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Food

Unsolicited Advice

Why I Asked For Beefaroni For Christmas

December 9, 2013

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

The Diner

June 2, 2013

Stephanie

My boyfriend and I had been looking forward to The Diner since Black and Blue shut down. We were hoping a great new restaurant would open and prayed it was one that didn’t only cater towards tourists, like most restaurants on Gloucester Road. It got to the point that when we saw the sign go up, my boyfriend went and asked the builders outside when it would open.

Then it finally did, and hungover one Saturday we were ready.. only to find it closed. Apparently it hadn’t opened properly yet. Take 2, the boy had golf and my head hurt from a long night before at Brompton Club and Bodos Schloss. So I ventured out on my own.

First visit:

The staff were very nice and sat me at a table near the window. I didn’t really notice the decor or the atmosphere because I was in a corner. But, at the same time that worked for me, as I didn’t feel like being stared at while I inhaled my brunch alone. I obviously ordered the Eggs Benedict and toyed with the possibility of also ordering a corn dog, because I love me some corn dog, but thought that was a bit much.

They were super quick to take my OJ order and brought that straight away but unfortunately took their time coming back to take my food order, so eventually I flagged someone down. She took it, and my food arrived fairly promptly but unfortunately they didn’t bring cutlery. So I waited for that as well. It was pretty delicious but the bacon was a bit chewy for my tastes and the hollandaise was a little too buttery and not quite tangy enough. Also, be careful with the pepper. It’s super fine and in a container with large holes so I basically ended up dumping it all over my meal. I’m a big fan of pepper, but it kind of ruined things for me.

Visit 2:

The very next day my boyfriend wanted to go, so there we found ourselves again. We were sat at at a middle booth so I could admire what they did for decor. My favourite part are the walls which look like they were put together from old gymnasium floors, love it!

I ordered the Eggs Benedict again, but this time asked for extra crispy bacon, which I got and I highly recommend they serve the dish like that as a staple. The hollandaise was also better this time, with the right amount of tang. I also used the pepper more cautiously so all in all, this was a much better Benedict. It was £7.

I wanted a root beer, but was told that the kitchen staff drank the last of it the night before and were in very big trouble. Can’t hold it against them though, root beer is pretty awesome. My boyfriend ordered a cherry coke instead and I drank half of it. It was yummy.

We also ordered the wings which were a bit of a disappointment. They were kind of breaded and deep friend and not spicy. They should work on those, and until they do, I wouldn’t order them.

My boyfriend ordered the Grab burger which was USDA beef. Don’t order any of those burgers on the menu because he said they tasted like a frozen patty. I imagine the other hamburgers are better as it says on the menu that they are hand ground scottish beef which are made daily. Next time we will probably go for that option. He also said the bun was too bready which looking at it I’d have to agree with.

One thing I found distracting was one of the waitresses was wearing booty shorts and a backless t-shirt. She was basically naked and it felt awkward because it was 2 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and there were children in the restaurant. It would have been more appropriate if it were Saturday night. Her outfit just seemed weird and I feel like staff’s clothing shouldn’t be the stand out thing you remember from a restaurant.

Overall, this is probably one of the better dining choices on that part of Gloucester road (but keeping in mind, it’s competition are a steakhouse and italian place geared towards tourists and a Burger King). I am pretty keen to try other things on the menu, they had a toasted cornbread with eggs that sounded delicious, and of course the hot dogs.

Another suggestion would be to change the shakes a little. I was going to order the oreo one until I read the description and it doesn’t look like there are actually oreos in it, but nutella and chocolate instead. I don’t like nutella. They should make a regular oreo shake and I would eat it every day.

In total we ordered: Margarita (pretty small), Cherry Coke, Orange Juice, Grab Burger, Wings and an Eggs Benedict and it was £35. Service isn’t included which is kind of nice as I find it annoying when restaurants add it automatically. We left £5.70 tip which is more than the usual 12.5% added. Other restaurants, take note.

I would recommend a try if you are in the area, but I wouldn’t necessarily venture out to eat there. They have other locations around London as well.

To book:

Web: www.goodlifediner.com

Address: 105 Gloucester Road, SW7

Phone: 02072447666

Food, Travel

VooDoo Doughnut: Yes I did

February 22, 2013

Stephanie

So, I went all the way to Portland to eat a Voodoo Doughnut. Just Kidding. Sort of. My best friend got married in Portland and Instead of going a million miles just for the wedding, My BF and I went on a whirl wind adventure through Idaho, Portland and Seattle. This is about my food adventure in Portland.

So, from my point of view, the main things to take away from Portland are: There are loads of homeless people on crack/bath salts, hipsters and seriously awesome doughnuts. I also lit my hair on fire in a bar when leaning in for a bridal party picture 2 days before the wedding, so I was talk taking away a little less hair than I came to Portland with.

