Monthly Archives: October 2013

Chorizo hash browns – The Breakfast Club

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Chorizo hash browns - The Breakfast Club
A BC original, chorizo, mushroom, home-style fried potatoes with peppers and fried eggs. £8.30
The Breakfast Club, London ENGLAND

OK, this was another little surprise and nothing like what I expected for a “hash brown”. It was good though. I think I was expecting for it to be more like an American-style hash with everything mixed together. I didn’t realize that the Spanish chorizo sausages would be separate along with the portobello mushrooms. I thought all the ingredients would be chopped up and cooked together. I will say that I enjoyed the sunny side up eggs; they were nicely cooked. Overall, the dish could have been seasoned better though.

Hahn/Cock statue
Hahn/Cock statue, 2013, Katherine Fritsch, Trafalgar Square.

Cheese and wine – Z Hotel Soho

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Cheese plate - Z Hotel Soho
Assorted cheese, olive, biscuit, raisin and hazelnut bread. Complimentary
Z Hotel Soho, London ENGLAND

The Z Hotel had a great complimentary cheese and wine break available in the early evening. They set it up in their cafe and actually had a pretty good selection of snacks and alcohol. We only made it down for one evening, but we had a great time. I was generally impressed by the professionalism and service from the Z Hotel staff overall. Although the rooms were super small, the central location of the hotel was perfect for this visit! 🙂

Red wine - Z Hotel Soho

Red wine. Complimentary

Palace Theatre
View of the Palace Theatre from my Z Hotel room, Cambridge Circus, West End.

Chocolate twist – Caffe Nero

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Chocolate twist - Caffe Nero
It started drizzling one afternoon so we decided to duck into Caffe Nero to relax and people watch. The coffee was pretty tasty and the chocolate twist was delicious. The pastry was flaky on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. The chocolate wasn’t overly sweet so that was also a good thing.
Caffe Nero, London ENGLAND

Caffe latte - Caffe Nero
Caffe latte.

Americano - Caffe Nero
Americano.

Agatha Christie Statue

Agatha Christie Statue, Ben Twiston-Davies, Covent Garden.

Fresh fruit salad – Laduree

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Fresh fruit salad - Laduree
Pineapple, mango, orange, guava, passion fruit, kiwi, raspberry, strawberry, mint, grapefruit. £6.80
Laduree, London ENGLAND

This was a pretty fancy bowl of fruit! I was very impressed at how many different fruits they included. I was on vacation so that’s why I could justify spending that much on fruit salad, hehe! 🙂

Covent Garden Market
Covent Garden Market. You can spend plenty of time looking through the shops and searching for food at this popular tourist destination.

Eggs benedict – Cote

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Eggs benedict - Cote
Ham and poached egg on a toasted muffin with homemade hollandaise sauce. £7.50
Cote, London ENGLAND

This tasted ok, but it was kinda cold. Cold hollandaise sauce is not appetizing to me especially when it starts congealing, ew! Actually, everything we ordered at Cote was just ok and nothing special. You win some, you lose some I guess…

Bloody mary - Cote
Bloody mary: Absolut vodka (50ml) with spicy tomato juice and celery. £3.95
Ugh, this tasted gross! It was pretty much just watered down, bland tomato juice. There was absolutely no spice (or alcohol) in there! 😦

Condiments - Cote
Condiments. Brown sauce is completely lost on me, lol!

Rugby (BT Broadband) ad
Rugby (BT Broadband) ad, King’s Cross St. Pancras station. And don’t forget to “MIND THE GAP”! 🙂

Avocado and poached egg – The Breakfast Club

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Avocado and poached egg - The Breakfast Club
With fresh chillies and lime on toasted multigrain bloomer, and chorizo. £9
The Breakfast Club, London ENGLAND

Omg, this is not what we expected! Is this a normal English breakfast dish? We were surprised to be served a couple pieces of toast covered with a huge pile of guacamole topped with a poached egg, lol! We almost burst out laughing when it came to the table because it was so unexpected. It tasted ok enough. The avocado could have been seasoned a bit more though. The chorizo was optional and I’m glad we added it because it made the plate more substantial.

Juices - The Breakfast Club

Slow Boy juice: apple, carrot, orange, ginger. £4.10
Orange juice. £3
Mmm, the Slow Boy juice was very tasty as was the orange juice. They juice everything to order so it was nice and fresh!

Chinatown gate
Chinatown gate. I was surprised that compare to San Francisco, London’s Chinatown was super small! Huh.

English countryside wedding in Suffolk!

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Suffolk wedding food

The “Skelly” wedding was absolutely beautiful! My “adopted” English family is full of ridiculously kind, funny, and wonderful people and I was thrilled to be able to join in their celebration. They held the ceremony and dinner in the couple’s backyard. They had purchased the property a few years prior and had built the luscious garden from scratch. They’d also undertaken the enormous task of restoring their house to its original detailing which included wattle and daub construction. And all this by themselves!

