My 23rd Birthday last weekend!

Last week I turned 23! And to celebrate I ate a lot of food! To me food makes any occasion! You get to treat yourself and eat the foods you wouldn’t normally eat at home!

Now with every birthday you have to have cake and what better cake to have than a vegan biscoff cupcake from Crumbs and Doilies (http://www.crumbsanddoilies.co.uk)
This cupcake had a biscuit base with caramel tasting sponge topped with vegan ‘buttercream’ icing and adorned with a biscoff biscuit! My, my, my it was was good!

I live in West London which is starting to get more and more interesting and different places to eat at. Bluebird cafe originated in Chelsea and they have now opened on in up W12! The television centre is sat opposite Westfields London and round the front of it are spaces for restaurants or shops to open, one of which has been filled by Bluebird cafe. What made this birthday lunch time treat even better was that there was bottomless prosecco for £15 per person! An offer thats hard to refuse on any normal day let alone your birthday! For starter I had the Crushed broad bean with summer ricotta on sourdough toast! Mixed through this was lemon and mint which made it nice and light. It was perfect for a starter or even on its own as a light lunch. For main I got the Pork Belly! Oh I do love pork belly! My first mouth full was rather disappointing though as it was just full of gristle! But once I’d got rid of that and checked that there wasn’t any more of it I really got to enjoy it! A sharper knife to cut through the crackling would have been a bit better as it was a lot of hard work but otherwise it was absolutely delicious! The decor is nice light and floral. Perfect as a summer spot to go to for drinks after work or as we did to sit outside in the sunshine having a nice lunch! (https://bluebirdcafe.co.uk)

For brunch the next day I knew I’d want something delicious! After a heavy day/night of drinking (bottomless prosecco hit me hard in the day) I needed something that would cure the hangover! Dirty Bones fit ticked all the boxes! With Mac and cheese, chicken and waffles you cant go wrong! I had the shirt rib crumpets with a side of mac and cheese. This rich dish was absolutely amazing! The beef just melted in your mouth and the egg was cooked to perfection! Unbelievable! Decked out with a dj booth, lights topped with different lamp shades and in a slight American vibe to it, this place did just the job! Ive been here before for dinner and I must say its definitely worth a go! Even for fussy eaters! (https://dirty-bones.com)

I ate quite a bit on my birthday weekend but you do don’t you! And I must say I feel like I picked some good places to go to! Go check them out!

Where do you like to go for your celebratory/birthday eats? Let me know!

Feeling 22 ooo ooooo!

On Friday I turned 22! I booked the day off work, my mum and sister came down for a day out! We went to Westfield’s Shepherds Bush to do some shopping where I got a new top, some make up and some new trainers, and I also wanted my mum and sister to try a Snog! I really liked mine last time I had one and I knew my mum and sister would like it as well! This time we got mine ones, I went for the same flavours as last time but my mum went for Chocolate frozen yoghurt with brownies and strawberries! She said the brownies could have been smaller pieces but more of them. Otherwise my mum and my sister both loved Snog! I love showing people new things especially when it comes to food!

I asked around at work as to what the good places to go to in Notting Hill were. One of the recommendations was The Distillery. The home of Portobello Gin. The Distillery is built up of 4 floors each with a slightly different theme but all surrounding the ideals of gin! We went in for some pre-dinner drinks and we parked ourselves in The Resting Room. Its on the ground floor so is perfect for passing by! This floor is traditional but classy British in a nutshell! A large selection of wines, gins (obviously) and cocktails. They do serve food as well but I have head that the floor you really want to go to is the Gintonica floor! This will be a floor that I will try due to its long list of gins but also its tapas menu! This would be a luxury night out for me but by the sound of the recommendations at work it’d be totally worth it. The other floors are the Ginstitute which is a small museum with different cocktails to try which will enhance the gin history lesson. There are boardrooms as well as bedrooms as well at The Distillery.
For my pre-dinner drink I had an Aperol Spritz! I do like the refreshing yet slightly bitter taste of an Aperol Spritz. My mum and sister both had a glass of wine.

After our drinks we thought we would head down the road to Honest Burger. A place that calls themselves honest but serve some real good dirty burgers! Tucked away in a small narrow section of Portobello Road with a large bar taking up most of the space, your food gets cooked downstairs and come out quite quickly! The onion rings were gigantic! I had the special which was the Louisiana! Cajun-rubbed beef, smoked bacon, fried onions, American cheese, smoky ketchup and pickles. The burgers are cooked pink or to how you would like them! I had mine pink and my god did I make a mess! It was such a nice burger with gooey cheese and soft burger van onions! The sauce made for an even better flavour and the pickles added that slightly healthy element and added flavour! The rosemary salted chips were incredible! The rosemary made them! Best chips I have had so far! My cocktail also came in a cup! All three of us really enjoyed Honest Burger, but like I’ve most probably said before, you cant go wrong with a burger!

