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Food

The Ivy Chelsea Garden

October 12, 2015

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

www.theivychelseagarden.com

Food

The Good Life Eatery

October 8, 2015

Stephanie

1 Comments

First off, it should be called the F%$king Great Life Eatery because that’s how good the eggs benedict is. I went to meet my friend right before my wedding for a catch up breakfast and my only requirement was healthy. In my world, healthy is any food that doesn’t contain cookies or cake, so our options were pretty open. I’d been dying to go to The Good Life Eatery for a while but heard there were lines and I couldn’t be bothered to fight a yummy mummy after her yoga class with an insatiable need to get her chia seed on.

It was raining, elbows were thrown but eventually I got somewhere near the front of the line and ordered their skinny royale. If I’m honest I expected it to taste like cardboard because that’s how most health food tastes to me. I picked the real bread (gluten free is code word for filled with plastic and shit I can’t pronounce) and we sat at the counter near the doorway, which my friend was passively aggressively guarding with her life.

Imagine my surprise when this plate of deliciousness showed up.

I don’t know what’s skinny about it because this was probably one of the best eggs benedict/royale I have ever had in my entire life. If it will put less junk in my trunk I vote we permanently change the standard recipe to this (eggs, smoked salmon, yogurt and saffron sauce mmmmmmm).

Although they have a vast selection, I didn’t have a smoothie. I’m just not into avocado, vanilla and almond milk mixed together. I’d like to keep my yummy benedict down thankyouverymuch.

Then I went back a few weeks later with another set of girl friends for our first (of hopefully many) breakfast club at noon (One of us had yoga. It obviously wasn’t me). Imagine my horror when I was told that they don’t serve eggs after 11:30am because eggs aren’t for the afternoon. Whoever decided this is missing out on LIFE. Anyway, after the shock wore off I ordered their chicken club which was also delicious, but not to the epic level their royale was.

I was also hung-over as f%$k so I asked the staff if they had anything that would cure it and they pointed me in the direction of a delicious juice called Melrose sunset. The food arrived promptly and we chatted as a weirdo sat at the spare seat at our table and devoured a huge and incredible looking piece of red velvet cake.

I highly recommend The Goof Life Eatery but politely request that you contact me before you go so you can save me a place in line.

The Good Life Eatery

www.goodlifeeatery.com

59 Sloane Avenue

London SW3 3DH UK

Food

World’s End Market

March 13, 2015

Stephanie

World’s End Market, despite its name and the feeling of many Chelsea residents is not at the end of the world, just the end of Chelsea. When I first moved to London, I actually lived across the street so walking to Worlds End Market was not only a fond trip down memory lane, it also reminded me there is an amazing Oxfam near by.

When I arrived at the restaurant Wednesday during lunch, it was fairly empty but that just meant I had my choice of seat. So I nestled into the corner near a window and spied the staff kitted out in grey shirts and burgundy braces. The whole place felt a kind of hipster/Hoxton, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing when everything else nearby is so Sloaney.

After two seconds into looking at the menu I knew what I wanted. Buffalo mozzarella with artichoke and pesto to start and the truffle burger as a main. I tend to have menu blackout when I see cheese and truffle so I really couldn’t even tell you what else looked good. But here is a picture of the menu anyway.

My starter arrived just as I noticed the music was sounding a little too W lounge for my tastes, and almost as soon as I thought of it, the music changed to the song from Romeo and Juliet where Claire Danes and Leo start flirting so all was forgiven. I probably would have preferred burrata to mozzarella but it was still fantastic without being too filling.

I asked for my burger to be medium well and that was my bad. It came cooked like a brick. I probably should have stuck with the suggested medium. The burger had a delicious bun and actually only used truffle oil slightly disappointing if I’m honest. But, 80% of taste is smell, right? I found the caramelized onions to be too much and far too sweet with the brioche that it mostly drowned out any truffle or mushroom taste that was left. However, I was pretty stoked that it came with both fries and salad.

That was, until I had a fry. On a scale of 1 – Fresh McDonalds fries I’m going to have to give these a 4. They looked fresh cut but were lip and fairly soggy. The ketchup was essentially marinara sauce. Heinz and crispy fries are an absolute must if you’re going to serve a burger so World’s End Market, get on it.

After my meal I had a little walk around to get a better look at the seafood. Then just about crapped myself when the lobster I was taking a picture of walked towards me. The seafood is fresh, I’ll give them that.

Overall, World’s End Market is a nice addition to a relatively forgotten part of Chelsea. I’m not sure I would go out of my way to dine there again, but if they sort out the fries, I may give them another chance.

What to wear: It’s fairly casual, I had on jeans, Marc Jacobs flats and a white t-shirt.
Address: 459 Kings road, London SW10 0LR
Phone:020 7352 2150
To book: http://www.theworldsendmarket.com

Unsolicited Advice

Why I Asked For Beefaroni For Christmas

December 9, 2013

Stephanie

Around this time last year I was walking home from Balans in Chelsea with my boyfriend after stuffing my face with Eggs Benedict when a woman walking in front of us suddenly collapsed. We ran to help her and insisted on calling an ambulance but she begged us not to. She was shaking and fighting back tears. I thought she might have blood sugar issues so I ran to the corner store and got an orange juice while my boyfriend stayed with her. When I came back, she was still sitting on the sidewalk with her laptop case and after having the juice, she seemed to calm down. That’s when I noticed her trousers were a little frayed and her trainers almost worn through.

