London
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London Cocktail Week 2015 – My Highlights
Mini clothes pegs. Dainty egg-cup style glasses. Drinks made with condiments, pork fat and even ants. Yes ladies and gentlemen…London Cocktail Week is here. There are so many things that I loved about London Cocktail Week. The sheer number of bars taking part, not including the pop ups at Poland Street and Spitalfields, making me feel like the proverbial kid in candy store. The opportunity to try something that I may not usually order. How amazingly friendly everyone has been. But most of all, I really loved how enthusiastic the bar staff have been. Each person who served me clearly took so much pride in their bar and the effort that…
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Duck and Waffle
After spending quite a bit of time hanging around in establishments at the top of tall buildings, I have realised that a pattern is emerging. The higher up in the sky you are, the worse the service usually is. Which is a shame for many reasons, not least because most of these places seem to implement a kind of “sky tax”, meaning you pay through the nose for the privilege of being there. True, the views are spectacular so at least you have something nice to stare at while you wait half an hour to get served at the bar (Hutong, I’m looking at you). However, is feeling like you’re…
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The Manor, Clapham
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Flat Iron
I’ve been watching a lot of “Parks and Recreation” lately and have fallen a little bit in love with Ron Swanson – the deadpan, mustachioed, all-American red blooded male. Ron Swanson has no time for nonsense such as salad or kale smoothies. He likes his meat rare and his whisky neat. He is probably my soulmate…. So I paid a visit to a restaurant that Ron Swanson would most definitely approve of – Flat Iron. There is just one thing on the menu here and that’s steak. Really really good steak. Flat Iron is part of the annoying “no reservation” trend that seems to have swept London lately, so I played…
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The Manor, Clapham
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Eating The Street
You would have to be living under a rock not to realise that street food is a big deal. The London street food scene has exploded over the last year or so, with a range of top notch vendors serving takeaway scran to suit every palate. With excellent food markets every day of the week, I’m determined to eat my way through all that the capital has to offer. Here are a few of my highlights to date: The Little Yolk The clue is in the name. Starting life as a market stall, these purveyors of fried egg yumminess now have their own cafe at Dalston Farm Shop. The menu…
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10 Greek Street
I started this blog with the intention of working my way through Time Out London’s top 100 restaurants. Well, it’s now April and so far I have managed to visit just one restaurant from their list. I fail at converting intentions into reality. However, I have broken the seal with my visit to 10 Greek Street. In fact, the seal was veritably demolished, along with my lunch and my waistline. 10 Greek Street is as discrete and unassuming as its name. Small and spartan, with white walls, wooden flooring, and the dishes of the day chalked up on blackboards, it has that whole effortlessly chic thing down to a tee. Even the menus are…
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The Manor, Clapham
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Adam Handling at The Caxton
My best friend has found a new best friend. And that new best friend isn’t even an actual person. It’s the rather brilliant Bookatable, purveyor of shiny restaurant bargains. There’s no way I can compete so, as the old saying goes, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Our first foray with Bookatable took us to Adam Handling at The Caxton. As a huge fan of Masterchef, I was very excited to eat at the restaurant of one of my favourite former contestants. Handling was a finalist in the 2013 series of Masterchef: The Professionals, and right from the outset he impressed with confident and competent cooking. I adored him even more after…
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The Manor, Clapham
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Dishoom, Kings Cross
I’m always slightly wary about venturing outside of Tooting for a curry, but last Saturday I found myself in the freezing wilderness of a redeveloped Kings Cross and on the hunt for something that would warm the cockles. Cue a queue free Dishoom. Stepping into the cavernous converted warehouse was like entering another world. Tiled floors, lush palm plants, ceiling fans lazily spinning; it was as if we had gone back to a more elegant time. We had to wait for around 10 minutes before a table was free, but this was hardly a chore as we relaxed in the sophisticated lounge chairs and perused the menu. The main restaurant is…
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Spice Village, Tooting
Was it the screaming baby right behind me? Was it the two drunks next to me who only stopped slurping cans of Carling to pass out? Was it the food so smelly that it assaulted my nasal passages and walloped my sinuses? Or was it the person playing their music so loudly that I’m sure they were only wearing headphones as a fashion accessory? It was shaping up to be the journey from hell, and by the time I arrived in London I was feeling about as festive as a turkey on Christmas Eve. Returning to an empty kitchen and having already made myself sick after gorging an entire box of Quality Street…
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The Manor, Clapham
“This drink tastes of plants” declared my dining companion. Our lurid green sorrel and elderflower bellinis were perhaps an inauspicious start to our meal at The Manor, as was our rather over-keen waitress who had seemingly been told to push the tasting menu for all it’s worth or risk pain of death. At one point, we did think that she was going to hang around the table while we perused the a la carte options, but thankfully duty called elsewhere. However, things only improved from then on. The Manor is owned by the team behind The Dairy, which has had rave reviews and full tables since it opened in Clapham last year.…
