A Whole Foods Experience

I love Whole Foods. My favourite activity is grocery shopping and back home Whole Foods was the place to be. Mum and I usually went out to Whole Foods for grocery shopping and some delicious food. So today I was really looking forward to going to Whole Foods at Piccadilly Circus for some shopping and food. I looked around the buffet and the food looked amazing.

I went with beer battered haddock, mushroom fricassee, roast brussels sprouts and thyme roast potatoes.

The haddock was terribly dry. It felt like I was chewing a tyre. I couldn't even taste the haddock. 

The mushroom fricassee wasn't any better. Though the mushrooms were in a sauce, they were surprisingly dry. How did that happen?

The brussels sprouts were tasteless. I love brussels sprouts and was most disappointed about this failure.

As for the potatoes, they were creamy and fragrant with butter and not so much the thyme. They were delicious however.

Come to think of it, I should have asked for a refund for the food, especially the dry haddock. 

Though the food was very disappointing the shopping made up for it. I picked up some of my favourite things, pomegranate, avocado, sprouts and coconut.  

So will I go back? Maybe not for food, but if I do, I'll be sure to notify the staff and ask for a refund if the food is a fail.

H & H

The Betsey Trotwood Pub

I am still adjusting to the super crowded British pubs where unlike Canadian pubs, people like to stand rather than sit around a table. That said, most pubs I've been to here are quite small and there aren't enough seats for people to sit. Betsey Trotwood in Clerkenwell is no different. It is a Victorian-style pub with some nice vintage-looking furniture and wall decor in a small cozy space.

I went for a private function on a busy Friday night. I ordered a mushroom, spinach and goat cheese burger with chips on the side for £9. It was quite expensive in my opinion, so while waiting around the small bar counter for 20 minutes for the food I was praying that it would be worth it. You know, pub foods aren't usually that great. However, I am pleased to say that Betsey is definitely an exception. My burger was very tasty. I had a nice chunk of creamy delicious goat cheese with lots of crunchy spinach. The mushroom was juicy, thick and flavourful. The burger sauce had this smokey flavour that went very well with the mushroom, spinach and goat cheese. The chips were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and just the right portion as a burger side dish. The food was nicely presented on a wooden board which made it seem comforting, rustic and homemade. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to take a photo of the food as I had to quickly dash upstairs for my event. I was very impressed with the food quality and do recommend it.

As for the service, though staff aren't particularly friendly or welcoming they are attentive and keep themselves very busy.

Note that you can't use your card for purchases under £10, so make sure to take some cash with you. Then again, order a drink and some food and your order would easily be over £10.

Overall, I highly recommend Betsey, especially for the food. Whether you choose to stay indoors or sit outside on the wooden benches you will be pleased with the social feel and comforting atmosphere.

Check out the website for more details, especially the music & events section: http://www.thebetsey.com/

The Betsey Trotwood
56 Farringdon Rd
Clerkenwell
London
EC1R 3BL

And as always, to health & happiness. :)

Konditor & Cook

I wasn't intending on eating out when the beautiful Konditor & Cook on the corner of Baldwin Gardens and Gray's Inn Road drew my attention. I had walked for over an hour in the rain and decided to go in for a cup of warm beverage. Though the space was small, the decoration was welcoming, especially given the Halloween decorated desserts and festive pumpkins. I ended up ordering lunch. I had the option of ordering warm and cold lunch. I went with the warm lunch: tomato and fennel soup and baked lentil and eggplant. The food was comforting and impressively delicious! The taste was out of this world and I couldn't get enough of my meal.

Disappointingly however, I learnt that Konditor & Cook does not have customer toilets. I have never been to a cafe/restaurant that does not have toilet access. This was shocking to me. So I made sure to grab a feedback form from my table and let the owner know what a shame it is that such a fantastic cafe doesn't give toilet access to its customers. It makes me think that I'm not welcomed to sit there and enjoy my meals. If the cafe does not want people to sit down then they should just make it take-out only.

I recently went to Borough Market and checked out another branch of Konidtor & Cook. It was quite small and did not have a seating place other than a small round table with two seats outside of the door. It looked like it mostly served desserts than main dishes. I was happy to see cute festive decorated desserts. I did not grab anything and did not have a chance to ask if the branch provided access to customer toilets.

Overall, I think the food at Konditor & Cook is fantastic and I highly recommend it. I am concerned about the lack of access to bathrooms. I find it unsanitary, disrespectful and unwelcoming. I have not had a chance to submit my feedback to the owner but look forward to hearing from him about this. I shall update you once that happens. For the moment, I am divided about whether I recommend the cafe as a whole or not.

Konitor & Cook has 6 branches in London. Check out their website for details: konitorandcook.com

To health & happiness :)

Louis Coffee & Tea Room

As per a friend's recommendation I went to Louis Coffee & Tea Room, a Hungarian Patisserie at Hampstead today. Hampstead seems like a very trendy and vibrant area. I really enjoyed it. Louis is just a 30 second walk away from the Hampstead tube station and is located right across from a large Tesco.

