Monthly Archives: August 2011

Châteauroux

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One of the best ways to indulge in a totally relaxing weekend is to hop over to a friend’s house in another country and spend the whole weekend eating, sleeping, playing cards late into the night (or learning anyway!), relaxing in the garden, and acting like a kid again. The latter was achieved thanks to Nate and Caro’s very active son Gaspar, who is reaching that age where he wants to be part of everything and play everything, and their not-quite-crawling-yet-but-trying-hard-to baby Cesar. It is honestly astonishing how smart Gaspar is just a few months past his 2nd birthday he already knows how to switch on the TV (though this skill is yet to extend to realising that he should only put one DVD into the player at once ..) and, even more astoundingly, he already knows how to search for his favourite videos on youtube on the iphone! On the flip-side it means that you have to be on your toes in terms of keeping his attention! Cesar is pretty easy to handle at this stage – basically hold him and he’s happy! He is actually a very endearing baby and at the moment is very low-fuss 😉

I have to publish these photos of Gaspar though. Cracked me up and shows he has that modeling instinct in him!

The reason I was in Chateauroux with Nate and Caro was that basically they were introducing Cesar to extended family and friends. It was quite a party and the cooking and preparation was quite extensive. Aurelie, Caro’s sister, is quite the baker and it seemed like Caro and Aurelie were cooking and preparing non-stop for a couple of days!

In the mean time I was lucky to just sit back and take it all in, especially the delicious food that included:

Gourmet pizzas. Leave it to the French to put foie gras on their pizzas available for delivery! Even better, for me, is that the particular pizza place we ordered from had a number of crème fraiche (as opposed to tomato sauce) based pizzas which are right up my alley.

Fresh rotisserie rack of ribs, paella and pate from the local market. The ribs were Nate’s choice and were incredibly good. Tasty, tender, juicy and just oozing from the drippings of the roast chicken. So good. The pate was massive – the terracotta tray?bowl? not sure what to call it – was easily the 40cm in length. Caro said that she didn’t even have to pay for it until she returned the container to the market!

Tarte flambée – so yum.

And this is a treat that shouldn’t be overlooked. An incredible pastry … not sure why I thought it also needed ice-cream. It was pretty delish on its own. Caro’s family were very lucky that at this stage I was over-stuffed from the ribs and paella!

The weather was incredibly nice in Chateauroux whilst I was there. So nice that Caro even set up my laptop so I could sit in her garden and work on this blog! Heh heh. The good weather continued to the day of the lunch where more food and whole lot of alcohol was consumed.

There was literally a whole box of champagne that was consumed right at the end of the day. And, as happens when people have imbibed, the natural next step is to try and fit a latex glove over one’s head! LOL.

There was sooo much food that surprisingly one of the crumbles wasn’t even touched at the end of the day. I soon took care of that problem … and I’m not ashamed to admit that on my last day in Chateauroux I had some of the rest of the crumble with salted caramel ice cream for breakfast! A perfect end to my visit!

Best Birthday Present ?

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Laney gave me what is arguably one of the bestest birthday presents ever … a 4×4 Rubik’s cube.

Heh heh. Then she sent me home with a stash of her cousin’s home made truffles. Gorgeous amazing truffles.

Thanks Laney!

New Mayflower

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Patrick’s friend had raved about this restaurant and as we are always looking for good Chinese restaurants were very happy to go along and try it. Admittedly I wasn’t feeling the hungriest having just come from afternoon tea but this was probably a good thing from my perspective as it meant I wasn’t too greedy when selecting from the menu.

New Mayflower serve some unusual dishes including a Honey Pepper Eel which came recommended by both Pat’s friend and many others on review websites. People have said its amazing … to me it was just alright. I think I’m used to the juiciness and moistness you get from Grilled Japanese eel (unagi) that wasn’t apparently in New Mayflower’s deep fried version.

Our other dish was a stuffed aubergine / tofu dish. Not particularly impressive in either texture (super deep-fried) and flavour (just salty without much else.) Similarly with their Fookien fried rice.

From a service perspective food came quickly and we were served quickly but when it came to finding someone to pay the bill staff were surprisingly awol. Unusual for a Chinese restaurant whose modus operandi is feed em/get em out the door.

I just don’t get why we didn’t enjoy our food. We didn’t choose particularly “tourist” dishes but must have still chosen wrong. So many people have said this place is Amazing, Best Chinese, Great – I wanna be able to say that too. Sadly on tonight’s experience I can’t.

