To say that cupcakes are huge in London at the moment would be the mega understatement of the century. The latest to enter the scene is Cox Cookies and Cake located in Soho. The one thing that Cox Cookies and Cake does is that it adds something a little different to the cupcake scene – in terms of the looks of the cupcakes at least if not the flavours.

Staying true to its Soho location, the shop is themed out to be almost a night club – ridiculously loud music, at least when Sandra and I turned up just before lunch, included. The interior is painted black and window displays are all kitted out with neon lights. The shop is actually rather bare except for a bar along one wall and then, of course, the cupcakes at a counter on the other wall.

The cupcakes themselves looked pretty schmick – there are regular ones (or classics) priced at £2.50 or you can indulge in a specialty (£4.00) which can be covered in skulls, an Andy Warhol Marilyn, or sparkling sugar ‘diamonds’, and a giant pair of lips and then you could go for the Coxxx (get it?) Cakes (also £4.00) such as the Titty Cake, Man Cake, the Beef Cake and the Bum Cake. The flavouring of the Beef Cake sounded the most delicious and unique flavouring – hazelnut praline cupcake with praline icing and nothing to do with the bulging bicep attached on top I promise … the guys said the menu was kind of still being played around with but I do like the fact that the cupcakes themselves aren’t just vanilla or just chocolate (e.g. bases included choc and cherry, carrot, banana and raspberry.)

Sandra and I were going to be having lunch at Phoenix Palace not too long after so I didn’t go for one of the richer specialties or Coxxx cakes – instead I tried the Lemon cupcake with lemon frosting and shaved white chocolate curls. It was very good but very very sweet!

Oh the other thing to be said about the store is that the guys in the store are very cute!!!!

The Wolseley is one of those places where everyone should go for brunch or lunch at least once when in London. I’ve been to the have brunch there before but only in their little sun room at the front. This time around Connie managed to snag us a booking for lunch in the main room. I’ve given the description of the interior before so there is no need to bore you with that again. Nothing much had changed from the last visit – the same sumptuous interior, the same la-de-da clientele, the same excellent service (although they weren’t very efficient with the serving of water!)

Heaps of celebrity sightings this time – we were first sat next to Dawn French who was having a meal with her ex Lenny Henry (we later moved to a bigger table but sadly away from the gregarious couple) and also Sir Ahmed Salman Rusdie (author of the Satanic Verses.) I guess this is one of the reasons that you’re not allowed to take photos inside – to stop the stalkerazzi!

Lunch was a very relaxed affair despite the surrounds and again there was no feeling of rushing us out and away from our table. There was a minor boo boo by the restaurant as one of our desserts was forgotten. However the waitress was very apologetic and they were able to produce it very quickly after we asked.

Near my home is a relatively new Sichuan restaurant called Seventeen. It does not look like the kind of place that I can drop in for a takeaway, unlike my favourite local restaurant New Fortune Cookie, or even eat at on a regular, say weekly, basis. Its one of the new modern dark sleek looking places and if looks would count for anything you should expect a very nice meal.

Not to judge a book by its cover I took advantage of a groupon deal to dine – £16 for £40 of credit. Now for our typical oriental meal this would do Pat and I pretty nicely … but at seventeen we actually ended up spending another £18 which means that the meal was nearly £60 all up. Admittedly that included the cost of two drinks (one of which was a lychee martini Pat couldn’t resist.)

Food-wise it wasn’t the most impressive I’ve ever tasted nor were the portions very generous. Further, I guess we didn’t really take advantage of the Sichuan offerings. Maybe it deserves a second chance?

Every now and then you just gotta go all meat crazy so I met up with the lads tonight for an All-You-Can-Meat at Comida, a rodizio grill restaurant. This is where they come around with meat sticks and serve you your meat. It’s quite a small venue located on South Molton Street so unless you knew about it I guess it wouldn’t exactly shout out eat here!

The Cons (because you should always end up on a positive note)

• Limited meat offerings. It didn’t really feel like an All-You-Can-Meat because it seemed like they were only grilling a few meat sticks at a time, so you felt bad about asking for seconds as it would mean that someone else in the restaurant would miss out. The meat itself wasn’t that fantastic tasting with most tending towards the overcooked.
• The salad bar as a bit sad. It offered about ten different things with a 50% salad, 25% veg and 25% carb ratio.

