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Dinner

    Food

    The Orange

    October 16, 2015
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     It was a Thursday night so my friend Michelle and I decided to go scuba diving in white wine. We started at The Orange, a gastro pub and hotel on Pimlico road. I’d been there before this summer but didn’t eat. I did, however, almost get my phone stolen by dodgy guys who came into the pub and tried to sell us birthday cards. After failing to blag our way into the dining room, we sat in the pub area at a small round table with great food lighting and ordered our dinner. Upon initial perusal of their new menu, my initial reaction was that this food was a bit stuffy for a pub. The special was a burger, which in my opinion should be a staple.

    I ordered the calamari to start and was super relieved to see that it came with just the rings. I don’t like to associate calamari with what it actually is. To me, it’s essentially round French fries with protein. It was very very crispy, actually I’d say it was crunchy and the rings weren’t rubbery. Overall, pretty good.

    My friend had the pumpkin soup, which she said was delicious and looked fantastic.

    For our main, we moved to another table because we had some friends joining. By this time we were almost a bottle deep in the wine (which they didn’t open at the table… ew). I ordered the burger with sweet potato fries because they both had bacon on them. The burger was mediocre. It was cooked well, but a bit dry and the brioche bun fell apart easily.  The bacon was just barely cooked and too chewy for my taste.  On the upside, there was a nice spicy tomato relish on the burger.

    The sweet potato fries were excellent, but it took the waiter a really long time to bring the bacon aioli they came with. Unfortunately, this meant the sweet potato fries started to get soggy by the time it arrived.

    Our friends joined and ate most of my fries and wanted to order another.  It was 9:59 and apparently one kitchen had closed. She could, however, get an entire pizza.  That just didn’t make sense to me. She ordered the pizza anyway and they seemed to enjoy it.
    Verdict: Overall the orange was a good way to begin our night but I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat there again.
    What to wear: I was dressed as a chic and expensive 1960s prostitute. Everyone else was in jeans.
    What you’ll see: Good looking men with cute dogs who are ‘waiting for their girlfriends’.
    The Orange
    37-39 Pimlico Rd, London SW1W 8NE

     

    The Orange Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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    The Palomar Restaurant

    October 14, 2015
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    If I was facing the death penalty, I would choose the Challah bread at The Palomar for my last meal. Although, I’d probably be on death row for bludgeoning someone to death for jumping the queue at their Soho location.

    The first time I went it was a random invite from a friend and her boyfriend. The clever bunny books restaurants several months in advance for 4 people and then the week of, finds another couple to go with and my fiancé and I won the lottery this time!

    The four of us were squashed into a corner table normally reserved for two people and handed menus. I was super intimidated at first because I didn’t know most things on the menu.  Thankfully our friends had been there before, and to other restaurants by the same chef group in Jerusalem and assured me the food was incredible.  She wasn’t wrong.
    My contribution for ordering for the table was the Chicken two ways because it was breaded and fried, and as I said before, that’s pretty much how I judge all food.

    It was delicious! The Challah Bread is to literally die for.  You can’t go wrong with just about anything you order and take a chance on the chef specials.  We did and there were absolutely no regrets!

    Reservations are understandably difficult. However, if you go very early, you stand a good chance of getting a seat at the bar. I did that with my vegetarian friend while she was pregnant and the seats were confortable enough for her and she loved the food. It’s also fun to watch the kitchen work in front of you. They have a pretty good sense of humor.

    The Palomar
    34 Rupert Street
    London W1D 6DN

    The Palomar Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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    The Ivy Chelsea Garden

    October 12, 2015
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    The Ivy Chelsea Garden is a beautiful rose that popped up in a former plot of manure.  It’s so different from the bar/restaurant/blackout location that used to be there, I was skeptical. How could something so awesome exist where so many horrendous smells and bad decisions had come from?
    Apparently before you get married you need to take every opportunity to drink out of penis straws. 
    Anyway, The Ivy Chelsea Garden can be a hard reservation to get. Usually I’m pretty over places like that, but one evening I called randomly and they did have space for two at 8. I went with my hilarious friend Michelle the week before my wedding and she brought me these completely appropriate props to have dinner with. We sat out in the garden and it was a bit chilly so the staff brought us blankets along with our menus.
    To say the menu is comprehensive is an understatement. It was super hard to choose because they had everything from mushroom on toast to tuna carpaccio and that was just the starters. 

    I’ve been called The Cheese Monster by a French guy I know, so it’s no surprise I ordered the seasonal roasted cauliflower soup with crumbled Stilton.  It was magical and renewed my obsession with soup in general.