Altitude 360

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For an event/attraction with such a big name Altitude 360 was a bit of a let-down. It would have been a total waste of time had it not been for the stunning views that it’s location has access to. Altitude 360 is located on the 29th Floor of Millbank Tower one of the few high rises and arguably the tallest building sitting alongside the Thames. Millbank Tower is also where my head office used to be!

Altitude 360 offers both afternoon tea (£87.50 for two!) and brunch (£109 + premiums for sitting at the window!) The savvy will look online for vouchers or deals which offer significant discounts (£35 and £39 respectively) which is what I did before visiting. Thank goodness.

Caro and I were early by ten minutes for our 2.30 appointment … but they still made us wait until 2.45 to send us up to the 29th floor. Once we got upstairs there was no hostess to take us to our seat. The second sign that this wasn’t going to be an amazing experience. She did turn up a few minutes later but only after we’d started to wander into the main room. We were then taken to our seating – and I couldn’t believe that the place was practically half empty. It wasn’t a very warm or welcoming environment with white tiling everywhere. I guess its because the room is used for many sorts of functions.

Afternoon tea included unlimited tea and coffee (from a limited selection) but food-wise it was not unlimited. We did get a selection of six different sandwiches, all of which were actually pretty tasty and moist (from the looks of them we had been worried they would be dry.). Cakes were pretty average but the scones were nice though in a criminal move they gave us about a tablespoon full of clotted cream and jam and a dribble of lemon curd! Odd. Scones did come out warm … though of course by the time we got to them they were cold.

Oh and disappointingly tea came as teabags rather than as tea leaves. Hmm. But Caro said the coffee was good.

From a service perspective our waitress was friendly enough, and though it was probably not entirely her fault it took ages for her to bring out our top ups of tea and clotted cream. She was however apologetic about it. On that note, despite the fact the place was half empty, the whole venue was seemingly under-staffed and we couldn’t find out waitress half the time. When we arrived many tables hadn’t even been cleared!

For the afternoon tea alone I can’t imagine anyone would have paid full price for the experience. Nearly £44 for what we had today? Outrageous. The views, however, were stunning. It was indeed a (nearly) 360 degree view around London. We were lucky to be located on the Westminster side of things were most of the cooler buildings and views were. What else can I say except to post a lot of photos of the views:

Altitude 360 is not a typical afternoon tea venue. It is a pretty relaxed atmosphere and therefore it felt a bit much to get too dressed up. Most people had to keep leaving their seats to see the views so this kind of added to the feeling of informality.

Overall I am glad that I was able to take advantage of an offer to get to Altitude 360. Definitely advise you look for some sort of deal as it is otherwise seriously over-priced. There have been a lot of complaints by people on various websites that even the discounted price is a rip-off but it could be argued that at £17.50 per person (the discounted price) is comparable with getting a ticket on the London Eye but with much more sweeping views and also an afternoon tea included. So I guess fair value … but only because of the views.

Six Senses Spa

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For my birthday this year Sandra was treating me to a spa experience at the Six Senses Spa over at Canary Wharf. Being a Saturday the area was, thankfully, devoid of suits. Its always a bit eerie to visit Canary Wharf when there are no city-folk about but I like it sooo much more …

The Six Senses Spa isn’t particularly large (so I do wonder how it copes when it gets much busier.) The offer that Sandra had got for us was an Aromatherapy Associates Essential Facial (25 minutes), use of the Thermal Suite and ginger tea with dried fruits in the Tranquility Lounge.

Upon arrival the receptionist was friendly enough but clearly didn’t really care that much to invest in us. She showed us the changing rooms but didn’t bother showing us around the facilities. I felt she was kind of fake, even if she was on the surface being quite friendly. The changing room themselves wasn’t very big with two showers, I think about 15 lockers and a few hair dryers. At least they had a swimsuit drying machine, oh and robes, towels, shampoo, conditioner and body wash are supplied.

First for us was the use of the Thermal Suite. The facilities were pretty stock standard (with a steam room, sauna, and traditional dry sauna (that didn’t really get cranking until after about an hour after the facilities opened.)) The sensory shower was good. However the best part of the Suite was the Hydrotherapy pool which was quite large and had interesting jets. Got crowded though when more than six people were in the pool.

Next up were out facials. My therapist was very friendly and accommodating. In fact most of the people in the spa, bar the receptionist, were very friendly, even going so far as to put the blanket over you once you’d finished your session and were relaxing back in the Tranquility Lounge. The Lounge had space for about 8 people, so not sure what they do with the extra people once they got out of their treatments.

Overall a pleasant enough experience and good for a two hour visit.

