BFF'S REUNITED: CANADA DAY 1+2

Good morning London!
I WAS planning to be a bit more organized and update my posts whilst I was still in Canada...but I was just having too much fun. It has after all been years since I last met up with my BFF Harpreet, and I have finally fulfilled my promise of visiting her in Canada!

Anyway, turning back the clock to 18th May 2013!

I flew with Air Canada and arrived a bit earlier than scheduled - possibly a way of making up for the disgusting food that they served onboard the plane! The food served on Air Canada is the perfect example of BAD airplane food...

Had my first proper meal in Canada at Milestones (real food yay!)

First day was pretty chilled even though I was still pretty alive and active despite the time difference - so glad I don't suffer from jet lag, or at least not very often.

The next morning, we went for a walk near one of the falls.



For lunch, we went to celebrate Harpreet's belated 26th birthday at Spring Sushi - which has now become my official happy place! I LOVE Japanese buffets...
Each table had individual iPads for us to place our orders and everything came out freshly prepared from the kitchen - someone please bring Spring Sushi to London! 







And then we headed on to the bowling alley!

Post-bowling photos...





Later on at home, we had a fun time playing Telestrations - a new board game that Harpreet bought.
It's a sketch, pass and guess game - kind of like the telephone game, but more fun! Especially when you have people like Harpreet's dad playing it! 
You'd have to play it for yourself to find out how awesome it really is - just remember to include some players with 'special' drawing and guessing abilities ha x

As the next post is going to be quite picture-heavy, I'll be posting it separately - watch this space x

FOODIE POST: DUCKSOUP

Early finish at work today - love my Wednesdays!

Was initially planning to head to jazz dance class, but was seduced by the good weather and had a quick dinner meet up with Lili before I fly off this weekend!

Beating the after-work crowd, we headed to Ducksoup in Soho for dinner.

It was just past 6pm and there were only a few people sitting around the bar, so we settled ourselves down in a cosy little table.

 

 

As it was a weekday (and also the fact that I lacked sufficient beauty sleep from the night before), we decided to skip the alcohol this time round and ordered some fizzy shandy drinks. We're allowed to 'roll-over' alcohol units to the weekend right? Hehe.

 

We shared two starters - the 'asparagus, herbs, parmesan' and the 'courgette flowers, crab, mayo'.

I've never quite eaten raw asparagus before - they were thinly sliced and lightly seasoned, and overall a nice refreshing starter dish.

The courgette starter, which was another dish that was recommended by the waitress was really good - I could have eaten another portion, or maybe ten...

They were lightly battered and fried, and being a crab lover, each mouthful (which wasn't many considering the size of them!) was a little taste of heaven!

As we both love fish, we decided to be a bit 'unadventurous' this evening and ordered the same mains - Wild char with green sauce.

I wasn't really sure what char was before, but looks like huge sardines to me! There's probably some equivalent Chinese name for it that I haven't got a clue of considering my amazing(-ly bad) knowledge of the language.

It had quite a lot of tiny bones in it, which wasn't a problem for me, though poor Lili seemed to struggle a bit with hers!

 

For dessert, we shared a Nespole galette - a slice of a tart with peaches. Not quite one of the best desserts I've had - we found the pastry a bit dense and hard. We were rather cautious when cutting into it to avoid flinging pastry across the table.

On the whole, it was a satisfyingly good experience and a place that I would frequent again - maybe try some of the wine and cheese next time.
Service generally wasn't too bad, if not maybe a bit rushed towards the end when it started to get quite busy.
Would definitely recommend a visit x

TWO more days - Woohoo!

The Cheekster, signing off x

FOODIE POST: FOXTROT OSCAR

Having purchased a pair of Time Out vouchers, we went to have lunch at Gordon Ramsey's Foxtrot Oscar, a local neighbourhood bistro in Chelsea. 

It was much smaller inside than I expected, a pretty average looking interior design and lay-out.

The voucher included a complimentary glass of wine each and a 3-course meal from the set menu. 

 

 

We both ordered the asparagus soup as a starter. Nice creamy texture, but maybe a bit too salty for the both of us.

For my main, I ordered the mussels which was served with chips - supposedly triple-cooked chips, but weren't quite as crisp as I thought they would be...

The mussels were also quite small in size. The tomato and chorizo-based sauce was quite light and tasty.

Lili ordered the Dingley Dell pork which was served with some pea puree - the texture was a bit tough and the overall flavour a bit bland for me.

 

And to finish off, I had the sticky toffee pudding with banana ice cream whilst Lili had the panna cotta.  I'd probably say that the dessert was the best out of the 3 courses I had, but I was unfortunately too full to finish it! (shouldn't have had that coffee and carrot cake in the morning - greedy feli! hehe).

In terms of service, the waitress who served us was quite attentive and checked on us in between each course. Standard service as what I would usually expect at a restaurant. 

On the whole, the set menu was quite average and uninspiring in my opinion.

Can't really comment on the a la carte menu - maybe another time if I ever decide to try this place again. Though with the highly competitive choice of restaurants around London I would say that this would be highly unlikely...

Well, that's another one ticked off my Gordon Ramsey to-do list.

Miss foodie signing off x

MAY BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND

Bank holiday weekend has come and gone so soon again...

So here's what I've been upto over the weekend.

I spent the weekend over at Wendy and Martin's - they made an amazing roast dinner, which I unfortunately was not able to enjoy as I was still suffering from a dodgy tummy...

Oh well, at least I have some pictures to look at!

 

In the evening we went to watch Iron Man 3! 

Robert Downey Jr. was dreamy as always... 

Woke up the next morning to some scrumptious bacon rolls...

The initial plan was to head to Legoland, but as expected there was a ridiculously long queue of cars, so we decided to go with Plan B - Brighton!

 

 

We were starving by the time we arrived, so our first stop was Harry Ramsden's for some good 'ol greasy fish & chips!

 

 

And then on to get some ice cream! - one where it didn't require us waiting ages for the ice cream machine to work!

 

 

 

After a long day out, me and Lili headed back to London to get some rest before our next meet up the following day.

We planned to rent some Barclay's bikes around Regents Park, but there weren't any available where we were, so we just went for a relaxing stroll - less risk of me falling down clumsily in public!

 

After much walking and working up an appetite, we stopped to have some brunch at Cachao Toycafe at Primrose Hill.

 

Not the most amazing meal that we've had (and also pretty pricy for the small portions!), but at least it filled our hungry tummies.

Spent the rest of the day just enjoying the good weather, which looks like it's going downhill again tomorrow...oh well, that's English weather for you!

Time to get geared up for work - urgh.

The Cheekster signing off x