On the Sunday me and Hayden walked up to Shepherd’s Bush (Its only round the corner so you can’t blame me for being there so much) and went to Dinner at Jamie’s Italian. As part of the Gold Club, which is free to become a member of with so many perks, I got the taster which was a slow roasted tomato on creamy ricotta and basil topped onto a crunchy crostini! There was a large mouthful sized (a small bite for Hayden) for both of us! There was an intense tomato flavour but balanced out with the creamy ricotta! As well as this I got £10 off the bill and because it was my birthday, a bottle of Jamie’s Prosecco which me and Hayden shared.
For starters we shared the crispy Italian nachos which is actually deep fried ravioli with a chilli, tomato sauce that you dip them into. The filling is a cheese and its topped with shaved parmesan. The other starter we had was Crispy Squid. Cant go wrong with crispy squid and aioli. For mains I had Gennaro’s Mixed Grill which was Free-range pork & fennel sausage, Welsh lamb chop & herby marinated flash steak with crispy British coppa, smoky chilli ketchup & a side of your choice which I chose Polenta Chips. Hayden had the Pesce pizza! My mixed grill was so nice! Proper meat feast! There was so much meat (doesn’t look a lot from my picture but bearing in mind I’d had starters) by the end I was struggling but made sure I ate it all as it was too good to waste! But I couldn’t eat any polenta chips! I wanted room for pudding! I had 3 scoops of dark chocolate ice-cream topped with honeycomb and a butterscotch sauce! Hayden had the Chocolate fudge sundae! We came away from our meals stuffed and slightly tipsy from the bottle of prosecco! But we both thoroughly enjoyed our food and the atmosphere of the restaurant!

I had a lovely birthday weekend and the birthday celebrations don’t stop here!

Lewis’s late birthday celebrations

Me and Lewis have been friends since I was 2 years old! And every year we like to do something exciting for each others birthday! This year Lewis turned 21! For such a big birthday I wanted to take him somewhere special and to do something a bit different, especially now I am living in London.
Where I live isn’t far from Shepherd’s Bush Westfield’s and White City, So I had a look around there to see what places would be good to go for lunch. I then remembered that there is a rooftop bar just opposite the White City entrance of Westfield’s called Pergola on the Roof. Neither of us have been to a roof top bar, the weather was meant to be nice and I felt as though this was the perfect occasion to go!

Pergola on the Roof is on the top of the BBC television centre Carpark. This is the old BBC headquarters. If there are less than 4 of you then you don’t have to book but it is on a first come first basis in terms of the getting a table. This I’d looked into so made sure we got there early enough to be able to get a table! Up on the roof you didn’t even feel like you were in London! The decor was that of the Hamptons in America and the weather matched it perfectly! The cocktails and prosecco were flowing and for food we got the popular squid burgers from Salt ‘n’ Sauce (Bonnie Gull) . The way it is set up is there is a 2 bars and then 4 pop up counters which are run by a different company. Salt ‘n’ Sauce is one of them and the other 3 are Patty and Bun, Breddos Tacos and 8 Hoxton Square. The squid burger was so full of flavour and the squid itself was crispy yet not chewy! It was cooked perfectly! And the chips were beautiful as well!

Pergola on the roof was a perfect start to our day and by the time we left we were a little bit tipsy but also looking for something to eat some more! We had had a whole bottle of prosecco at this point as well as a few cocktails! So we went into Westfield’s not really knowing what to have and wanting something a bit light and came across Snog. Snog is a frozen yogurt brand where they serve it to you as if it is Mr Whippy ice-cream and then you get to choose your toppings. For mine I went for salted caramel with brownie pieces and dark chocolate nibs. I have to admit mine didn’t taste very much of caramel so was a little bit disappointed but the brownie pieces were so nice and I love dark chocolate so I was happy with that. We did get a too bigger size though. We definitely could have done with a smaller pot as neither of us finished them. But Id definitely go back and have another one!