We started to talk to her. As it turned out, she hadn’t eaten in a few days. She had been made redundant from her estate agent job several months back and was struggling to feed herself and was staying in hostels when she could get enough money together. She had been in the Brompton library searching for jobs online, but it’s hard to find employment when you don’t have an address.

I burst into tears. I had been made redundant two years before and it took me four months to find another job. I hardly had any savings and it was one of the most stressful times of my life. But I had friends, a boyfriend and a family back home that I knew would help me if I needed it. This woman didn’t have that safety net that I took for granted.

We offered to get her some lunch but she declined. She also refused to take any money from us and actually dug in her bag to find change to pay me for the orange juice. She was proud, which I understood but I managed to distract her and my boyfriend slipped some money into her laptop bag. She did thank us for talking to her, because she hadn’t had a real conversation with anyone in a long time.

She finally convinced us she was OK and got up to walk the rest of the way to her hostel. I went home and cried some more. It kills me to think that there are people out there who don’t get to enjoy food and just look at getting enough nutrition to survive. I know the world isn’t perfect and there isn’t a way to fix everything, so I wanted to think of what I could do that very day. A few weeks earlier my family had asked for a Christmas list and the only thing I could think of putting on there was a £900 pair of Jimmy Choo boots. That’s when I realized I actually didn’t need anything.

Christmas is about giving and people want to give you stuff. I emailed my family and asked them to get me food, my favourites from home: Beefaroni, Kraft Dinner, Chewy Chips Ahoy etc and I would give it to the food bank. It didn’t fly as well as I hoped, mostly because everyone had already got me something.

But this year I hope it’s different. I started earlier and asked that at least 50% of my gift from anyone would be food I could donate to the food bank. Meet me halfway, you know? I don’t like to dictate gift giving, that’s kind of the opposite of what a gift is supposed to be, but I hope they understand how much this means to me and add a can of Beefaroni to my stocking.

I wasn’t going to post this because I figure if you are going to do something, just do it, don’t sit there and write a blog post about it. But then I thought, if even one other person reads this and does the same thing that would make a difference to at least one hungry family in a place that I’ve probably never been to. And that would be awesome.

So, instead of those amazing boots, why not ask for a can of Beefaroni for Christmas?

Also, I’ve been away from the blog for a while but have a really good reason. If you want to know why, you can click here . I’ll be back soon with some more awesome restaurants.

Food

Bubbledogs

March 20, 2013

Stephanie

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

Website: www.bubbledogs.co.uk

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.

Food

The Delaunay

January 28, 2013

Stephanie

BRUNCH!!! My favourite meal. Ever. It’s breakfast, but you don’t have to get up stupid early to eat and it’s not only expected that you drink, but the drink should be sparkly or contain vodka. Best thing ever in life. So, it has been my mission to become an expert on brunches wherever I go. The reason there aren’t many brunch posts on this blog is because, if I’m honest, most of the time I scarf down my food and forget to take pictures. You’ll just have to trust me on this, I’ve had brunch pretty much everywhere.

So, where does The Delaunay rank? Well, it’s not bad actually. I have two rules when it comes to brunch: Order Eggs Benedict/Florentine/Royale/Whatever they decide to call eggs on a muffin covered in hollandaise sauce and accompany that with prosecco/Champagne.

I met a group of my girlfriends on a snowy Sunday and I have to say, I love the location of the Delaunay. It’s not too close to Covent Garden to be annoying and full of tourists, but it’s close enough to still have that busy hub vibe. I also walked by this awesome place on my way, so it got extra points.

Happy Go Lucky Funeral Parlor Seriously.

The bubbles were great, but let’s be honest, it’s not hard to get decent Champagne in London so i’ll move on.

The girls ordered lobster rolls which I am never eating again unless it’s at Burger and Lobster and we were having brunch so I had to stick to my rules.

I felt that I needed some iron after a relatively late night out, so I went for the Florentine. If you want eggs Royale, they call it Arlington at The Delaunay. I don’t know why and when I asked, they just explained what it was, not why they decided to change the name from the accepted convention. I didn’t order it, so that’s all I can really comment on.

My Florentine however, was actually quite good. not too soggy (which can happen due to the wilted spinach) but I will say the hollandaise wasn’t quite tangy enough for me. to much buttery, not enough tang. It was also a little thick for my personal preferences But to each his own. I still ate the whole thing.

I also had an excellent cappuccino props to the person who made it, excellent presentation.

My only criticism would be that it’s a little stuffy in there. The atmosphere isn’t super welcoming and it felt like they were putting on airs as if they were The Woseley They aren’t, although they are owned by the same group who also do Colbert in Sloane Square. They also make an excellent Florentine. But If I had to rank out of this group, it would be The Woseley, Colbert (amazing Atmosphere) and finally The Delaunay.

The Delaunay is about the same price as the Woseley, so I would go to the latter if you have a choice, but either way, both are going to cost you about £30/head with a drink.

If you’re interested in The Delaunay you can book through their website: www.thedelaunay.com

Stephanie Wahlstrom

Hey! Cute top! Flattery gets you everywhere, right? Seriously, though, I like what you've got going on over there. Anyway, my name is Stephanie and I am a Canadian writer living in London. I like to eat, travel and make people laugh. The Accidental Socialite is the name of my debut novel and this blog where you'll find tales of my mishaps and far too many references to bacon. Enjoy!