Daily Archives: August 14, 2011

Spuntino

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Spuntino is part of a class of the new generation restaurant hitting London lately – a grungy casual diner which doesn’t wait on ceremony (no reservations, no telephone and honestly not even a proper website!) Its not particularly sign-posted either so we actually walked past it twice without realising!

With their twist on Nothern American cuisine served in tapas-style portions you could easily convince yourself to eat more than you really should!

Offerings include Spuntini (antipasti) such as spiced nuts, egg & soldiers and stuffed fried olives; Sliders: Pulled pork & pickled apple, ground beef and marrow; Plates: Mac & Cheese, Truffled egg toast, Zucchini, chilli & mint pizzetta, Spicy sausage grits; and Salads.

I wanted to try everything on the menu (of course) but Pat was my control. As a matter of course you’re served some chilli popcorn (though if I’m honest you should try and resist these as you’ll soon become stuffed!) We had Stuffed Fried Olives (which were way too anchovy. Pat’s choice anyway so I left him to finish.)

This was followed by Mac & cheese (Crumbs were great), Truffled egg Toast (toast itself was tough – not sure if it was over cooked but otherwise a delicious, extremely rich dish), Zucchini Pizzeta (mint nice touch but surprised to find it was way too salty for my liking) and then one of the Sliders: Ground Beef & Bone Marrow (extremely Juicy)

If all that wasn’t enough I had to try their Peanut Butter & Jelly “sandwich”. Two triangles of iced peanut-butter parfait with a lot of very sweet jelly. If my arteries hadn’t hardened during the main meal it certainly was well on its way after dessert!

My only bone on contention with Spuntino that rubs me wrong is that it seems to try too hard to be cool. But with food that enticing and good I’m sure I can overlook that to return again.

Our bill came to £45.

FIVB Beach Volleyball International

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Lynley works at BP so as one of the sponsors, her company is lucky enough to get first dibs to the London Prepares Series – which is basically a series of warm-up events testing out some events for the London Olympics. She was lucky to get some to today’s event: the FIVB Beach Volleyball International at Horseguard Parade. Best of all it was the Women’s finals events! Heh heh.

And what a gorgeous day we had for the event!

The London Olympic event is going to feature a 15,000 seat stadium – hard to imagine when today’s event featured a mere 1,500 seats! I really liked this event as we were able to get pretty close to the action, in fact, it turns out that half of winning team (Brazil’s Liliane Maestrini) must have had her parents in the stadium as upon their victory she came charging up in the stands next to us! She was really gracious too with all the cameras right in her face!

I used to play a lot of volleyball (indoor not beach) so could appreciate the sport for what it was but I’ve never seen beach volleyball played at an international level. Boy those girls were good. Yes, I did say on the interview with Clare Balding for BBC Two’s Olympic Countdown that it’s about the sexiness etc. of the sport but its also about the athleticism. They are so fast and quick and flexible.

It’s a shame Great Britain couldn’t bring home from their gold medal match – though they really played with heart.

And don’t forget there are the cheer girls …

Plus a musical performance by these two … can’t recall who they were though!

Celebrity sightings included the Rolling Stone’s Ronnie Woods and Sir Steve Redgrave (who presented the flowers to the teams in the medal ceremony.)

Warrick

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And a visit to London wouldn’t be complete for Rache if we didn’t take her out for one last drink and dance. Venue of choice was the Warrick which, if not being particularly exciting in the basement area in terms of people, had a pretty good DJ at least. A good happy hour too which was surprisingly available on a Saturday!

And yes it did get teary …