DIning in London

We had a couple of other good meals in London - it's become quite the dining destination.
We went to a Thai restaurant called Busaba Eathai one night - it's the Thai equivalent of Wagamama (if you're familiar with the Japanese chain). Communal tables, modern decor and a good, if not authentic, menu. I would not have given this a try but my sister assured me it was good. We had a whole bunch of dishes including chicken satay, grilled beef, pad thai, gaang kiew waan kai, gaang karee kai, pad see eew, pomelo salad plus 3 kinds of rice (jasmine, coconut and sticky). No dessert though. All in all, given the genre, fast service and reasonable price, I'd give it a solid three stars.

Another night we tried Maze, a Gordon Ramsey eatery. Quite good but alas, a little slow on the service, especially in light of the multi-small course approach. My favorite detail was the utensil holder with slots for the fork, spoon and knife. A nice variant on the fancy chopstick and spoon holder you find in high-end Chinese restaurants.One of their signature dishes is the "assiette" of sandwiches - with a deconstructed BLT and a croque monsieur. The croque monsieur was a little strip of grilled cheese but the BLT was served in a cocktail glass with tomato gelee on the bottom, a white layer of cheesy sauce, and sprinkled with large bits of bacon and circlets of fried onions. Deconstructed indeed! It was interesting but not sure I need to ever have this again.

Londontown

We stopped in London on our way home from Spain. A few observations:

1. I really do love the ritual of afternoon tea, with scones served with Devonshire clotted cream.
2. People smile a lot more in Spain.
3. It's hard to remember that a pound costs more than a euro.
4. It's really nice to NOT be using an outdoor bathroom (see prior posts) and to sleep in a big soft bed with Frette sheets. With no mosquitoes in sight.
5. The Selfridges sale is a crazy place. What recession?! See the photos below - there was a line of 15 people waiting to get into their little Louis Vuitton boutique. Don't they know that LV never goes on sale?!
6. We had dinner at a beautiful old restaurant in the heart of Piccadilly Circus, called the Criterion. Modern British cuisine. The ceilings alone were worth the price of admission. Which was pretty high.
7. Soft serve ice cream tastes better with a Cadbury's Flake stuck in it.

My dinner with Gordon Ramsey

OK - hope you didn't get too excited by the title! My friend is a big Gordon Ramsey fan and we decided to have dinner at his restaurant during our trip. Suffice to say I was a little overwhelmed to find out that he had 10 restaurants in London and his namesake restaurant was very formal (jacket & tie for men and all that). So rather randomly, I picked Boxwood Cafe as our GR restaurant of choice for this trip.

Boxwood is located in the Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge - I realized that I had been there before in its previous incarnation as Vong's (I guess GR's star is rising while Jean-Georges' is declining?!) When we walked in, the nice gal up front made sure to inform us that they would need our table in 2 hours but we would be welcome to sit in the bar to finish up dessert and coffee if necessary. That was a first for me.

We picked the tasting menu (£55), so we could try all the highlights:

• Creamed sweetcorn, basil and lobster soup
• Ceviche of organic salmon and crab
• Roasted ramero pepper with avocado, feta cheese, slow roasted tomatoes and pumpkin seed oil
• Roasted loin of yellow fin tuna, parsnip puree, shallot and black pepper sauce
• Braised featherblade of Dedham Vale beef with pumpkin puree and ceps
• Valrhona hot chocolate fondue, marshmallows, biscotti and fruit kebabs

The soup was good, but not spectacular - I do have a fondness for corn soup though, and I enjoyed the little surprise of a lobster tail at the bottom of the cup. The ceviche was surprisingly tart with little segments of grapefruit scattered over the top - very good. The pepper was ok I guess - I don't like peppers or avocado, so could have skipped over this course quite happily (my husband would have loved it). The tuna was extremely good - the black pepper sauce was an unusual pairing and made the fish taste even meatier than usual. The braised beef (Dedham Vale seemed to be the UK equivalent of Niman Ranch) was fork-tender and came with very nice mushrooms (that's what ceps means) - but alas, I was so stuffed that I didn't fully enjoy it.

I asked for a dessert substitution since I couldn't quite stomach the chocolate fondue (I know that's hard to believe - you can tell I was really full!). So I had the coconut panna cotta with fresh mango coulis and a campari sorbet. That was just the light finish I needed. Of course, I still sampled my friend's chocolate fondue to make sure it was good. The best of both worlds!

The serving staff were professional and some of them seemed very intense and focused in their interactions with each other - was this a trickle down effect from their big boss?!

