Monthly Archives: January 2010

Theatreland Walking Tour

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As part of the Get Into London Theatre promotion they were running a free (shortened) version of what is normally a paying walking tour through the theatre district of the West End. Led by a Blue Badge guide (theatre expert Diane Burstein) I was expecting something pretty good and although I knew that we weren’t going to be backstage anywhere I still thought we’d at least hear some juicy gossip.

The walk, in all honesty, wasn’t the most thrilling of walks however we did hear some history of some pretty important monuments, such as the Charlie Chaplin statue, and theatres, such as the Coliseum and Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where I’m going to see Oliver! in a few days time.

At least the day was a lovely day for a stroll.

I’m sure that all the information we heard today is available somewhere but hearing it in person makes it so much more compelling. Actually the most interesting part of the walk was watching the sign-interpreter do his magic for the deaf people on our tour. He was amazing!

Pearl Liang

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Yum cha dishes are generally served with three dishes per dish so Sandra had the bright idea that Pat should join us for lunch today at Pearl Liang so we could order a wider variety of dishes. Although this did work out logistically we somehow still ended up eating way more than we normally would so nearly rolled out of the restaurant!

Pearl Liang is supposed to be one of the better yum cha restaurants in London and in times past when I’ve visited they’ve normally delivered. On today’s visit, though the food was reasonably of good quality though not as good as I remembered it to be, the service was absolutely horrid. The restaurant was busy (so if you want to come always make sure to book) but that was no excuse for the lack of service that we got. For a start the restaurant didn’t have enough menus to even give one menu per person and secondly we could hardly get the attention of any wait staff to get our orders in. It was very disappointing.

Orrery

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I caught up with Su Yin and Kelly at Orrery tonight. Orrery is another in the stable of the D&D restaurants and sits on top of a Conran shop on Marylebone High Street. Its probably a surprise to see that there is this restaurant upstairs – I almost didn’t see the entrance! Orrery serves “French inspired” and tonight’s experience proves why some of the best service you’ll ever find will be in a French restaurant.

But let’s start with the food. We were taking advantage of a set menu offer – £30 for 3 courses and a glass of bellini. As is the trend with many of the posher restaurants these days we also got a few little extras – which was good because the food portions were, I guess rather typically, small!

(I think we spent more time taking photos than eating our dishes!)

Our meals were started with an amuse bouche of Parsnip soup and mushroom foam. It was very cute and intensely flavoured. We followed this with a starter of seafood tortelinni, lobster bisque which I was pleased to see came with a giant prawn (thankfully peeled) on top. Delicious but I could have done with at least two more portions of it. Heh heh.

For mains I stayed with my seafood theme with Sea bass, truffle mousseline, champagne veloute. Beautifully presented even if I do object to the foams and smears of “sauce”. I was expecting stronger flavours but as usual the truffle essence is lost on me. The sea bass was quite fresh.

Food at this stage was coming out really quite quickly and when combined with the fact the portions weren’t too huge I thought we’d be in and out of the restaurant in half an hour! However, there was a slight delay on our desserts. Whilst waiting for our dessert we were surprised by a pre-dessert of vanilla foam (more foam!) and pear and apple crumble which was very delicious. I would have been happy to get a full dessert of it that’s for sure.

The delay was soon explained by this:

I had opted for the pear frangipane and vanilla ice cream but I wasn’t expecting the silver candles and the Happy Birthday written on the plate! I was wondering why I got the place but could only track it back to when halfway through our main meal Su Yin had suddenly said “Happy Birthday” to me. She said it quietly but our hovering waiter must have overhead! I was well impressed that the waiter did something about such a subtle hint! It was so funny because even the guys next to us chipped in wishing me a happy birthday … my birthday isn’t until later in the year by the way! But see what I mean about French service.

Because we were having such a nice time in the restaurant we finished our meals with some tea. Stepping right up to the task Orrery delivered with some delicious petit fours, which our waiter was more than happy to top up:

The waiters were really lovely and their presence was exactly spot on: there when we wanted them and not there when we didn’t need them although I did note that the later the night got the more harried they seemed.

Orrery was a truly enjoyable experience with fine food, fine food, and fine atmosphere. It may have been a little on the pricey side for the amount of food we got on our plates but you do get quite a few extras and the ingredients are pretty high quality.

Jersey Boys

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Who knew that the Four Seasons, or Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, were responsible for so many hits! To be fair the Four Seasons were one of the most successful rock ‘n roll groups from the 1960s so I shouldn’t really have been surprised to hear all their hits in tonight’s musical. It is, however, no surprise to me that this musical, or the Broadway version from which it sprung at least, has been the recipient of numerous awards because it is a pretty awesome show (though it wasn’t always perfect.)