    For my main, I went with the Chicken Milanese because A) I like breaded anything, B) I love fried eggs, C) When I see the world truffle I am blind to anything else.  But believe it or not, this STILL didn’t narrow my choices because there are no fewer than 4 truffle items on the all day menu: Truffle Arancini, truffle and parmesan fries, chicken Milanese and truffled chicken brioche sandwich. This food literally ticked ALL OF THE BOXES IN THE WORLD.
    Please forgive the half eaten photo. We were scuba deep on two bottles of wine.
    Now, I was still on my wedding diet so that cancelled out the fried rice balls. However, I was having soup, so no need to go overboard on the health factor either which cancelled out the chicken sandwich (it came with salad on salad with no fries). In the interest of full disclosure, I ordered the other two truffle things: Chicken Milanese and the truffle parmesan fries.  I was two pounds over my goal weight for my wedding and this was worth it.  The Chicken Milanese was pretty good, although I felt they went a little heavy with whatever the white sauce all over the chicken was.  Truffle fries were, as always, delicious and the tomato salad was, as always, not as delicious as truffle fries.
    To counteract the fries we had the tomato side salad and to counteract that we had this piece of deliciousness!
    The chocolate bombe!
    People were very friendly, although the service lacked when it came to pouring our wine and bringing the bill, the two most important things in the world! The table next to us INSISTED we came and sat with them for a few minutes which we did mostly because it seemed like such a novel idea popular in the 70s along with swinging parties.
    Considering how much food we ate (and drank ALL the wines), the bill wasn’t too bad at £65/person.  If you can book in advance I would recommend it, but it’s worth a try to call for cancellations. It’s also become a bit easier to get in now that the summer and the hype has died down.

    I can’t wait for The Ivy Kensington Brasserie on High Street Kensington to open! All of the wine and stumbling distance to Bodo’s Scholss!

    The Ivy Chelsea Garden
    195-197 King’s Road, London, SW3 5ED
    The Ivy Chelsea Garden Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato
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    Bubbledogs

    March 20, 2013
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    My love of hot dogs is well documented, mainly here, and I have been looking forward to this post for a very long time.
    I tried to get a reservation at Bubbledogs for a group of us in November, but they didn’t have anything till February.  In February I called again and they didn’t have anything until the end of March, which so happened to coincide with my early birthday get together.  So I booked for 10 girls, two of which couldn’t make it last minute.
    We went down the street to the Charlotte Street hotel for drinks first which I always love.  The room is big enough so you don’t feel claustrophobic and has a great crowd.  house white wine was £8/glass though so beware.
    Then we moved to the main event!  We were shown to our table(s) near the back right away.  They asked if they could seat another two with us, which I awkwardly said no to because it was my birthday party and it would have been like having two complete strangers hanging out with us.
    Then came the exploration of the menu.  They (as advertised) have loads of champers and hot dogs to choose from which posed a very serious problem for me.  We wanted to order our champagne first, because it was taking ages for hot dog decisions, but the waiter was nowhere to be seen.  In fact, it took over half an hour for us to get our champagne.
    Le Menu

    So, by the time the waiter came around, I basically didn’t decide.  I ordered the Horny dog (corn dog) and the Breakie.

    All of my favorite things together!
    Turns out, getting everything you’ve ever wanted all at once isn’t as awesome as it sounds.  I love breakfast food and I love hot  dogs so in theory i should love a breakfast hot dog.  In truth, the idea of it is far better than the execution.  For all the dogs you have a choice of beef, pork or veggie and I decided on beef for all of mine because I felt a pork hot dog wrapped in more pork was a bit much.  But because there is so much going on in this one you couldn’t really taste anything individually.  Like putting all your favorite paint colors together and getting a brown sludge.  Not my favorite   Don’t get me wrong though, I still ate the whole thing.  
    Horny dog (that’s what she said)

    Horny dog was really really good.  Corn dogs are just a regular dog, covered in corn meal batter and deep fried.  even tastier than it sounds because the salty dog and sweet corn go great together.  I have mine with both mustard (it’s  American mustard!) and ketchup. If I had one criticism, it would be that it wasn’t quite crispy enough on the outside.  for corn dogs, there is about a 3 min window from out of the deep fryer that they need to be served in order to keep the crispyness.  We did not make that window.
    All dressed up
    My friends ordered a variety of things (veggie and pork as well).  Here are pictures of those things.  The girls all seemed very pleased with their meals.
    Jose (avocado, salsa, sour cream, jalapenos)
    New Yorker
    Mine again (getting acquainted with the champagne washing them down)

    You can also order tater tots which are these little hasbrown-y things I used to eat almost daily as a kid.  They are awesome.

    Tots

    So all in all, The service wasn’t amazing, but we did have a very good time.

    Hot Dog Massive

    I would recommend booking a group of 6 or more, otherwise you’ll be waiting in line for a few hours.  Their phones are only open for reservations 9:30am – 11am Tuesday to Saturday.  Not the most convenient  but you can also book through this email: info@bubbledogs.co.uk.  Not instant, but they do get back to you relatively soon.

    B-room
    One other cool thing was that the bathroom walls are papered with posh restaurant menus like Nobu, Hedon (DON’T order the pigeon there… it comes with FEET attached), Noma and the fancy NY restaurant Per Se.  I asked the waiter about it and apparently it’s places the head chef has liked or worked at.  In fact he once worked at Per Se.  Now he makes posh hot dogs. I would prefer the latter as well.
    Bubbledogs
     
    Where: 70 Charlotte Street, London W1T 4QG
    Phone: 0207 637 7770
    What to wear: See above photo.  It’s pretty low key, we were going out after.
    Cost:  Dogs are about £7, with champagne for all of us to have a dog (I had 2 dogs) and share tots and sweet potato fries was about £22 each.

