Category Archives: London

London: Heston’s Dinner, Sambourne House, Bronze, and other adventures

By Alice | Published: November 22, 2012

This is a ‘what we did at the weekend’ post :) We borrowed my aunt’s London flat, it is in a nice area between Sloane Square and the river. This picture is from nearby on our way to get coffee.

Speaking of which Daylesford Organic is the nearest nice coffee place, we did some good people watching of Made in Chelsea types :D

One of the big things we did that weekend was to go for lunch to Dinner, the Heston Blumenthal restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental. It is no Fat Duck in magic (or prices) but we were really happy we went (my Fat Duck pictures are here).

Meat fruit!! This is an absolute must-have if you go there, that little orange is actually chicken pâté with an outer coat of orange jelly. It is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

All-black-all-the-time. You’ve got to check out the toilets in fancy hotels, it is a rule.

Nice lunch followed by a walk in Hyde Park, living the good life!

We went to check out the Bronze exhibition at the Royal Academy, interesting stuff, they have grouped the sculptures by subject type not chronologically.

The next day we shopped at the Pimlico Farmers’ Market, much more choice than our usual local one.

The view from Chelsea bridge. Autumn weather.

We split these tarts from the farmers’ market. Really good.

We also visited 18 Stafford Terrace, the Linley Sambourne house. I’d read this non-fiction book A Victorian Household: Based on the Diaries of Marion Sambourne so it was pretty cool to actually see the house she lived in. They’ve preserved it as it was in the Victorian times, so dark and crowded with knick-knacks and paintings. You have to book onto a tour in advance, we were shown around by an actor in the part of Marion Sambourne. Like with the Bronzes exhibition no photography was allowed so I can’t show you how it was inside.

After this we then went to visit a friend over in East London who took us on a long adventure all round East London, including a stop to eat copious Turkish foods, we ended the night at a great secret-ish bar in a basement in Soho.

London, you’re pretty good fun sometimes.

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Tonkotsu Ramen, Photographers Gallery, Paralympic Athletics

By Alice | Published: September 16, 2012

A couple of weekends ago we headed into London to go to the Paralympics and arrived early so we could do a few other things in London first. I keep my ears open for new Japanese restaurants that are getting decent reviews, Tonkotsu was one such place. It is in Soho right around the corner from Koya the good udon place we visited earlier in the year. We both got the house ramen and shared a portion of gyoza, we thought both were good and would visit again.

I hadn’t been to the Photographers Gallery since before its renovation and we went to check it out as I had been tipped off by a friend about an exhibition/reading room of contemporary Japanese photobooks which had some really interesting stuff. My favourite was Miyoko Ihara – Misao the Big Mama and Fukumara the Cat a book of pictures of a Grandmother and her cat in the Japanese countryside.

Then on to the Olympic Park, the wildflower planting was so beautiful! The transport, staff, and general layout seemed so good. We were both really impressed. Then we went into the stadium to our seats…

The little figure in a dark skirt is Kate Middleton handing out medals.

This is just before the start of the controversial 200m when Pistorius came second. We were just in the inexpensive £20 seats but we could see all the events really well.

The whole experience was really great, it was so exciting to see the sports in person, and the whole thing was really well run. We didn’t get back to Oxford until the early hours but it was well worth it. I don’t think I will get into doing sports photography though! ;D

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London

By Alice | Published: February 27, 2012

I am getting far behind with posting pictures, these are from a little holiday in London a few weeks ago when the Chinese New Year celebrations were on. It might seem like we are always having fancy meals but I swear there are a lot of plain normal ones in between! :)

We were staying in Farringdon so I researched for good coffee places nearby. The Department of Coffee and Social Affairs, really good coffee and the toasted banana bread was equally as good.

This is the brand of bottled green tea that I like and drink most in Japan, it is nothing fancy, just the standard stuff but it is really hard to find places that stock it here however the Japan Centre has it. It is a crazy price compared to Japan but it is nice to be able to have as a treat.

Koya for udon.

We took a look at the Chinese New Year goings-on while we were waiting for a film to be on at the Curzon Soho, we went to see The Descendants which we both enjoyed and had us looking up flight costs for Hawaii.

National Portrait Gallery

Near Buckingham Palace.

St. John. This meal and the place where we were staying was the gift from Simon for my birthday (which was back in December like his). I’d wanted to go here for ages and it was a fun place to eat. Pictured is our dessert.

Then to cap it all off, the next day I took Simon to the Nordic Bakery as the sushi place we’d wanted to go to was closed on a Sunday. We also did lots of not pictured non-meal things (like visit the new Moomin shop) and we walked for miles and miles.

See you soon, London.

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Wintery visit to Kew Gardens

By Alice | Published: January 5, 2012

Between Christmas and New Year we visited Kew Gardens, I had been quite ill after Christmas with a horrible tummy bug so this was my first trip out feeling quite pale and delicate. We often seem to go to visit gardens in the winter, they certainly are quieter! :) My dad had strongly recommended we find the Marianne North gallery which is hidden away at the edge of the gardens, it is really interesting, I now strongly recommend it too. Afterwards we paid a very quick visit to the Petersham Nurseries tea house but they’d run out of lunch items so instead we went to Wallace and Co for a quick lunch.

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Birthday!

By Alice | Published: December 20, 2011

It was my birthday on Sunday and I celebrated with days and days of events spread over two weekends. I really love having my birthday and it’s exactly a week before Christmas so feels very festive and people are in a happy jolly mood.

Birthday number one was with my family, we met at an Italian place for lunch and then went to One Man, Two Guvnors and after we had dinner at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand which is a fun place to eat as it’s very traditional British food and they come and carve at your table.

Birthday number two was going with some friends for pizza and drinking. This was also jointly Simon’s birthday as our birthdays are close. We ate the pizza at La Cucina which was excellent and coped really well with having lots of people.

Then on my actual birthday we had a whole plan of going off to London but the weather was a bit crazy so instead we went for a delicious lunch around the corner at the Magdalen Arms (like last year), and went for a walk. The weather was indeed pretty crazy!