Monthly Archives: February 2010

Mirela visit London

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It has been a long time since I’ve last seen Mirela – gosh it must have been Madrid in June last year and that was only a very fleeting visit. Since then she’s left Madrid, gone to work at a summer tennis camp in the States and then gone back to settle back home in Greece (moving in with her boyfriend to the new apartment that her parents built her) so a lot has happened. Further I don’t think she’s visited London since November 2008.

Although February is probably not the best time for someone who loves the sun and warmth to visit London at least the weather for her this past weekend has been fairly lovely. Especially on Friday when I took the day off from work to spend with her traipsing around London.

In every conversation that we’ve had since she booked tickets to come visit London the very first thing that comes up is Crispy Duck. Her flight was delayed coming in on Thursday night so we didn’t end up leaving Heathrow Airport until just before 9pm. We were both absolutely starving by then so we made our first stop one of my favourite local Chinese restaurants: New Fortune Cookie! We didn’t even bother stopping at home to drop off any luggage – lucky she packed relatively lightly. I love the staff at New Fortune Cookie. I don’t know if they recognise me, I do get take-away and eat-in quite often, but they are always ready to greet me with a friendly smile and friendly service. I also don’t know if they remember Mirela visiting last time and her total obsession with the hoisin sauce they serve with the crispy duck. It was rather amusing! The crispy duck went down an absolutely treat that’s for sure.

This weekend with Mirela wasn’t planned at all which is very unlike me as most people know! But because I also had to consider Sabrina’s plans, one of Mirela’s close uni friends, it was a bit hard to organise anything such as tickets to an event or even to organise drinks. But I think it worked out okay.

As I mentioned Friday weather was absolutely lovely. We started off with coffee for Mirela from Starbucks before walking down Kensington Church Street to get to Giraffe for brunch. Mmmm … love their English Breakfast. Even the vegetarian version, which is what Mirela had, isn’t too bad.

After brunch we headed up the Babylon Roof Gardens for a peak, a quick drop by some of the shops and then it was off to the Tate Modern to meet up with Fabrizio, another of Mirela’s Uni mates. Interestingly this guy never works and has spent most of his 30+ years at school! He has recently decided that he wants to move to Spain somewhere. To do goodness knows what but hey – he seems happy.

The current installation in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall is Miroslaw Balka’s giant grey steel box which is in essence a vast black dark chamber. Its supposed to represent aspects of Polish history (the artist is Polish). Supposedly the experience creates a range of “sensory and emotional experiences … provoking feelings of apprehension, excitement or intrigue.” Er … it was literally a big box (think huge container van) with no lights on inside. We walked up to it, into it, fumbled around, got to the back and then walked out again. Mirela, who can cannily imitate a barking dog, entertained us by displaying her skills and as a result a bunch of teenage girls ran screaming out! Anyway, if a big vast black box sounds like you’re kind of thing you have until 5 April to visit.

Another meal that Mirela was keen to have was sushi. It was kind of awkward timing at 3pm by the time we ate – we returned to HiSushi which was okay but as they were nearly closing down we were pretty much rushed to order our food.

After heading back to my place for a bit of a rest, we’d been walking for quite a few hours by then so we were rather weary!, we headed over to Sabrina’s house for a night out in South Kensington. After a couple of hours mucking around at Sabrina’s we stopped at Carluccio’s for dinner, which as usual even at 10 pm was heaving (we had to wait about 20 minutes for a table”), and then headed to Vendome for some drinks: 3 drinks for £30 – ouch!

Vendome was more bar than club – its quite a small venue with plenty of seating around – so it was quite relaxed but it was filled by what I imagine to be a typical South Kensington crowd. Music was not too bad but quite mainstream. We managed to dance the night away but with the bar closing at 1am it was an earlier end to the night than I was expected. As it turned out it nearly took me two hours to get home anyway – it didn’t help that I was quite a little bit tipsy …

On Saturday we all woke up a little worse for wear – we only had three drinks each at Vendome! But we had planned on a pretty quiet day of shopping at Westfield so it wasn’t supposed to be a demanding day. We made the mistake of trying to lunch at Westfield right in the middle of lunch time. Sabrina was craving Nando’s but the line for it was massive. To be fair the line for most other places was the same. We must have waited nearly an hour – I didn’t think we’d make it we were so hungry!