I saw an episode of Simpsons (coincidentally) right before I left where all these hipsters came to Springfield and this guy was making weird doughnuts and I was all like, wouldn’t that be amazing? And then my BF was like, it’s a real thing and we go there next week. So the whole trip all I could think about was how, between all my bridesmaids duties, was I going to be able to wait in line for 3 hours to eat a doughnut with bacon on it. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it, but thanks to jet lag, I was up stupid early on Saturday morning, the day of the wedding. I went to the gym in a vain attempt to preempt that 8 zillion calories I was about to eat and then got so excited, I left early and ran to VooDoo Doughnut at 730 in the morning in my work out gear, sleeveless in barely above freezing weather. Worth it.

I only had to wait in line for 30 min and when I was almost at the front some obnoxious woman with her 25 kids let them all go individually. Listen, I love kids. I like to entertain them, that’s why I work in kids TV. But, when there is a line around the block to get something, please don’t make said line a million times longer just because your kids wants to hand the lady a dollar. You and your children are not the only people on earth and the group of yummy mummies with their kids in front of you were nice enough to get their s^&t together and order as a group. Rant over.

Needless to say when I finally got to the register I was presented with this:

I basically had my small order in my head and was planning my run back (because at this point I was running half an hour later for my hair appointment, but come on, bacon doughnuts. Priorities.) when I suddenly wanted everything. So I ordered:

A cock n balls – huge phallic doughnut filled with cream. (with the brides name artfully written across the shaft).

One covered in Fruit Loops because in University the bride and I made a regular habit of eating dry cereal pretty much all the time.
One covered in Oreros because… well it was covered in Oreos.
Two little ones that looked like boobs because it was funny.
A Wookie, which is their signature shape (a VooDoo Doll, see what they did there?) but decorated as a Wookie.

I ate it’s arm.

Two Maple Blazer Blunts. One was for my BF, and was my second favourite (after the bacon doughnut, obviously). They cost $4.20. See what they did there again??.
A Portland cream, which is exactly like a Boston cream but they paint two little white eyes on it.
And finally, a maple bacon doughnut. It was definitely the best thing I’d eaten in Portland. It was just a regular maple glazed bar. WITH BACON. I can’t emphasize enough how awesome it was. We had bacon and eggs that morning as well (so in total, I basically ate 7 pieces of bacon in the space of about an hour) and it was the first doughnut gone.

Our wedding day spread

I think I may have over estimated how much seven girls will eat right before they have to get into fancy dresses because there were a few leftovers which I delivered to the groomsmen.

In total I spent about an hour getting them and $20. It’s a must if you are in Portland, along with going down to the cost and seeing The Goonies beach… but heads up, don’t wear wedges because you have to hike down and your boyfriend might get mad at you for having to carry you.

Goonies beach

Info all right here, they have 3 locations: www.voodoodoughnut.com

Heads up, they only take cash… hipsters for ya.

Food

Beard to Tail

December 13, 2012

Stephanie

So, my boyfriend managed to get me to go to Shoreditch again to eat america BBQ even though our first attempt was an epic failure, (you can read about it here). This time we were to venture out to a little place called Beard to Tail. Now, I’m not a massive fan of restaurants that are so explicit about the food you are about to eat (the mains are called Into the Pig and Into the Cow…TMI) but I was willing to try. And what animal has a beard anyway?

We waited 45 min to be seated and the hostess was nice, but we were hungry. Sat and had cocktails first and I drank the only one on the menu that was vodka based. It was ok. I forgot to take a picture of it when it was full, but you can use your imagination.

Anyway, cut to the chase, right? The menu had loads of meat on it so (obviously) not a place to take a vegetarian on a first date. It looked promising although the starters were a little blah, and didn’t seem worth the calories. I wanted the burger, but they didn’t have it (I know, seriously they had like 5 things on the menu) so my boy thought it was a good idea to order the 800g steak AND a rack (or several) of ribs. It looked like something out of the Flintstones.

It was tasty, but it took an hour for our food to arrive, so caveman meat was looking pretty good when I was personally ready to gnaw off my own arm. The sides were the best part though, I highly recommend the cheesy cauliflower.

The best part of the evening? The fact that I was actually able to witness two people getting busted for trying to bump nasties the wheelchair bathroom. Ya, that’s right, I got to see that in real life. A larger than average girl wearing a sequin black and white dress (not exactly the most discreet outfit when you are planning on doing something like that, but I digress) snuck into the bathroom, whose door faced the entire restaurant. She was followed shortly by a short skinny boy. 30 seconds into it they were caught by the manager who continued to bang on the door until they came out, which was about 2 min later (poor guy). Then the manager told them off in front of the whole restaurant. It was amazing, and they weren’t at all embarrassed. In fact, they owned it, and then did more shots.