    Bubbledogs Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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    The Big Easy

    March 6, 2013
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    The one thing I crave the most from home is BBQ.  In Canada, we had a barbeque if it wasn’t torrential rain or a blizzard.  For real, in the winter we just dig a path through the snow and put on a pair of boots to flip the meat.

    London has a few options, but on the most part, they are imitations of what English people think BBQ is.  But it’s not all bad.  I’ve been to the big easy several times.  The Big Easy has great waffles and good deals on lobster.  You’ll also never walk out hungry.
    On my last visit, it was a lazy hangover Sunday and I wanted boneless chicken wings, which are essentially chicken tenders tossed in hot sauce.  It’s not as weird as it sounds a fairly widely available in the US.  So, knowing I was being a massive pain in the ass and they weren’t on the (huge) menu, I ordered them anyway.  Bless him, the waiter tried to understand what I wanted and did try hard.  To be honest what he brought was close enough anyway, which was tenders, a massive bowl of hot sauce and the blue cheese dressing.  It was delicious (and only £6.95)!
    But I also ordered the mac and cheese (£3.45).  It wasn’t delicious because the thing is; it was more like mac and cheese soup.    The cheese was a bit too salty and there probably needed to be 50% less cheese and, if I’m really picky, I prefer my mac and cheese baked.
    My boyfriend ordered the lobster roll (£9.95).  Whatever you do, don’t do that.  What came was a non toasted brioche roll filled with everything except lobster and the piece of lobster was laid on top to prove there was some in there.  Far, far too much mayo was involved in the whole thing.

     

    The Big Easy ‘Lobster Roll’
    What a lobster roll is supposed to look like from Burger and Lobster (to be fair this one is twice as much as the one above).
    Even though service can be very slow, they have fairly decent margaritas, prices are reasonable (for Kings Road) and the atmosphere is good, so The Big Easy is a fun time.  But whatever you do, don’t judge American BBQ and crab shacks by their standards, it’s nothing like the real thing.

     

     

    The Big Easy
    Address: 332-334 Kings Road, Chelsea, London, SW3 5UR
    Phone: 020 7352 4071
    What to wear:  To be honest, I threw on jeans and brushed my hair after a night out.  But I also saw someone from the made in Chelsea crowd in full hair and make up (it was a dude).

    Big Easy on Urbanspoon

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    Bodo’s Schloss: Apres Ski Without The Dislocated Shoulder

    January 8, 2013
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    So I finally made it inside Bodo’s Scholss! I was pretty excited when I heard about this place because I heart me some apres ski, and I have dislocated my shoulder snowboarding in Kitzbühel, which makes the apres part not so fun.

    I tried to get into Bodo’s Schloss before Christmas, but mistakenly went at 1:30am only to witness a girl being carried out by security sans shoes screaming about being from Essex. Kinda strange when you are in Kensington. Either way, they closed the doors and I clearly wasn’t drunk enough to be there.

    Take 2, my boyfriend and his friends book a civilized dinner table for 5 and I invite my hot Swedish friend Malin. She fits right in there BTW, most of the girls that work there are pretty and blonde. Anyway, we ordered a pretzel as a starter, and this teeny tiny pretzel shows up for all of us to share. If anyone actually wants a piece, you might want to order a few. As far as pretzels go, it was alright but that’s probably an unfair assessment. I have pretty high pretzel standards as demonstrated by the best pretzel I’ve ever had, which was fresh out of the oven on a random lake in Austria. It was so good I battled aggressive swans and wasps to finish it.

    Worth it, picture to prove it.

    Anyway back to Bodo’s and it’s apres ski feel. It’s pretty cool because you can go dressed like this:

    Or like a regular person in a Chelsea club. But if you wear some type of ski-like clothing/mountain wear/lederhosen, you get into the club without cover, so I would recommend that if you aren’t going for dinner. Personally, I wore my Edmonton Oilers hockey jersey and the next day the NHL and players reached an agreement to end the lockout. Just saying maybe people should send me thank you notes/chocolate/bacon.

    I ordered the chicken Schloss Wiener Schnitzel, however I was told this is sacrilegious by the German guy we were with. Apparently it should really only be Veal or Pork. Mine was pretty tasty though and not a bad price at £13.50. They are also huge, more than enough for two girls to share, if you’re into that kind of thing.

    My Wiener

    Bodos is owned by the same peeps that do Mahiki and Whisky Mist, so the music is decent (the DJ booth is a gondola!) and at least the people know how to run a club. Although, based on what I saw outside the first time I was there, they should be a little more selective at the door. They also need to sort the air con if they expect anyone to show up in the summer because it was pretty warm in there and they encourage ski wear. That can lead to some pretty bad smells/looks.

    For more info and to book a table, this is their website: www.bodosschloss.com

    I highly recommend a go. It’s not a gourmet restaurant by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a fun night out but probably best to have dinner there first, you know to line your stomach for the shot-skis.

    Bodo's Schloss on Urbanspoon Bodo's Schloss on Urbanspoon

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