Taste of London 2014

If you are a Londoner, you might have seen the posters advertising Taste of London everywhere. But I didn't need any persuading. I was totally there.

For non-Londoners, Taste is one of the biggest food festivals where loads of top restaurants (I MET MICHEL ROUX) and food producers come together and exhibit their dishes / products (which are all available to buy), which range from Scotch eggs to spicy Korean marinade to gourmet gin & tonic flavoured popcorn. 

It was awesome, I only wish the event was open longer...

Did I mention that I met Michel Roux?

So the day went something like this...

Strawberry, Lime And Basil No-Bake Cheesecake

I have to admit, I've been off the cake market for some time. I'm not having a cake affair, I promise (I am not cheating on cake with vegetables!), but I have been busy with exams and work and the like.

Cake, will you be my best friend again??

I've entered my recipe into the Rix Aga Inspired Recipes Competition for June! The theme this month is strawberries, so I think I'm in pretty good shape here :) 

Restaurant A. Wong, London Victoria

Raise your hand if you like dim sum. No, the prawn toast doesn't count. Put the prawn toast down. Good.

Aahh...dumplings. Now we're talking :D

This dim sum post kicks of a series of restaurant related posts I've got coming up. I haven't found the time to bake very much in the lead up to this exam I have in June (I've somewhat called it a "baking ban" I'm going on but I think that's just a paraphrase of "gotten a bit lazy and time constrained"). However, I have remained to find the time to eat, whoop whoop! Which, you know, is great.

Moving on to restaurant A Wong. It's a small restaurant just off Victoria station which, in my opinion, looks a bit takeaway-ey from the outside, but in the inside it's an oasis of dim sum related well cooked and beautifully presented upmarket Chinese food. I came here with my boyfriend a few weeks back after hearing some pretty damn good reviews. We were not disappointed, hurray!

Easter bunny frosted lemon & orange Pimm's cake (with step-by-step instructions)

Did you give up anything for Lent? My housemate and I decided to do coffee (her) and chocolate (me), and whilst I was all "yeah as if you'd be able to go without caffeine for two months muahaha".... it turned out I couldn't go without cocoa for two days.

But I digress. This easter cake has no chocolate. It's orange and lemon and teeny bit of Pimm's in it, because, why not, and spring is almost (sort of) here (sometimes)! Hurrah!

However, the ingredients do call for a large quantity of icing sugar. Like, about 2 kg of the stuff.

Two days later, I've still got the sugar shakes.

*shakes about the room a little*

Galvin at Windows, London Mayfair

I really like French restaurants. I like the fact that there are always table cloths on the tables, the waiters are (usually) oh so oh-la-la and the food is (mostly) excellent.

Galvin at Windows falls into all of those categories, and I know that this place has been blogged to death but wait till you see the last photo, I promise to put a caffine induced smile on your face. 

Also, another thing I've been doing lately is observing the quality of the cutlery at every eating establishment. Yes, I know it's weird when the girl next to you picks up her knife and fork and starts weighing and tapping them but ever since I bought my flat I've been furniture obsessed, with kitchen stuff at the top of the list. 

 Galvin at Windows had good sturdy forks. I approve.

Booking in advance pretty essential here. I booked with my boyfriend for about a month later for lunch, and we used a LivingSocial deal which was £40 for two courses from a set menu and 2 glasses of wine. Pretty brilliant I'd say! We got some coffees and drinks and with service it came to about £30 a head which for a Michelin star restaurant is great value.

Plus the view...oh the view, c'est magnifique!