All said and done, there are definitely better meat places in London. If you want steak, Gaucho is usually my favorite. They are all over the city and kind of a chain, but they have consistently decent steak and great wine.

Where: Beard to Tail, Shoreditch http://www.beardtotail.co.uk .

Cost: Really expensive for pretty lame service and average food.

Go for: People watching, particularly those trying to do it in public bathrooms before midnight.

Wear: Well, it’s Shoreditch so I wore my Levis jean shirt, black jeans and knee high boots accessorized with my Mulberry clutch. But it’s a kind of anything goes place, our waitress was wearing a backless bodysuit and black lipstick.

I’ll leave you with a pic of the dessert, it was tasty!

Food, Travel

Manga Tuscany

November 11, 2012

Stephanie

In the limited but awesome Italian I learned on my recent trip to Tuscany, I’m pretty sure the above means eat Tuscany, which I attempted to do.

We stayed at San Felice which is an amazing old town that was turned into a beautiful hotel. Seriously, the whole town. It was small, but I still managed to get lost. This was the street our room was on.

The restaurant was even more awesome and I ate what might possibly be the best ‘amouse bouche’ (they call it that in Italy even though its French. Europeans!) ever. It was Parmesan creme brûlée. Like, cream with Parmesan and then a sweet candied top like creme brûlée. It was amazing. Then I had prawns wrapped in bacon. In my books, anything wrapped in bacon is 5 star. Then I had a yummy pasta and some kind of fish. But by far the first two things were the best.

San Felice is also a vineyard and the wine they produce is ace.

In conclusion, I think you should go there even though its kind of a pain in the balls to get to.

Food

Burger and Lobster

April 25, 2012

Stephanie

2 Comments

After seeing it on several sites/magazines, one drizzly Tuesday my girlfriends and I decided to take the plunge and try Burger and Lobster.

First things first, send one person from your party as early as humanly possible to put down your name. My friend Malin managed to put our name down at 6:30. Undeterred by the projected 2 hour wait time we headed to Hakkasan in Mayfair where I had the Hakka cocktail which not only came in a beautiful bamboo shaped glass, it also provided a decent buzz for the wait.

Venue: Hakkasan
Location: Hakkasan Mayfair, 17 Bruton Street, London, W1J 6QB
Cost: £11.50 for a cocktail
Look out for: tables full of cute men in suits on business dinners

After an hour at the bar in Hakkasan we moved on to meet the other two ladies in our party at Babble (59 Berkley Square). Where I had a £4.50 Vodka soda and was asked to have my picture taken with a random woman in the loos. We left shortly after that.

At 8:30 we were called by the manager Alex and told to make our way to Burger and Lobster. When we arrived there was a further 45 minute wait but we had the reasonably priced house wine (A Sangiovese red) and got drunker while leering at the table of gorgeous men in the booth by the window.

When we finally sat down at 9:15, a lovely Irish girl took our order which was made simple because you have 3 choices: Burger (with or without cheese and bacon), Grilled Lobster with butter or garlic and lemon butter, or a Lobster Roll. All come with chips and a salad. I thought about having the burger (all prime cuts of meat, buns made in house) but Malin insisted that “Nobody goes to Burger and Lobster to have a burger, we could have just gone to Byron.” Fair point.

Now, I’ve been to Maine and had several Lobster rolls, so I was willing to give this one a shot and compare it directly. There are no words to describe how good this was except to say it went from this:

To this:

In like, 14 minutes.

The rest of the girls had grilled lobster which was equally as mouth watering and the main point of conversation. This was my favorite piece:

Kim (who is new to eating lobster): “How do you know which part to eat?”
Cat (Canadian and eats loads of Lobster): “Just put it in your mouth and if it tastes good swallow.”
Me (clearly raised in a barn): “That’s what he said.”

We followed on with dessert and again there were only two choices: Bailey’s mousse (as Kim said to the witness: “You had me at Bailey’s”) with salted caramel or vanilla cheesecake. We ordered both, and both were amazeballs.

Vanilla Cheesecake

When we finished we asked the waitress to send over Alex, the manager and gushed for a solid 10 min abut the food. He offered to take us downstairs and see the kitchen and the brothers and sisters of the Nova Scotian lobsters we just ate.

He totally looks Canadian, right?

So to recap:

Venue: Burger and Lobster
Location: 29 Clarges street, Mayfair London W1J 7EF
Cost: £35/each for four girls with wine and dessert.
What to wear: Something sexy and stretchy. I had a food baby well into the next day. They also provide chic bibs we all wore.
Look out for: Cute Welsh rugby players who will walk you to the tube and invite you all out for more drinks.
Verdict: I never thought I’d say this, but Burger and Lobster is worth the 3 hour wait.

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!