The Pros

• Despite limited meat offerings we did get to eat a variety of meats including different cuts of steak, chicken wings, chicken thighs, ham, pork, sausages, lamb etc. … but no chicken hearts. Jon was devastated. Apparently they need to be requested special as not everyone eats them. Something to remember for next time should we ever come back!
• The salad bar, whilst not large, did do the trick and had some tasty options on there.
• The atmosphere was very relaxed because its not as hectic as other All-You-Can-Meats like Rodizio Rico and they haven’t tried to cram too many people into one spot.
• Staff were friendly

Overall, I guess at £20+ for the food you could do worse.  We at least had a pretty good night – even if the boys were paying out on me for not keep up with their meat-scapades!

I’ve quite often walked past Kettner’s in Soho, admiring the piano inside and the newish décor (white furniture and sterling silver candelabras.) Apparently Kettner’s is one of the oldest restaurants in London dating back to the 1860s! I thought it was a fairly intimate venue but according to the website inside there are four areas – a brasserie, champagne bar, pudding bar (for tea) and The Apartment (a club, as in private club not nightclub …)

Taking advantage of a top table offer I met Jenny there for a catch up tonight – I think however that prices at Kettner’s are pretty reasonable all around (e.g. with offers like 2 courses for £14.50) and even their a la carte menu isn’t too steep. The food is seriously good value for money and both Jenny and I were very satisfied with our main dishes – I had a grilled fish served on this fried greens and this was simply divine.

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a mis-understanding about Jenny’s dessert as the waiter couldn’t quite explain what the Peach Tart was going to be. Tarts seem to be somewhat of a specialty at Kettner’s if the fact that they have a Tart of the Day AND 4 tarts on the dessert menu … unfortunately, the tart for Jenny consisted literally of a pastry crust filled with fruit. Don’t think there was any sort of other preparation. And the Peach wasn’t even ripe! On the plus side our waiter was very good about changing it to another dessert (which ended up being a much better dessert – so much that I’m pretty sure Jenny licked the plate? 😉 )

The drawback to Kettner’s as a venue is that it was very very noisy in the room we were in. If we weren’t competing with the man at the piano we were competing with everyone else talking loudly (no doubt required because they couldn’t hear each other either!)

I’ve read some pretty average reviews of Kettner’s from their service to their food but I must say from tonight’s experience I’d have to disagree with them. Great food and nice friendly service. If only they had a volume control for the other diners …

Making full use of a glorious bank holiday Monday, after touching down from my flight for Greece, I met up with Pat for dinner at The Summerhouse. The early evening was lovely – even at 6.30pm it felt like we were actually meeting for lunch!

The Summerhouse is the latest in the recent trend of pop-up restaurants/shops around London. Its parent restaurant, The Waterway, lies just up the road so presumably the reason for having a pop-up located nearby was to further take advantage of the canal that both lie next to. We were happily guided to a table along-side said canal for our meal. It was really a perfect evening … and normally the view would have been perfect too .. except …. then Mr Rat came along!

He was one of the largest rats I’ve seen in London and I’ve seen quite a few around. Of course it wasn’t really the restaurant’s fault (we were trying to think positively that Mr Rat died way up the canal nowhere near the kitchen …) but bless the manager – he tried to push Mr Rat quickly downstream with a broom … only for Mr Rat to come floating back not too long after!

After that bit of excitement we settled down to choosing our food. The main reason I wanted to try out the Summerhouse was that a review I’d read had mentioned popcorn shrimp. The Summerhouse menu describes it as ‘Best ever’ popcorn shrimp – though I’m not entirely sure why the ‘Best ever’ bit required quotation marks …

Popcorn shrimp is so named because of the bite-sized popcorn-like nuggets that the shrimp comes served and in its simplest terms is a breaded shrimp fried with a bite. Done well it is awesome. The rest of the Summerhouse menu had no real surprises on it (lots of seafood with some Mediterranean influences and a couple of meat dishes) though the biggest surprise was probably fish and chips being sold for £16. Really? It was only cheaper by £2 than the most expensive dishes (a filet of sea bass and a steak!)

Pat and I were pretty hungry … read in this instance greedy … so as usual we over-ordered. First having a chowder each, neither of us could resist, plus the popcorn shrimp before moving on to our mains with additional sides. Not being able to really finish our mains and sides we did, however, resist dessert.