Starting with the pretty awesome: let’s face it one of the major pluses to doing a musical based on a musical group is going to be the song list. Hits such as Sherry, Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like a Man, My Eyes Adored You and Oh What a Night were just a few of the hits that are in the production and every single one of them was a blockbuster.

The cast were stellar in their delivery of all the musical numbers and not one person in the crowd could stay still when they really hit their stride. The core cast was very strong vocally, with great moderation on volume, and clearly the four male leads had great stamina and great chemistry. They were pretty fine actors as well with the characterisations just as I’d imagine them to be. They were also well supported by the minor cast – which was surprisingly small with a number of them taking on multiple roles – and a darn good orchestra.

The staging was fantastic and took great advantage of the available technology (including large LCD screens and use of Andy Warhol type comics.) The production was slick with quick set and scene changes.

And now to the less awesome. The story-line, especially in the first half, seemed to drag quite a bit. It was a bit ho-hum so thankfully the musical pieces came in to save the day and bring it to life. It was kind of like the writers thought – here are all the songs we want to perform so now we need to write in a filler around them to bring them together.

Other than that, Jersey Boys was definitely a great show to see, and is a fab night out. I know Rehana agrees!

Off to buy the soundtrack!

Caro’s Pie: Two-ways

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Nate and Caro are always out to take good care of me most especially by ensuring that I eat well. Yes I know what you’re thinking – Grace does not have a problem with that!

Not that I ever need an excuse to visit my good friends but one of the reasons that makes my trip out to their home in Earlsfield so memorable is the delicious food that Caro always manages to turn out. Today it was pie day. Pie has to be one of my favourites and Caro certainly delivered with her beef pie and applie pie. Not only were the pies good but the french fries (well seasoned with chilli powder) and vege that accompanied the beef pie were fantastic too.

Yummo!

The Citypoint Club Deluxe Spa Day

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There is no better way to spend a chilly winter’s Saturday than indoors in a lovely warm spa! Ha! Red Letter Days had a sale on their spa days a little while back so Sandra and I decided to take advantage of one of their packages. For just under £80 each we would get unlimited access to the facilities (which included a pool, the gym, the jacuzzi, the sauna, the steam room, a plunge pool, the squash courts and a very funky but very busy tropical fish relaxation lounge) plus a relaxing facial, Serenity back, neck and shoulder massage (treatments lasting about 25 minutes each) and a two-course lunch.

The Citypoint Club is about five minutes from Liverpool street. I’d say that the club is used mainly by the city folk to get in their gym work outs and then weekends is probably when you get the day spa people in. It was kind of weird to be going to a spa day at a regular gym that’s for sure!

In an attempt to not make this day a totally lazy one we spent the morning using the facilities including a work out on the squash court (we were too busy laughing at ourselves to get a proper work out) and a jog on the treadmill. After a quick costume change it was into the sauna and steam room followed by a few laps in the pool. Well, Sandra did a few laps – I was feeling to fatigued so satisfied myself laying on the lounge. Before lunch we also had a dip in the jacuzzi which was lovely.

After our lunch (fairly small serves but tasty) it was time for our treatments. The massages were first up and both Sandra and I were punished by our respective masseuses! That’s what we got for asking for a firm massage – my shoulder blades have never had that much pressure before. I was too scared to ask my masseuse to take it easier – ha ha! It did feel really nice though and strangely relaxing. After a quick break in the fish relaxation lounge (I’d love a room like that in the mansion that I’ll have one day – lounges with comfy blankies in a darkened room lit only by the giant fish tank I was practically asleep before Sandra roused me four our facials!) it was time for our facials. There was a bit of a mix-up with mine so I had to wait a bit for my girl to turn up but I didn’t mind as the facial was nice and the girl was very chatty.

We had a lovely day at the Citypoint Club. Any more people and I think the venue would have been too busy but today at least we had pretty much use of whatever facility we wanted without too much hassle. The service was pretty good as were out treatments.

Lana’s 30th: Sushinho

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The problem with my visit to Sushinho tonight was that I was expecting a restaurant which delivered a meal as spectacular as the one that I’d had at Sushi Samba in New York. Basically the two restaurants have the same premise – the fusion of Brazilian and Japanese cuisine but where Sushi Samba really delivered on presentation and content I felt Sushinho was a little flat. But that’s not to say it was overall a terrible experience because some of the food, the tempura especially, was quite nice.