Surprisingly we actually lasted the whole day in Westfield though Mirela did have a few naps:

Ha ha. Just kidding! We did also spend quite a bit of time admiring the hot guys at Hollister – couldn’t believe there was a queue to even get into that store!

Sabrina then cooked us some dinner at her home:

On Sunday all we had time for was to say goodbye to Mirela. A quick visit but one that we appreciated. Its only now that she’s gone that I’ve realised how much I’ve missed her!

Blood Brothers

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I’ve heard that Blood Brothers is a pretty big production though that wasn’t enough to get me motivated to go and see it. When I heard Mel C was going to star in it, celebrity chaser that I am, that changed my perspective completely and it was suddenly on my to do list.

Almost spur of the moment Laney and I decided to go and check it out. We got an awesome deal because for £25 we got tickets to the show and a two course meal. The meal was unmemorable but the show as pretty good. Even better our upper circle seats were upgraded to some pretty decent seats in the grand circle!

As for the show, it was at time sad/depressing but also funny. It tells the story of twins who are separated at birth, brought up in totally opposite economic environment but whom fate keeps bringing together including falling in love with the same girl. It is very tragic.

The cast were good with Mel C in particularly being excellent. She had a strong voice and acted her party very well. The only negative was that she seemed to be signing the same song over and over (the number what mentions Marilyn Munroe). The man who played one of the twins, Mickey, played his character fantastically from when he was a seven year old until his character’s death in his mid-twenties. They were well supported by the other actors though the character Eddie, Mickey’s twin, was a bit annoying. The dude that played the shadow/compare was plain scary though, again like Mel C, seemed to be singing the same song.

This show has been around for a long time but I reckon the set and the play itself could do with a bit of slight updating. Otherwise it was a good way to spend a couple of hours.

Apsleys: A Heinz Beck Restaurant

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Rather disappointingly I wasn’t allowed to take any photos at our dining experience tonight at Apsleys. But this was the only part of tonight’s meal that I didn’t enjoy at this newly crowned Michelin starred restaurant.

Apsleys is Heinz Beck’s new restaurant in London. Heinz Beck is known best for his restaurant in Rome which is rated one of the best in the world apparently: A German cooking Italian in London? Well, technically I guess I don’t think he is actually in the kitchen – the restaurant just has his name and style.

The room, once you enter, is opulent and rich. Three huge giant massive chandeliers sit over head but for some reason tonight they chose to light the room very darkly. It actually seemed to dim even more as we continued our meal throughout the night! We arrived for 7pm but the restaurant was still rather empty. I was happy to see, however, that as diners came in they placed us all in separate parts of the restaurants which was rather welcome. There’s nothing more that I hate than a restaurant cramming everyone into one part of the restaurant when there is clearly space to spread everyone out.

As is the case these days Sandra and I were dining off the set menu – three courses and a glass of prosecco (we substituted this for fresh orange juice) for £35. We were quite pleased with the offerings on the menu which were pretty decent if limited (three choices for starters, mains and desserts.) For once Sandra and I had complete different meals. She had a warm seafood salad followed by salmon crepinette followed by orange parfait with bianco mangiare and mandarin sorbet whereas I went a more meaty route with the reginette with onion fondue, artichoke and rabbit followed by suckling pig and a millefuelle of raspberry and chantilly cream with hazelnut ice cream.

But before all of this occurred we were offered hot (not just warmed) bread of all sorts of variety: bread sticks, brown bread, a weird flaky type of pastry, a “bacon” bread, white bread and an olive bread served served with some very nice virgin olive oil. Though I would have appreciated some balsamic to go with the olive oil at least it prevented me from going overboard with the bread eating!

Our amuse bouche was an aubergine bell with fennel puree and aubergine and pepper terrine. Really really good and great to get an amuse bouche for once which was not a foam!

