

    It was actually a pretty fun afternoon and could only have been improved by some better weather. Hopefully Sandra and James will have better weather tomorrow for Aerosmith!

    Entry Gate Under the Influence of Giants Forever Like Red Fluttering Flags
    The Crowds The Feeling I The Feeling II The Feeling III