For starters we all ordered some sushi, whether it was a sushi special or the platter. We were expecting the dishes to come out served individually but for some reason rather than present the dishes separately, to emphasise the ingredients, they piled everything on to one plate. I understand that they were trying to encourage shared eating but when I compared it with the flamboyance of Sushi Samba it kind of paled in comparison. My sushi special was the samba roll (eel and papaya, tobiko, lime dressing, 6pcs) as I can never resist eel. Taste-wise it wasn’t terribly exciting – the eel flavour wasn’t strong and even the lime dressing didn’t even cut through.

Things improved when it came to my seafood tempura. I have to hold my hand up and say that it was quite possibly the best tempura I’ve ever had. The batter was perfectly light and crispy and the dish somehow managed to stay quite warm. It was delicious through and through.

The hot mains (or the sushinho specials and grills as they are called on the menu) are served as is (that is with no accompaniment) so bear that in mind when ordering as you’ll likely need a side of rice or something to bulk up the dish a bit. My dish was actually quite attractive – red snapper fillet with gnocchi (about five pieces) cooked in squid ink, cucumber and fennel salad and black sesame sauce. It was an odd combination but actually worked quite well. At £22 I felt it was slightly over-priced but I guess this is what you get when dining on King’s Road!

We didn’t get to try any of the desserts which was both a curse (cause I love dessert!) and a blessing (saved myself a bit of money!) as Lana had brought her own dessert! We were actually at Sushinho to celebrate Lana’s 30th birthday so she had planned ahead and bought a dozen beautiful cupcakes from Lola’s at Selfridges! How nice of her! The cupcakes were delicious but after a big meal we all got to take a “doggy-bag” cupcake away. Heh heh. I was impressed that the staff didn’t say anything about us having the cupcakes there but to be honest tonight the service was fairly relaxed anyway!

Overall I’d say Sushinho was a nice, though pricey experience. It’s a pleasant atmosphere (room is quite dark and minimalist so quite intimate) and I imagine on a busier night they might even have some funky South American music going on (I didn’t really notice if any was playing tonight as we were to busy chatting!) Not quite as brilliant as Sushi Samba but from the reviews I’ve read it has certainly improved since it opened just over a year ago. I’d really like to see them innovate on their sushi a bit more and work on presentation.

L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon revisited

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Lana and Mike are soon to depart for Australia so I thought it would be a good idea to take them to a nice Michelin starred restaurant which offered decent value for money. At two courses for £22 or three for £27 (it’s gone up £2 in less than a year since I’ve been here!) before service L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon gives the punter a bit of a taster of the potential the restaurant could offer. I also like the fact that, generally, you get to dine at the bar which surrounds the kitchen and prep area which makes for a pretty cool dining experience.

After the last time I ate here I said I’d eat off the tasting menu rather than a set menu but of course I hadn’t anticipated that I’d be coming back from a holiday where I did enough shopping to fill my suitcase, practically empty on departure, to the brim. Heh heh. So, only the more budget-conscious menu for me on this occasion.

Once again the starters offered a choice of a terrine (wild boar) and veloute (corn). At least the ingredients were different! I quite liked my veloute of Hot Corn, shallots and golden croutons though I could have done with a bit more … but I always say that don’t I … greedy thing that I am!

For mains the options were between a leg of lamb or hake. Cleary I was going to go for the hake! The hake came with a requisite breath of foam and smeared puree (of parsley roots.) I could have done with a triple portion. In hindsight I should have done what the guy to my right (who Lana swears was some sort of celebrity) did and ordered extra dishes from the a la carte menu! Actually, celebrity or not, it was clear that the guy was a regular visitor as the wait staff spoke to him as if they saw him every day and even asked if he wanted his “usual” whatever that was.

Dessert of the day was this apple cake/crumble combination which worked very well though I was hoping they’d do their signature chocolate dessert dish.

I hope that Lana and Mike enjoyed themselves tonight though I think we were a little less focused on the food and more on catching up since I hadn’t seen them since we parted our ways after the Lapland trip!

Plum Valley III

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Tonight was my third visit to Plum Valley in practically as many months and tonight Pat and I absolutely feasted.

In addition to starters of Ribs and Salt and Pepper Squid (which I’ve had on previous occasions to equal success) and mains of Mongolian Filet Steak (not as good as the time I had it with Caro) and Black Cod Tobanyaki (which whilst tasty has me suspecting that Black Cod is seriously overrated) we also had a mid meal dish of Chilli Garlic Crab!