Starters were good and Sandra’s warm seafood salad in particularly contained quite a few bits of seafood in it which was quite impressive, although it perhaps suffered a bit from having lots of competing ingredients to challenge the palette. I think my main of Suckling Pig was a little more impressive than Sandra’s salmon crepinette though both were equally satisfying. My main ended up actually being suckling pig prepared in four ways. In order of preference my plate had on it pork cheeks (cooked or stewed in a sort of tomato like sauce), pork terrine, loin and shoulder. Again it almost felt like too much was going on on the plate but eaten separately I could appreciate each style. We were both definitely enjoying the fact that the plates were quite substantial for once – which we don’t normally get when on a set menu at fine dining restaurants.

We both enjoyed a pre dessert of strawberry sorbet, lemon crème Brulee, and biscuit (this reminded me a little of the lemon crème brulee with lemon sorbet at the bottom that I’d had at Mesopotamia)! Interestingly another pre-dessert was brought out to me only it seemed as it only came with one spoon – a Gratin of strawberry with ricotta impressions and almond. Perhaps the waiter had seen me writing in my book and was trying to impress a “critic”? If only!

Desserts were good. I think Sandra won this round with her interesting plate of different sorts of orange bits and pieces.

There is another lesson we have learned about dining in posh restaurants and that is – always get tea or coffee because that’s when you get the petit fours! Ha! You may indirectly be paying for these treats (what other reason do restaurants have for charging over £5 for tea/coffee!) but they are still a pleasure to receive. At Apsley’s they are especially cool seven little different treats set out on a long plate: Almond meringue, Coffee Bean liquior, Lemon Candy, Chocolate ganache with POPPING CANDY!, Hazelnut branch, French tart with raspberry, and Chocolate Truffle! We loved it especially the popping candy.

The service tonight was excellent. We got the perfect amount of attention and it never felt intrusive. We had two main waiters, rather than a revolving door of waiters, which was great as we kind of got to know them. Each and every dish was explained (though not necessarily understood at times because of the accent!) Water was constantly topped out without us needing to remind them and they even topped up our tea!

Its pricey Italian food but I think cooked with enough interesting twists and turns to justify the price. Great value on the set meal.

Day/Night in Watford

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A day out in Watford today turned out to be big a day/night affair today. It was a glorious day today which was a good thing because we started off with a few golfing drives at Top Golf. I love coming here – nothing more satisfying than (attempting) to whack the hell out of a little golf ball with a massive driver. For Akh’s birthday I got him a surprise present:

Heh heh.

Although both James and Akh are always trying to beat my long drives at golf on this occasion I had a few lucky hits that got me firstly 144, 152 and then a massive 186 which turned out to be the drive to beat for the day. Just a lucky hit really as I’d been slicing them off the “course” all day (the balls at Top Golf are smart balls but to measure the distance they have to be hit into a legal zone – though we couldn’t really work out the pattern for when a ball would be a good or when it wouldn’t be.

Our game at Top Golf was followed by a take away lunch which we at Akhlaq’s house and then the afternoon and early evening was spent playing the wii! Amazing how time passes so quickly when you’re the wii.

The evening was finished with dinner and sheesha in the cute tent area of a restaurant called Pyramid in Edgware. It was quite funny – especially when I started to get dizzy off the sheesha.

Sheesh … it was only tobacco! Ha ha!

“Karen” Megan Mullaly and the Supreme Music Program

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When I heard that Megan Mullally was coming to London I had to get tickets. Now I know in my mind that Megan Mullally is not Karen but I will forever remember her and love in that role. I’ve subsequently seen Megan appear in numerous shows including The New Adventures of Old Christine, Parks and Recreation, and Fame even and I have stilled loved her. To be honest I didn’t even know what I was expecting tonight as I hadn’t looked at any of the promotion material. I was surprised that actually she was here to sing with her band the Supreme Music Program.

I don’t even know how to describe her style – she mainly did covers of jazz, country and western, blues, and rock songs and all seemingly related to death or loss or sadness! How odd! In between pieces however she was amusingly charming and self-depracating. I hardly knew any of the songs but that didn’t stop me enjoying the show.

What was strange was that she constantly referred to a music stand with her sheet music on it. I would have thought she’d have known the stuff off by heart by now having performed with her band for over ten years!