For our evening entertainment, I had got myself and Lewis tickets to see Sigma at the Royal Albert Hall. So to make it convenient  for us, rather than jumping on nearly every tube and having to go here there and everywhere, I booked us a table at Verdi an Italian Restaurant which is inside the Royal Albert Hall. We turned up a couple of hours before the concert so that we could have a nice relaxed dinner experience. I had the ‘Tagliatelle Al Ragù D’anatra which is slow cooked duck with wild mushrooms. Lewis had the Pappardelle Al Ragù Di Cervo which is braised venison in red wine. My duck was so tender it just fell apart in my mouth, there wasn’t much of a sauce or a massive amount of flavour if I am honest. I tried some of Lewis’s and I know that venison has more flavour but the depth of flavour in for his pasta was incredible! Mine I think was a bit more simple in that the flavours the restaurant wants you to taste are the duck and mushrooms which you could. For pudding I had lemoncello which was delightfully creamy but really strong in alcohol as well! It got to the point where I couldn’t finish it. I wasn’t disappointed by the meal but I also wasn’t wowed by it. I think because of where it was I expected a little bit more from Verdi but Lewis really enjoyed his meal and that was the main reason for me being there so thats all that matters. Would I go again, maybe, if I was going to the Royal Albert Hall again yes, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to go there again for a nice casual meal. It was in a perfect atmosphere, great location in terms of what we were doing that evening and fitted well into the day. Sigma was also pretty incredible!

The next day me and Lewis went down to Chichester, Lewis has just been offered a job down there and so we went and looked at some places for him to potentially live in. Whilst we were there we stopped off for lunch and we went into the first place we found which was Brasserie Blanc, a french restaurant in a traditional British city. For a Sunday they did offer roast dinners and when I saw people eating the roasts, well I may have started dribbling! I did think though I could have a roast anywhere and still enjoy it. So I thought I’d choose something different, something I don’t always eat! I had King Scallops Provencale, which came with chargrilled courgette, sautéed potatoes, padron peppers, cherry tomato sauce and a deep fried herb crumb. Im not a massive fan of peppers so I did push those to the side but everything else, oh my days, was delicious! For something very simple it was full of flavour! The cherry tomato sauce lifted the whole dish and the scallops were cooked to perfection! I came away from the table not feeling stuffed but satisfied which I think is a good position to be in when you know you have a lot of walking to do and knowing that I was going out for dinner that night too made it even more comfortable in the knowledge that I hadn’t eaten too much nor ruined whatever we were going to be having for dinner that night!

Once we had seen all the places Lewis wanted to look at we made our way back to London where Hayden joined us. We eventually decided on Pix followed by trip over to Bounce. Pix is a tapas restaurant in the style of a buffet where you go up to the counter and see what you want and put it on a plate and take it back to your table. There are different sized sticks in each dish, 2 different sizes to be precise. The different sizes equates to the difference in price. The shorter stick is cheaper and the longer stick is a little bit extra. Due to it being a Sunday and a bank holiday, they had a deal on which was all you can eat tapas as well as all you can drink cava for £33 each. This was a deal we couldn’t refuse! I went for all the traditional dishes as well as the ones I didn’t even know I was going to like! Patatas Bravos, diablo meatballs, chorizo stew, baked brie with cranberry sauce, there were just a few things I had and tried at Pix! I have been to a Pix before but the atmosphere in the Notting Hill branch was so much better. All 3 of us really enjoyed it and then we went to Bounce and had a game of ping pong on the tables with a few cocktails and we were set for the night!

The weekend consisted of a lot of different food, a lot of drink and a lot of laughs and I am so glad that Lewis enjoyed his birthday weekend and treats that I had planned for him.
I’d highly recommend Pergola on the Roof as well as Pix and Brasserie Blanc in Chichester for places to go to.

1st cake to hit the blog!

I do love making a cake! Especially when its for someone else and you know that it is going to be appreciated! I also love being able to let creativity take over and experiment or take on inspiration from others!
I started making cakes by making cupcakes! I felt as though I perfected my sponge and icing technique so I thought ‘why not? Lets make a cake!’ I follow loads of bakers on Instagram but the one that got me really into cake making was Cupcake Jemma who is included on Jamie Oliver’s Food Tube, she owns her own shop called Crumbs and Doilies and every single time that I go to London I have to go! Her cakes are so light and fluffy! What I like about the cakes she sells is that they look incredible, they look different and arty. She doesn’t use rolled, royal icing, she creates smooth surfaces using just soft buttercream! Once the cakes are smooth she creates a chocolate drip! Its this that I then like to bring to my cakes!

This cake that I made is for my friends 23rd birthday today! He asked for a chocolate overload and thats what he got! He brought the chocolates to go on top as he wanted his childhood favourites! Inside was made up of simple vanilla buttercream icing and thick, fluffy chocolate sponges! To get smooth surfaces I cut around the edge to get rid of any crispy bits as well as using a cake leveller to create smooth tops! Then goes on the outside chocolate buttercream. I melted nearly a whole melted Terry’s Chocolate Orange and drizzled it over the whole of the cake and let it run down before adding all of the chocolates that my friend wanted on top! A full on Chocolate Explosion!

This was such a fun cake to make and soon I will hopefully show you how to make one but I thought this would be a good introduction to the style of cakes I like to make!