The crab kind of came between our Starters and Mains and probably took us nearly an hour to finish on its own. It was sooo good and such good value at the 50% price of £9! Delicious.

After finishing our savoury dishes I was seriously feeling like I was just about ready to blow up but, in my warped mind, felt I could still fit in a bit of Willow Dew Cream which is a soupy dessert. It was yummy but totally unnecessary. Oh my stomach!!

New York New York

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In visits past shopping and family have featured but normally mixed into that is also a fair amount of food and sightseeing however shopping and family dominated my New York visit this time around. My cousin from San Fran, Penny, was home for Christmas – normally I miss her – so it was a good chance to spend time with her. Additionally I made sure to make an effort to make my way to Connecticut to visit one of my other aunt’s and her families.

More photos here.

The Shopping

Thanks to the tightening of security controls for flights in and out of the US my flight arriving in Newark was delayed nearly two hours. The security measures, which involved searching us at the gate, not allowing us access to any of our items in the last hour of our flight, treating us like prisoners but requiring us to have our hands on our laps in clear sight of the flight attendants at all times for that last hour and, unbelievably, having our luggage scanned once the luggage came off the plane prior to releasing it to us!, did not reassure me that I was any safer than normal. Some security consultant is certainly earning a sh!tload to create these suggestions – all they probably do is inconvenience the regular flyers – because, you know, as a terrorist you’d wait until the last hour of the flight to start any monkey business right? Ridiculous.

So, by the time I arrived in Flushing and got ready for bed it was just about 2 am on Sunday morning. Six hours later I was waking up to get ready for Day 1 in New York – shopping at Woodbury Common! Ha!

I absolutely love Woodbury Common and its unusual for a trip here NOT to result in me walking away with a ton of bags. And this visit was no different from any previous shopping visits although I did try to consolidate my shopping into as few bags as possible both for environmental and ease of carrying around the shopping reasons. Often its only when you get home that you realise what seems like so much shopping is just actually a heck of a lot of giant shopping bags!

The day was rather a glorious day and when combined with the fact there were post Christmas sales to say that Woodbury Common was busy was a total understatement. Its just as well we arrived reasonably early as we were able to get a fairly decent car park – many others had to resort to going into the overflow car park across the other side of the highway! Unfortunately queues were the order of the day from the Coach shop, to the Ugg Boot shop and to even leaving the complex. It took us just under two hours to crawl our way out of there at the end of the day.

On Day 2, whilst Kathleen headed off to work, Penny and I hit Barneys. I’ve never really gone into Barneys before and today’s experience proved why: super expensive price tags on everything! The dressing rooms are even personalised to the shop assistant (at least on the top floor) – I guess to give the guests a sense of pesonalised service but also to ensure the shop assistant gets his/her commission. Even the gear on the sales racks were pretty out of my budget! We started on the top floor where prices were scary but, opposite to my expectations, the lower we went the higher the price tags got. The good thing about Barneys is that it was not at all crowded except for the shoe area which, because of the sales, was absolute chaos. Whilst Penny hunted around for the perfect shoe I sat back and watched all the goings on. I can tell you that there are certainly some very spoilt people in the world. One lady, her husband and daughter had taken up a whole section and had what looked like about 60 pairs of shoes scattered around her. The daughter, who was about 10, was running around grabbing shoes and imperiously ordering the shop assistant around. What a pain in the butt she is going to be when she grows up! Needless to say they didn’t bother to help at all in putting the shoes back to where they came from or even pretend to be civilised about their browsing. Guaranteed they didn’t even buy one pair of shoes.

SoHo was Day 3. It was an absolutely freezing cold day so we, Penny, her Mum and I, made sure to stay inside the stores as much as possible. In fact we didn’t spend that much time in Manhattan that day purely because it was so cold. Just a few hours were spent whipping around Old Navy, where Penny and I rocked out on the Band Hero they had on display (probably there to entertain the men/kids who come in accompanying the women!) and UniQlo, where most of the time was spent in a gigantic queue. On the ground floor they had every attendant who could operate a till on the tills (at least fifteen!) and it still wasn’t enough to get the line moving. The store is massive but the sales meant it was super crowded.

The other day of shopping was my second last day in New York when we ended up going to Woodbury Common again (!) because Kathleen wanted to return some clothes. This time the queues seemed more reasonable, probably because it was absolutely fricken cold, only being three lines snakes long rather than five … so we waited in the queue to get into Coach. Not unexpectedly we were in there for a while though I had to escape because the women in there were driving me crazy! Because this was the second time in a week we were at Woodbury Common we didn’t spend much time faffing about. In fact the day was so absolutely freezing that we didn’t stay long at all! Just hit the shops we wanted to hit and got the heck out of there!