Hi Sushi Covent Garden

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Whilst on our walking tour a month ago Sandra and I had noticed HiSushi across from one of the theatres on our walk. Mostly we noticed that they had an all you can eat sushi menu so we were determined to come back and try it one day. For £14.80 you get as much sushi as you can eat in two hours off a select number of dishes plus up to seven hot dishes (on a once only order).

HiSushi is actually quite an attractive restaurant. On the ground floor there is a koi pool and waterfall out the front and you can sit around the sushi bar. Upstairs most of the tables are sunken into the ground to give the feel that you’re kneeling at the table like a traditional Japanese restaurant.

As for the food the offer sounded too good to be true and it kind of was. Sushi choices were dominated by salmon with the following on offer: Clam Sashimi, Salmon Sashimi, Salmon Ngiri (Sandra’s favourite and probably the best value choice), Inari Ngiri (my favourite even though it was basically only tofu skin stuffed with rice!), Cucumber Roll, Salmon Skin Roll, Salmon & Avocado Roll, California Roll, Spicy Salmon Roll and Spicy Tuna Roll. You could also order for one time only the Tuna Sashimi (which turned out to be rather sad anyway) and the Prawn Tempura Roll. So it was kind of like what should we have – salmon, salmon or salmon? Ha! The sushi itself was pretty good but with the limited choices started to be a bit samey.

The hot dishes sounded promising and included Wasabi Prawn, Chicken Teriyaki, Prawn Tempura and Tonkatsu but they were quite horrible. Serves are small and they crammed all our selections onto one plate so all the flavours contaminated the other flavours. Because its an all you can eat offer they say that they have a right to charge you for uneaten food so we had to great creative and hide some of the uneaten hot food under the lettuce!

Service was decent and, bearing in mind the time limit, they were at least were reasonably responsive in taking our orders for and bring the sushi to us.

Looking at the menu they offer a lot more than what we saw – its seems harsh to judge just on the all you can eat purely for this reason. If you like salmon sushi then Hi Sushi all you can eat menu is for you! Guaranteed you’ll get filled up – we certainly rolled out tonight.

Simply Thai

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Three people have watched the most recent series of the F Word and immediately texted me to say that they wanted to eat at the restaurants which have been featured on it: Rehana for Simply Thai, Sandra for the steakhouse Santa Maria del Sur and Rache for The Pheasant. Its great how a show like the F Word can generate interest in these local restaurants.

First off the to do list was Simply Thai. Simply Thai is located in Teddington so it is a fair hike to get there. But getting there proved to be the least of our difficulties with our main difficulty getting a booking! Rehana tried the supplied number quite a few times over a course of a couple of weeks and then I tried my hand too. Every time we called the line either kept ringing or was diverted to a message. Finally by sheer luck I got through to someone and made our booking for tonight.

Patria Weerapan is the chef/owner of Simply Thai. I didn’t see any of the episodes of the F Word but I read that she is a bit of a tough cookie. She practically prepares and cooks all dishes that she serves at the restaurant which, sounds great until you get to the practical application of it. There is no doubt that this one-woman wonder is a hard worker. The restaurant reached the semi’s of the F Word so I was expecting good things.

We were, unfortunately, a little late for our reservation (just over 10 minutes) however I did try and call the restaurant to let them know but, like our problems trying to make a reservation in the first place, no one was picking up. When we got to the restaurant we very nearly were turned away. The restaurant is extremely tiny (seating at the most about 35) and was surprisingly full (I think with mostly loyal locals) with not many empty tables. (In fact at least tow other groups who’d not made any bookings had to be turned away).

We were quite disappointed that they’d already given our table away after 10 minutes. In the end we had to sit at one table whilst we waited for some other diners to finish. It was not a great start.

Finally after half an hour we were moved to another table. It would be another 40 minutes after that before our first course was delivered so we entertained ourselves trying to work out which celeb was sitting at the table next to us (it turned out to be tv presenter Andy Peters). Unfortunately for the restaurant the two waitresses couldn’t handle the busy restaurant. Though they were friendly girls they were seemingly run off their feet and when combined with the fact that there is only one chef in the kitchen to prepare all these dishes efficiency was not the order of the day.