Overall food was average. The chowder was watery yet salty, and lack the creaminess and depth of a decent chowder. The popcorn shrimp was disappointingly flavourless, so it was good that it came with sweet chilli sauce, and my grilled swordfish was dry. The sweet potato chips were tasty though you can’t really go too wrong when you deep fry something. I think Pat was happy with his whole fish.

With nothing to rave about with respect to food I suspect that the Summerhouse is still going to be quite popular because of the venue itself and the fact that its not great value for money is hardly likely to bother the Maida Vale locals! I do have to admit that there is a great vibe and its really lovely spot to spend a summer afternoon / evening. Rock on the summer!

Say what you will about Gordon Ramsay – you have to give the man credit for raising the profile of what would probably be fairly ordinary run-of-the-mill local restaurants into something a bit more special. Like Simply Thai Santa Maria Del Sur made it to the semi-final of the latest series of Gordon Ramsay’s the F-Word and this was the one that Sandra wanted to check out.

After getting a thorough soaking in the rain, and rather randomly running into Nic on the bus!, Julian and I met Sandra and James for dinner. I hadn’t seen any of the F Word series so had no idea what to expect from this Argentinean Steakhouse – which I think could only work in my favour as then I had no expectations.

Walking into the restaurant you’re treated to an open kitchen where you can pretty much see all the grilling going on. The restaurant is dark though so don’t expect to be able to see your food too well! Hard bread (unwarmed) was served with the trademark butter with blue cheese. The blue cheese flavour was quite delicate but gave a nice sort of zing to the bread.

For starters, with the exception of James who opted for the ox tongue, we all stuck to the traditional empanadas. Empanadas were great and I could have easily eaten a whole ‘nother serve of them, if not for the fact they were deep fried. James wasn’t too impressed with the ox tongue which was too vinegary for his taste.

Mains were, as you would expect, steaks all around though we did all try different cuts. I can’t speak for the others but my fillet steak came out tender and chunky, if not necessarily having too much flavour. This was accompanied by a side of chips seasoned with garlic, herbs and I think parmesan.

We really couldn’t fit it in but desserts also went on to our table – hey, who knows if I’d make the journey out to the restaurant again. I couldn’t go past trying the milk toffee cheesecake – but it proved way too heavy and I couldn’t finish it!

Service was pretty decent for us without being exceptional. I get the feeling it could be hit and miss depending on who is your waiter and also depending on how busy the restaurant is.

Overall, I’d say it was a nice experience to eat at Santa Maria Del Sur. I don’t think I would call it the best steak joint in London, certainly not at the prices which seem a tad expensive, but if you live locally you could definitely do worse for good steak. PS the plating could do with some better presentation (e.g. I think our empanadas came served on paper towels!)

For my birthday Su Yin arranged for a meal on a special offer at Les Trois Garcon. Located in Shoreditch the restaurant inside is as funky as the area on the outside. The décor, with its stuffed animals, chandeliers and bejeweled decorations, it is certainly quite decadent. Also fun to identify the random things used for decoration so I could be forgiven for paying more attention, at first, to the surrounds than Su Yin! Ha ha!

Given the fact that Les Trois Garcon seems to have garnered some pretty decent reviews I was surprised to find the venue virtually empty when we got there, and once some diners started to trickle in it also seemed that most of them had come in based on the offer. Very strange. Admittedly off the offer the 2 course meal at £39.50 was a tad over-priced compared with similar restaurants.

We started off with an amuse bouche which I think was some goat cheese concoction

Before hitting our starters of Dorset Crab for Su Yin and Dorset Snails for me! Both were nice without pushing the boat too much – though Su Yin’s plating was pretty cool.

My favourite dish of the night was my main of pork – basically pork three ways and it was simply divine. And whilst Su Yin’s dish looked pretty – she felt it didn’t have quite enough flavour.

For our dessert we both opted for the lemongrass pannacotta with mango jelly, brandy snap biscuit and cardamom ice cream. Very tasty dessert and I like the use of not so common ingredients.

Overall our meal at Les Trois Garcon was pleasant. I can see that the food could be quite hit and miss – with dishes looking good not necessarily tasting good but dishes not looking that good tasting superb. Because of that I’m not sure how well valued it is based on the normal menu – but it was certainly excellent value for money on the voucher deal (£18 for three-courses).