The Family

So, other than spending quite a bit of time with my Flushing family I also headed up to Connecticut to spend time with my Hartford family over New Year’s Eve. Hartford should have been an easy just over 2.5 hour bus ride but instead we ended up stuck at the Port Authority Terminal for a couple of hours as they cleared a “suspicious” van in Times Square. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we’d known the reason for the delay. The bus ride itself was great – our bus was quite comfortable, we had the funniest bus driver and, apparently, we even had free wi-fi. Nice huh?

I arrived in Hartford just in time for dinner. My Aunt, Uncle, Jesse and Ruthie took me to one of their Italian favourites. Food was pretty delicious and, naturally, with huge serves. They had the must divine garlic bread sticks which were bottomless, as were our sodas and ice teas! You gotta love America! After dinner, a quick visit home so I could meet Marley, their gorgeous chocolate lab (he’s so gorgeous I could easily forgive him chewing my boots up!), my Aunt and I drove to their cottage on the lake to spend a girlie night catching up.

It was great – a cosy cottage, a nice fire, a great DVD (Under the Tuscan Sun) and great conversation. She’d also made some delicious sticky rice for dessert. Mmmm …. I’m surprise I didn’t wake up halfway through the night to finish it off!

In the morning (New Year’s Eve) we woke to a beautiful snow covered landscape. The lake was nicely frozen over and was clearly solid enough for people to go cross country skiing and walking on. Out in the distance we could also see a hole in the lake where people had started to set up a fishing spot. After breakfasting in the enclosed patio my Uncle came to pick us up to bring us to Old Sturbridge Village which is basically how you’d imagine rural New England to be back in the early 1800s. It was a well cute village – farm animals, shoe makers, potters, candle-makers etc. The snow, which fell by the bucketloads whilst we were there, made it even more magical.

After Old Sturbridge Village, Ruthie wanted to take me shopping and to see a movie. We ended up going to see It’s Complicated with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. I loved the movie – probably because I’m well into Alec
Baldwin at the moment thanks to his stint on 30 Rock.

By this time we’d worked up quite an appetite and were well ready for our New Year’s Eve meal which was at one of their favourite Mexican restaurants. A bunch of my Aunt and Uncle’s friends came out as well and it was very lively meal. The evening happened to also be a full moon or new moon and therefore the restaurant was all themed around a blue moon including blue tortilla chips! It was a bit weird! The meal was yummy though. My New Year’s eve was actually fairly sedate – we got home just in time to watch the ball drop in Times Square on TV. I was trying to find Audrey on the broadcast, one of my Flushing family, as she’d gone in to Times Square with her boyfriend. She actually got there for 6.30am to try and get a good position. What a trooper!

The Food

Other than some fantastic cooking by my Uncle at home (I love love love his ginger chicken – he makes the greatest sauce ever) I had two notable culinary experiences: Korean at Bann and L’Ecole at The French Culinary Institute.

Bann was notable for the way they present their tea to you – in cute little box with a backlit screen – and their desserts – which included a crème brulee three ways (tonight it was vanilla, ginger and strawberry.)

The food, which included a delicious Korean pancake and gorgeous Kal Bi Jim (beef short rib simmered in a sake ginger soy glaze served off the bone), was pretty damn tasty too. Though our dishes did look particularly brown!

L’Ecole at The French Culinary Institute, where I decided to treat Penny and Kathleen to brunch, was something just a little different.. All food is prepared by the student chefs but what made our brunch visit different was that, unlike all the other meals, the brunch service is not actually part of The French Culinary Institute’s curriculum but is carried out by volunteer students – so you know they wouldn’t be there unless they wanted to be.

The venue is clearly a popular place so it was lucky they could fit us in. The room is nice, bright and airy and, thankfully, sound levels are just right to give you that kind of a buzz without having you feel like you need to shout. The food was absolutely divine from the freshly baked breads to the Butter Poached Shrimp, Andouille Sausage and Grits (yummo – more please!) to the perfectly cooked Steak and Eggs, French Fries, Béarnaise to my Crème Brulee. We had a lovely time but if there was one thing they were let down on it was the slowness in the service – though our waiters were perfectly friendly, as they inevitably are in the US, they were a little slow. It was still a lovely way to finish off my visit to New York.