Elegance Beauty Clinic

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I think Twiggy was sitting next to me as I was having my mani/pedi today … don’t get the wrong idea – its not every day that I go to get my nails done, I totally blame groupon!

On a side note, after my visit today I’m not sure I’d come back to Elegance Beauty Clinic (EBC) even though supposedly many famous people, even more current than the aforementioned Twiggy, come to the EBC. Firstly, I was kept waiting nearly half an hour even though blatantly there were a number of girls who could have helped me out. Then when finally I was sat down to start my treatment the girls didn’t even know what they were supposed to give me and so didn’t realise they could have done my mani/pedi at the same time (so in the end my mani was rushed), and the girl who did my treatment, as lovely as she was, didn’t do the best job in the world. She kept cutting into my toe/finger and I swear I was nearly bleeding at one point. Most painful mani/pedi ever.

Namco Night

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Given time and money, Namco is a place I could happily spend hours playing around in. Tonight Craig, James and I certainly gave it a good old college try. There is bowling (albeit of the dodgy-sort where the pins are held up by pins. In fact we hit many strikes but the computer kept registering only 9s!), and bumper cars and of course a ton of arcade games.

For all our effort this was the extent of our prizes!

Planet of the Apes

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I went along to see this movie mainly for a laugh – I mean seriously, apes taking over the earth? The trailers looked so hilarious. Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a reboot of the series Planet of the Apes – James Franco is a scientist working at a big pharmaceutical company on a finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and of course chimps are used as the test subject. The drug mutates in the chimps giving them human level intelligence but because of one chimps gone bad all of the chimps are put down, except one of the babies. James Franco injects the “cure” into his father hoping to cure his Alzheimer’s and though it works for a while its effects soon taper off and James is forced to create something even more powerful. More chimps have been brought in in the mean time and the drug hits their system causing a city-wide outbreak. In the end the chimps only want to get across the Golden Gate Bridge to reach the forest but humans, as usual, not understanding the situation try to kill them en masse.

The movie wasn’t as horribly terrible as I thought it was going to be and in fact it contained some very touching moments which could have come across as corny. Great visual effects and some fairly significant content actually gave this movie more weight than I was expecting. Quite enjoyable.

I’m Official

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After some years here in the UK I’m finally officially a citizen. Its so amazing that they emphasise that you must be able to pass an English-speaking test in order to become a citizen yet one of the people in the ceremony today couldn’t understand a word of what was being said. All that she really had to do at the requisite time was state her name … and even with her 7 year old’s instruction (her daughter could actually speak perfect English) in their own language she still didn’t get it. Oh dear.

The ceremony was a bit nerve-wracking with the thought that I might trip as I was walking to get my certificate but thankfully I managed to avoid such a catastrophe. Thanks to Sandra and Julian for accompanying me to my ceremony!

Spuntino

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Spuntino is part of a class of the new generation restaurant hitting London lately – a grungy casual diner which doesn’t wait on ceremony (no reservations, no telephone and honestly not even a proper website!) Its not particularly sign-posted either so we actually walked past it twice without realising!

With their twist on Nothern American cuisine served in tapas-style portions you could easily convince yourself to eat more than you really should!

Offerings include Spuntini (antipasti) such as spiced nuts, egg & soldiers and stuffed fried olives; Sliders: Pulled pork & pickled apple, ground beef and marrow; Plates: Mac & Cheese, Truffled egg toast, Zucchini, chilli & mint pizzetta, Spicy sausage grits; and Salads.

I wanted to try everything on the menu (of course) but Pat was my control. As a matter of course you’re served some chilli popcorn (though if I’m honest you should try and resist these as you’ll soon become stuffed!) We had Stuffed Fried Olives (which were way too anchovy. Pat’s choice anyway so I left him to finish.)

This was followed by Mac & cheese (Crumbs were great), Truffled egg Toast (toast itself was tough – not sure if it was over cooked but otherwise a delicious, extremely rich dish), Zucchini Pizzeta (mint nice touch but surprised to find it was way too salty for my liking) and then one of the Sliders: Ground Beef & Bone Marrow (extremely Juicy)

If all that wasn’t enough I had to try their Peanut Butter & Jelly “sandwich”. Two triangles of iced peanut-butter parfait with a lot of very sweet jelly. If my arteries hadn’t hardened during the main meal it certainly was well on its way after dessert!

My only bone on contention with Spuntino that rubs me wrong is that it seems to try too hard to be cool. But with food that enticing and good I’m sure I can overlook that to return again.

Our bill came to £45.