The ceremony was probably the best I’ve ever witnessed. It was small and intimate (I’m used to large, formal Catholic weddings in huges churches with hundreds of people). The wedding was beautifully officiated and everything just seemed SO genuine and heartfelt. I think I cried 5 different times, lol!

Suffolk wedding food
The wedding food was delicious! The majority of the dishes were actually prepared by family and friends. The wedding couple had tasked some individuals to bring certain dishes. Wow, I would not have guessed that the food was homemade! Everything tasted amazing and were beautifully presented. They also had little labels with the dish and the cook’s names in front of each serving plate. It was super cute!

Skelly wedding
So I learned something new. Apparently, the English call large tents marquees. It took me a couple seconds to figure out what they were talking about, lol!

Wedding bar
They converted one of the shed to a little bar. Cute!

Wedding bar
Inside the shed bar.

Wedding kid zone
They also created a play ares for the kids.

Suffolk wedding
Family and friends gather before the ceremony commences.

Lamb meatballs with gravy

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Lamb meatballs with gravy
Served with hummus and white rice.
Sitges ES

Mmm, I love lamb meatballs. And these were covered in a yummy gravy, score! The meatballs were tender and super flavorful, and the gravy tasted great with the rice and even the hummus.

Church of Sant Bartomeu and Santa Tecla

Church of Sant Bartomeu and Santa Tecla. This is the most prominent building along the Sitges waterfront and I think it’s quite beautiful!

Afternoon drinks at Covent Garden – Laduree

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Afternoon drinks at Covent Garden - Laduree

Laduree rose champagne. £12.30
Chablis domaine de Varous 2011, France. £8.50
Laduree, London ENGLAND

I think it’s funny that we didn’t go to Laduree in Paris. The ones in Paris just seemed so touristy and a bit of a turn off. Instead we randomly walked into one in London during a warm afternoon stroll through Covent Garden. The restaurant looked inviting and relaxing with it’s crisp white table cloths and cushy upholstered chairs. So we sat outside to enjoy the sunny weather.

Our visit was peasant enough. The service was friendly but a little erratic and slow at times. The menu did say that the champagne was “Served with salty petits fours”, but we never received any. Lame! So was Laduree worth all the hype? I’d say no.

Laduree menus

Laduree menus.

Paella vendor
Paella vendor at Covent Garden market.

Full English breakfast – Cote

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Full English breakfast - Cote
Two free range eggs, bacon, pork sausage, tomato, mushrooms and toast. £7.50
Cote, London ENGLAND

This was our first breakfast in London this time around and I was not impressed. My eggs were overdone; I asked for over-medium. Is that an American thing and that’s why I can’t get it properly cooked anywhere else? If I knew, I would just order my eggs scrambled or poached. I also haven’t gotten used to English bacon and the weird squishy sausages they have here. I really don’t want to sound like I’m complaining because the food was decent, but after having eaten in Paris for the previous days this was a bit lackluster. 🙂

Wheat toast and butter - Cote
Wheat toast and butter.

Black Dog Campaign statue
Black Dog Campaign statue, Soho Square. Our hotel was in the West End so it was great to be near this quaint green space.

Breakfast plate – Dolce Sitges

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Breakfast plate - Dolce Sitges
Spanish tortilla, Iberico ham, sausage, scrambled eggs, hazelnuts, cheese, toast, orange juice, coffee.
Dolce Sitges, Sitges ES

The breakfast buffet at Dolce Sitges was pretty kick-ass! This was only one plate I ate, but they definitely had much more to offer. We were unapologetic about loading up on breakfast before heading out for a day of sightseeing, hehe. We paid for it, right? And I felt like we would burn off the calories anyway. One downside to eating SO much breakfast was that I missed out on some food opportunities while touring simply because was still full. #touristproblems 🙂

Iberico ham legs
Iberico ham legs. This was a first! I’d never seen carving stations like this before where you can order as much ham as you want and the attendant will carve it directly off the leg. Now that’s what I call “cut-to-order”!

Aspall cider – The Fat Cat

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Aspall cider - The Fat Cat

This was the first time I’d tried Aspall Cyder and it was delicious. It’s made in the same county where the bar was located so I thought it was cool to try a local product. And even better that the product was alcoholic, lol! The English can definitely drink but I was up for the challenge.
The Fat Cat, Ipswich ENGLAND

We came to Suffolk County for a wedding and stayed with family in Ipswich. I’d never been to Suffolk before so I was really excited. We took the train from London and it was great to see the beautiful English countryside. The Suffolk visit was blisteringly quick – we arrived on a Friday night, attended the wedding on Saturday, then went back to London on Sunday morning. It would have been nice to spend a little more time to explore the quaint surrounding areas. Maybe next time!

Suffolk wedding
The outdoor wedding was held at the couple’s beautiful countryside home. They set up everything in their garden (which they had built and planted from scratch only a few years prior). I was amazed at how lovely everything was and felt fortunate to have attended.