We started with Grilled Spicy Prawns and Chicken Satay. The prawns were amazing – juicy and tender and succulent. The Chicken Satay, whilst tasty, was not the best I’ve ever had but they were fine to plug a little of the whole in or stomachs! For mains we had ordered three dishes: Crispy Sea Bass on Jungle Curry vegetables (a signature dish and cooked on the F Word), Massaman Curry beef and Spicy Braised Aubergine. Strangely the Massaman Curry didn’t arrive until way after we were on the way to finishing our sea bass and aubergine dishes. All three dishes were lovely and, to my taste buds’ pleasure, slightly sweet. The aubergine was my favourite dish of the lot. Interestingly Simply Thai offer Brown rice of which we ordered one serve at first but had to order a second order of rice (Jasmine this time) as it was clear the one wasn’t enough.

By the time we’d finished our mains (around 9.30pm) I was reaching, or actually had reached, my fullness tipping point. I adore desserts however and it didn’t take much from Rehana to convince me to try something. Rehana tried the Coconut Crème Brulee and I, of course, went for the traditional Thai sticky rice pudding with fresh mango (which again was cooked on the Fword though that wasn’t the reason I went for it – I’m a sucker for rice pudding). I really liked my rice but Rehana said she could barely taste the coconut in her dessert.

Overall, food-wise, I’d say it was pretty good though, in all honesty, not exactly worth an effort for us to come all the way out from Central London. I’d reckon this would be pretty popular with the locals though. Service-wise they really struggled to cope with a full restaurant from the waitresses to Patria in the kitchen. It’s a shame because I’m sure if she got some help into the kitchen and the wait-staff to ease the strain her business would be vastly improved.

Chinese New Year: Kam Tong Restaurant

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I am dying! Soooooo much food tonight … sooo little space in my stomach.

To celebrate Chinese New Year Mei organised a big group of friends to visit the Kam Tong Resturant tonight. We were supposed to meet at 8pm though it was much later before we started eating. However, once we started eating, the food never seemed to stop. Oh boy.

David and Mei did the ordering for both tables and made sure to order the traditional food for new year which included: Black moss with dried oysters (the moss signifying wealth), whole fish (togetherness and abundance), a chicken (prosperity), two lots of noodle (uncut to represent long life), peking duck, and fried prawns (they were awesome!) I think we ordered about 10 different dishes all up (bill came to over £40!)

We actually started our meal with “lo san” I think its called where you get a plate of umixed ingredients, noodles, smoke salmon, scrambled egg, various seasonings and dressings and then everyone gets in with their chopsticks and mixes it together. It was quite cool if a bit messy!

I’m sure that Kam Tong Restaurant has never seen the likes of our group before. We were rowdy and noisy but I think they quite welcomed it as a good way to start the Chinese New Year. I’m certain they liked the attention that our table was getting for all the food that was delivered to our tables (we were split over two tables there were so many of us).

What a great way to start the Chinese New Year though I’m sure I won’t be eating for at least a couple of days. Ha ha. We actually had enough leftover to fill I think it was 12 takeaway containers!

Caro’s birthday at Princess Gardens

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It was a triple threat date today being Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year and Caro’s Birthday! To celebrate Caro’s official birthday we headed to Princess Gardens. Normally I would say that Princess Gardens is a 100% guaranteed a great experience for yum cha but today, on arguably one of their busiest days of the year, they really struggled. Although they weren’t officially taking bookings, seating on a first come first serve basis, Caro had called ahead a couple of weeks earlier to reserve a slot. I don’t know how the not taking bookings but taking bookings tricked work but we were more than happy to walk past the groups crowding the entrance and lounges of Princess Gardens to a table.

Service was rather abrupt and short. I don’t know why Princess Gardens didn’t have more staff on as clearly they were going to need them! Food took a while to come out and then we almost felt like we couldn’t order additional rounds (thought that didn’t stop us.) I was not impressed when we ordered crispy duck and though they prepared our first round of pancakes for us they took away the rest of the duck! Not good. I didn’t think the food, when it arrived, was up to the usual standards though it was still delicious and as we were all famished soon disappeared from our table.

Aside from the slightly les than ideal service and food we still had a lovely time. Overate as usual but hey – isn’t that the point of going out? Heh heh.