And no, GR was not in the house.

Rothko and the Tate Modern

After a night of fitful sleep, we woke up late Sunday morning and had a leisurely breakfast downstairs at The Montagu (how do the Brits get their morning mushrooms so yummy?!) Then we took the tube down to St. Paul's and walked across the Millennium Bridge (also nicknamed the Wobbly Bridge after some resonance issues when it first opened!) to the Tate Modern. It was once again a gorgeous day and the river walk along the Thames was wonderful. It seemed like all of London was having a little promenade.

The Tate Modern was opened in 2000 and this was my first time there - it's located in a former power station and is a lovely and airy industrial space. We joined the queue for the Rothko exhibit which was very impressive. I'm not a particular fan of Rothko, but many elements of the exhibit certainly made me appreciate his work a lot more - there was some nice ultraviolet analysis that showed all the layers and complexity that went into the final work, which looked deceptively simple.

We had a late lunch upstairs on the 7th floor, in a light-filled restaurant overlooking the Thames and St.Paul's and people-watched all the various nationalities around us.

After visiting Waterstone's (the biggest bookshop in the UK) at Piccadilly Circus and finding lots of interesting travel books on Spain (our 2009 trip), we finally headed back to the hotel. I think my bag may be too heavy to carry-on on the return flight :(

London Calling

I arrived in London yesterday afternoon for a very quick 2 day stay before heading to Dublin, accompanying a girlfriend on her business trip. It's been about a year since I was last here and we've lucked into some fabulous weekend weather. Of course, I packed for a typical cold London fall so now I'm overheating in the warm temperatures!

We checked in to my regular London hotel, the Hyatt Regency Churchill, which is well-located near Marble Arch for walking around, shopping and lots of public transport options. So after a short stop to freshen up, we walked down the extremely crowded Oxford Street - what recession?! There was still plenty of conspicuous consumption to behold and a line to be served at Chanel and Louis Vuitton in Selfridges!

We headed to Liberty to have tea in their Tea Room again - I had been obsessing over the Burleigh Black Willow tea set that I refrained from buying last year. After multiple eBay searches, I figured out it was very hard to get in the US, so I came back and purchased a tea pot and one tea cup this time. Yes I forgot to take my own photos! Anyway, the tea service was quite nice - 4 finger sandwiches (cucumber, smoked salmon, ham and egg salad) on the bottom tier, 2 plain scones (served with the requisite clotted cream and strawberry jam) on the middle tier, plus a chocolate cupcake, carrot cake and fruit bread on the top tier. Alas, the cupcake was far inferior to Kara's and Sprinkles :( They also have an impressive tea selection - multiple pages on the menu. Of course, I stuck to the ever boring Earl Grey.

After stopping at many other shops (Jigsaw, Monsoon, Accessorize, Next to name a few of the familiar high street names) we called it a day and had a late dinner here in the hotel restaurant, The Montagu.

Things I Learned in London

I was in London for a brief 3 day trip last week. The weather was actually quite cooperative and I even saw the sun emerge for a few minutes one afternoon. I stayed at my favorite hotel, the Churchill in Portman Square - it used to be an Intercontinental and is now a Hyatt Regency. They just redid their rooms last year (while we were there on holiday, as a matter of fact). Anyway, the location is the big plus for me - plus the Montagu, their lobby restaurant is really nice. I can get to M&S and Selfridges within minutes as they're just 2 blocks away.

I managed to dine at my favorite restaurant, Nobu and also tried out MintLeaf, a nouveau Indian restaurant on Haymarket. And had afternoon tea one day at Liberty's little tea shop, imaginatively called "Tea". They served their tea in beautiful Burleigh Black Willow teapots with scones (choice of fruit or plain) with organic strawberry preserves and Devonshire clotted cream. I was in heaven! I eyed their large meringues but managed to restrain myself.

All the Christmas decorations were up along Oxford St and Regent St, and major shopping was taking place all around me - they were shutting the street to make it a pedestrian-only shopping zone on Dec 1.

My big learnings from this trip are that:
1) United won't officially allow you to check Christmas crackers in checked baggage. BUT if you just go ahead and check them, they don't seem to notice.
2) The one carry-on bag rule is strictly enforced at Heathrow - witness the scores of passengers trying to repack their things by the security queue.
3) There is a separate shoe scanner that you go through after the main security line which is thoroughly confusing for many.
4) Things cost WAAAY more in London, especially with the horrible dollar exchange rate.

Cheers!