Louis is small and cozy. The furniture and decor are vintage looking and comforting. I sat down on a small table and asked for Earl Grey. The other tea choices were English Breakfast, Camomile and Peppermint. I then went over to the front and picked out an Apple Slice to have with my tea.

The presentation was fantastic and my items came in beautiful floral chinaware. Nothing special about the tea, but the Apple Slice was delicious. It was clearly made fresh. It wasn't too sweet and the apple was cooked just well enough. I loved the sugar on the top.

This was a buzzing place. Lots of people came in to pick up desserts. Most of those sitting down were seniors. It looked like they had been coming there for a long time. That's always a good sign. However, since the space is so small at times it was quite noisy. You can clearly hear conversations and they even get mixed up. So I'd say Louis isn't a good place if you're planning on sitting down and read. It's hard to focus. Nevertheless, it seems to be a nice place to enjoy a cup of tea with one or two friends.

Louis is not stroller friendly. You won't be able to take your stroller with you to your table. You are welcomed to park it next door (still part of the Louis building, where bathrooms are). I can understand that this is perhaps due to the fact that the space is small and a stroller would easy block passage. The mother who came in while I was sitting down thought it was a "ridiculous" policy and left. The staff did apologise but did not attempt to explain why strollers aren't allowed.

As mentioned earlier, the bathrooms are located next door. You need to go through a door and up the stairs. The flush did not work. The soap container was empty and the hand dryer did not work. No towels were available. Bad bathroom experience.

The service was OK. The staff did not seem particularly inviting. They seemed bored to be honest. That said they did their job and were respectful.

Note that Louis is cash only, so make sure you take some cash with you. I did not realise this but the staff kindly let me run to the tube station and get some cash.

Overall, I do recommend Louis. It's a lovely place for a cup of tea and dessert. The desserts look delicious! I will not however go back if I'm by myself. Other cafes in Hampstead looked quite nice and I'd be interested to try those, especially if I need to use the wi-fi.

Louis Coffee & Tea Room
32 Heath Street
London
NW3 6TE

Health & Happiness :)

Chichin Labs

I went to Camden Market today for the first time. It's huge, beautiful and exciting! I'll definitely need to go back on a weekend or weekends to explore the area further. What took me there was the Thanksgiving Biscuits & Cranberry Sauce ice cream at Chinchin Labs where the ice creams are made using nitrogen, cool, hu? Don't just order your ice cream and sit down. Make sure you watch the process of ice cream making as well. 

So let's talk Thanksgiving Biscuits & Cranberry Sauce, the website description is:

Completely Smooth ice cream that tastes of American Biscuits, we then ripple in fresh & Zesty Cranberry sauce to give you that Happy holiday taste

That's pretty much accurate to the dot. I don't need to say more. You'll have a choice of several toppings, pretzel, grilled white chocolate, raspberry sauce, etc. I went with raspberry sauce. It was a good choice, clearly it was made fresh.

I highly recommend Chinchin Labs. The staff was welcoming and informative. The gentleman who made my ice cream kindly explained the process to me. Make sure you check out Thanksgiving Biscuits & Cranberry Sauce before it's too late.

49-50 Camden Lock Place

London

NW1 8AF

http://www.chichinlabs.com/

Check out the process:

The decor reminds me of my Chemistry lab days, in a good way!

And finally here is a photo of a canal at Camden market. 

As always, to health and happiness, folks! 

Hot Chocolate Festival & The Fleet River Bakery

Fleet River Bakery

Lincoln's Inn Fields
London
WC2A 3JF

http://fleetriverbakery.com/

I only discovered Fleet River Bakery yesterday and I've already been there 3 times. They're having their Hot Chocolate Festival this November. Make sure you check it out before it is over. I had the hazelnut hot chocolate yesterday and it blew me away. Today, I enjoyed the rose hot chocolate and turned my friends who were skeptical about it into believers. I shall try the hot chocolates each day to discover my favourite flavour. Looking forward to caramel tomorrow.

Rose Hot Chocolate

Below is the schedule for the rest of the month:

The cafe also serves delicious food and desserts. A friend had frittata and potato salad and couldn't get enough of it. Another friend had spicy tomato soup with sourdough bread and loved it! Yesterday, I had the vegan chocolate cake and though it was sweeter than I expected I really enjoyed it with my Hazelnut Hot Chocolate, which by the way had a lot hazelnuts in it, fantastic!

Frittata & Potato Salad

Spicy Tomato Soup & Sourdough Bread 

Granola Bar

Vegan Chocolate Cake

Here are more photos from the cafe. The ambiance and decor and beautiful and comforting. Staff are cool and welcoming and there is free wifi. What else can you ask for?

Enjoy! And as always, to health and happiness!

