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World’s End Market

March 13, 2015

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

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

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, 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

Bodo’s Schloss: Apres Ski Without The Dislocated Shoulder

January 8, 2013

Stephanie

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.

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!

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!