A Musical Afternoon Tea and a Felt Cornershop

I am off to Lisbon in a couple of days, I have never been and I cannot wait, it has been a tough couple of months and to see the sunshine, eat local cuisine and see the sights will be wonderful. Before I go I thought a mini photo blog on my trip to London to see my sister's wonderful Cornershop installation and a catch up over musical afternoon tea plus an evening of drinks and snacks would be a good parting shot until I am back. Firstly I won something, this never happens. I won musical afternoon tea at the Ampersand hotel in South Kensington, where Rich and I stayed for our minimoon, just a little bit quirky but also nice and luxurious too. I decided to take Kathryn with me for afternoon tea as it had recently been her birthday, so on a beautiful day in London we headed on in to the hotel.

The whole Shebang

With champagne, savoury filled choux buns, opera cake, white chocolate chip scones, salted caramel maracons and strawberry mousse cakes this was a wonderful feast too big for even the greediest of girls. Luckily they neatly packed up the rest of the lovely treats in a box for us to take home.  If you are looking for a slightly quirkier afternoon tea in London I totally recommend the one at the Ampersand, a delicious way to spend an afternoon.  We headed onwards to meet Abi in Bethnal Green and the greatest Cornershop that ever was, simply my sister the great artist Lucy Sparrow, is a genius.

biscuits & booze

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Twenty Lambert?

sporting chocolate bars

After a wonderful trip to the shop Abi and I went to meet up for a few drinks with lovely Carla, of Can Be Bribed with Food blogging fame,  for some wine, snacking and gossiping.  Aiming for somewhere close we could get back to Paddington Carla chose somewhere just off Oxford Circus, The Market Place bar, it was warm enough to sit outside so we ordered some drinks and got down to business.

evening snackage

We ordered a selection of squid, popcorn chicken, sweet potato fries, salt cod cakes and chili fries. Nice enough bar but if you find yourself around Oxford Circus looking for a snack just go for the chili fries alone, covered in a beer cheddar cheese sauce and strips of mediumly spiced chili, so creamy and delicious, an amazing dish.  A warm and tipsy journey back to Bristol full of the memories of a great day in London seeing family and hanging with dear friends, it was well needed. If you missed the Cornershop Lucy is planning on taking it to Brighton in October so definitely check it out. Have a great week Bristol I will be back at the end of next week with tales of custard tarts and the sun.

Wedding and Mini-moon Eats

So this post has been a long time coming. But last month Rich and I waltzed down the aisle surrounded by friends and family, it was a beautiful day then sun really was working for us.  We headed to my home city of Bath and then on to London for a mini-moon, so from our wedding day we basically ate solidly for 5 days. This post will mainly be photos of highlights of our eats, all of which were excellent I don't think we ate anything I didn't love, which is quite an achievement. London has far too many distracting food delights and I am glad I don't live there it would be too dangerous. We were staying around South Kensington and we didn't stray much from that apart from a trip to Soho, the Viking exhibit at the British Museum and Westminster. So without further ado here is a little photoblog of some of what we ate and a few from the day itself.

breakfast at the salon (which was G Hair Artist Thanks Sam!)

vanilla panna cotta, spiced cherries and spiced shortbread

cutting the cake/macaron tower (thanks Absolutely Cakes)

Dress perfection thanks to Vintage inspired designer Alexandra King (genius)

First breakfast of married life, Coombe Lodge treating us well

super marbling rib eye from Hudson's Steakhouse

refreshing mango, berries and granola thanks to Villa Magdala

breakfast bacon and waffles

Villa Magdala do the best hotel breakfast I've ever had

addictive cheese and wine from The Sampler, you must go for the wine vending machines

Keiko Sushi, no frills, amazing value and tasty

this temaki was huge

potato hash with chorizo sausages and feta from The Breakfast Club in Soho

American style breakfast from The Breakfast Club

beautiful cocktail menu at The Ampersand hotel

Ampersand Cocktails

Caxton Grill for dinner by Masterchef The Professionals finalist Adam Handling

warm freshly made bread with heavenly chicken butter

lamb with aubergine puree at Caxton Grill

palate cleanser of apple and cucumber with gin and ginger gels (at Caxton Grill)

a work of art in the form of a chocolate fondant with hazelnut praline (at Caxton Grill)

I will take a moment from the photos to urge you strongly to have dinner or lunch at the Caxton Grill, Adam has designed a beautiful menu and the food was some of the best I have ever eaten. The restaurant itself had a really relaxed and calm vibe but the service was extremely attentive, plus we had a wonderful bottle of Carmenere which really topped off the evening. Go, if only for the chicken butter alone, it was like spreading the lightest chicken mousse on bread, basically angels dancing on your tongue level of good. You know when people tell you not to fill up on bread, I say in this case, go for broke. 

brunch ciabatta of scrambled egg and crispy pancetta thanks to Fernandez and Wells

chorizo and manchego grill with home made piccalilli (great charcuterie)

Banana pancake stack from The Diner

Corn dawgs

Hawaiian classic Loco Moco

Crispy wings

our last drink of the mini-moon

Thanks to all these wonderful places and our families who made our day and our week so wonderful, you are all lovely and we really appreciate it.