Infra at the Royal Opera House is a must!

I went to my first ballet in London last night at the Royal Opera House. The ROH is a beautiful venue. I took some photos and here are a few of them:

I watched three performances, Viscera, Infra and Fool's Paradise performed by the Royal Ballet. It was a fantastic experience. I mostly enjoyed the second performance, choreographed by Wayne McGregor and music by Max Richter. The show was set against a backdrop of animation art by Julian Opie.

Here is the trailer:

 

It was incredible and absolutely breathtaking! I was attached to the stage the whole time waiting for the next brilliant movement each moment. The show was also emotional and moving for me. At one point I found tears in my eyes. I'm not exactly show where they came from to tell you the truth. After the show, my friends each had different interpretation of the underlying story. I guess each person will take something different from the performance. However, we all felt deeply mesmerised by the beauty of the performance. If you are in London, I highly recommend the show at ROH. Check it out before it ends on Nov 14th. You can find cheap tickets. I got mine for 5 quid. Give it a shot. I guarantee you will enjoy it.

And if you can't go, check out the 2009 performance on youtube here:


Prepare to be amazed and moved by this brilliant performance! Enjoy!

Health & Happienss

I have been quite busy with school for the past couple of weeks. But rest assured, more blogpots to come once I get through some assignments. Coming up:

Foods:
Bounty
Porridge

Restaurants/cafe:
Poppies Fish & Chips
Paul
Konditor & Cook
Simurgh
Pret
Snog

Places:
London Markets (Brick Lane, etc.)


A lot to write about....

Review: Nude Espresso Brick Lane

I love dinning and I am always in search of a fine dinning experience. I plan to share my dinning experiences in London here starting with Nude Espresso where I had brunch this afternoon with some of my classmates. So here it goes:

Nude Espresso
26 Hanbury Street
London
E1 6QR
http://www.nudeespresso.com/

I had high expectations. I was told Nude makes the best coffee in London. Before going to there I explored the website and searched the menu for a delicious brunch. It looked great.

There was a line up inside the restaurant when we entered. That's always a good sign. We were told to wait for "a while" for a table. However, we soon after were seated once my friend who frequents the place walked in. We sat down on two tables attached to each other. Comfortable seats and nice ambiance.

Soon after we got water and menus and ordered our food and drinks. Everyone went with Eggs Benedict with Salmon and Spinach. I had heard they make very good Flat White and having never tried it decided to go with Flat White with semi-skim milk (note: in London, low fat = 2% and most of the time you can't find skim milk, they basically consider semi-skim with 1-2% fat = skim milk).

Flat White

Eggs Benedict with Salmon

Note on Eggs Benedict: this wasn't a typical eggs benedict with english muffin, etc. It was basically poached eggs + Hollandaise Sauce on top of salmon flakes and on top of a piece of toasted wholewheat bread.

I ordered Eggs Benedict minus the Hollandaise Sauce (I avoid butter), Salmon and Spinach.

Eggs Benedict + Salmon without Hollandaise Sauce

The restaurant was busy so we patiently waited for our food. First the hot drinks arrived. I liked the Flat White. It's more like a strong latte. My friends also enjoyed their drinks.

It took a while for the food to arrive. A while. We were almost done with the drinks when the food arrived. I am usually very patient especially when the restaurant is busy, but I really think drinks and food should be served short after each other, so the customers can enjoy them together.

So the food arrived minus the spinach. It took a while until the spinach arrived. We reminded the servers about the spinach a few times. One of my friends did not even get her spinach. She had also ordered orange juice and did not get that one either. After our meal, when we informed the server about this issue he gave her a glass of orange juice on the house. A nice gesture!

Spinach

So how was the food? Keep in mind that this meal did not require much cooking. You basically need to assemble your already prepared salmon on already prepared bread and cook the eggs, sauce and spinach. So you better nail the eggs, sauce and spinach. The eggs were disappointingly overcooked. I am no expert in making poached eggs, but I am not a restaurant chef. The taste was fine but that wasn't properly poached eggs. The salmon was fine. The bread was fine and the spinach was just meh. I did not try the sauce so can't judge that. Overall, not impressed with the food.

Now let's talk about the service. Staff weren't particularly nice or rude. They were just humans carrying food and taking orders. That's all. One server who checked on us knew one of my friends and mostly interacted with her. Given how some of the items we ordered did not arrive and there was minimal interaction with the staff, I'd rate the service low.

Also, salt came in a small bowl not in a shaker. You had to put your fingers in there and sprinkle it on your food. How sanitary is that? We asked for pepper and ground it on our food. I don't mind this at all but in Canada, servers always offer the pepper and grind it themselves. I enjoy that. Perhaps that's not a British tradition so let's forget about this.

So do I recommend the place? Overall, no. The drinks seem nice so I may consider going by and pick up a drink to go. That said, they don't have skim milk so I'll most likely avoid the place all together.

A disappointing experience.