Hawksmoor - A place to find happy dead cows

The day before one goes on a beach holiday most people attempt to detox a little bit - lose the fat that has built up over the winter, the fat that noone except the person who really loves you needs to see and the fat that a beach full of sunbathers certainly don’t want to see.  Stop drinking for a couple of days, so you show up to the beach in question, nice and glow-ey, without looking like a government advert for what happens to people who don’t exercise three times a week or consume their five fruit and veg. Not The Boyfriend and I, no, we decided to hit Hawksmoor, a restaurant with a menu packed with all the things that make you look ugly. Given The Boyfriend and I’s incredible lack of willpower this was a mistake. The holiday snaps from the five following days in Croatia are not quite as pretty as they should have been but the two hours were completely worth it.

Polpetto

Faced with the familiar situation of yet another Saturday night with no reservation The Boyfriend and I ended up at Polpetto. Barrafina, would be the normal choice in this situation, but we felt like going outside the box.

Corner Room

I really didn't want to like the Corner Room. Why? Because the Corner Room is really far away from Covent Garden, and I mean River Cafe far away. A £20 and 30 minute long cab ride each way and this place becomes expensive and time consuming. To be perfectly honest, had The Boyfriend and I not been heading to the East End anyway we probably never would have gone. This would have been a mistake because the Pork with Portugese Bread and Butter Pudding was so worth the journey. 

Bocca di Lupo

I've really tried hard to fall in love with Bocca di Lupo the way the rest of London has. Seriously, I have gone and attempted to be wowed every time and yet it has never happened. Every time I'm left with the feeling that perhaps, I'm just ordering wrong but after three attempts I have officially given up. It is the kind of restaurant I know I should like - Italian food from a variety of different regions, flexible ordering, an elegant dining room and prime location in Soho. This is technically the kind of restaurant that could suit every occasion, if only the food lived up to everything else. 

Nordic Bakery

Soho, cinnamon buns, coffee, cakes and a whole host of other wonderful things.

Vinoteca

I had high hopes for Vinoteca. Its near to my new place of work and I had hoped this would be my "Dear God, I need a drink and some fattening food" place.  Sadly, I don't think this is it. It wasn't that it was bad, it wasn't by any stretch of the imagination, it was just very familiar.

Princi - The Happiest Place on Earth

There is one over riding factor that puts me off visiting a restaurant - a lack of information. Apparently, this is cool at the moment  and seems to be a common  theme with new restaurants, I blame Nuno Mendes and Russel Norman. As a control freak, I hate this. A normal trip to a restaurant is incrediby well researched - I tend to know everything about the place before I show up - I know what I am going to eat, what the place looks like, and roughly how much the experience will cost me.

Cox, Cookies & Cakes vs. Hummingbird - A Tale of Two Cupcakes

The corner of Brewer Street and Wardour Street in Soho is a great place to be standing, as both streets have a fabulous cupcake shop. The question is which street to take? One afternoon, The Boyfriend and I decided to taste test. One Vanilla Cupcake (Cox,Cookies and Cake) and one Toffee Apple Cupcake (Hummingbird). Sitting on a step on a random street in Soho we compiled the following list of merits: 

Meatballs - A Reason to Roll to Farringdon

Okay, so I'm either prophetic, a trendsetter, or just damn lucky. About 2 months ago, following my trip to Istanbul, I wrote a post/ song of praise/ love poem/ letter to God/ alcohol fuellled rant extolling the many virtues of the meatballs as a vehicle for serving meat that can be read here.