New Year; All New Restaurant Review🍴

Can’t believe we’re already in February or 2017!! Time really has flown by…2016 (most would agree) has been a roller coaster year with plenty of surprises. Here’s to a better 2017

I’ve been busy with my new job (just started in Jan, whoop!) but over the next few days or so I’ll upload everything I’ve eaten, and for most of them I can’t wait to share how tasty they were!

First stop, The Ivy Chelsea Garden. Starting the new year right with some fine dining

Baked halibut fillet with shaved fennel, grapefruit and spinach salad with picked herbs and citrus butter sauce.

The dish was beautifully plated and was delicious. The grapefruit and citrus butter sauce was a delightfully fresh compliment to the halibut.

Koko Coup; A take on the coconut and lychee daiquiri with Havana 3 year rum, Koko Kanu, lychee and agave freshened with grapefruit.

I’d like to draw your attention to the adorable swirl of hearts on the cocktail

Last but not least, the reason I was attracted to this restaurant is explained thoroughly in the above picture. The beautiful gardenesque seating area makes The Ivy Chelsea a very worth while restaurant to try out. Remember, it’s the Chelsea branch 😉

-Eats Esacapdes

Green Tea Goodness

Another post on all things green tea (and a token Japanese dish)! 

Tombo, so far imo, serves the best green tea ice-cream in London. There are various places who have emerged in London serving green tea ice-cream but they just can’t compare to the perfect blend of creamy mild milk flavour with the almost bitter taste of green tea matcha ice-cream they serve.

Easily one of my favourite green tea dessert shop 💓

Matcha soft serve:

Matcha ice-cream sundae in all its glory with matcha ice-cream, matcha brownie, azuki paste, granola, date syrup and cone biscuit:

Matcha latte:

Salmon sashimi don: salmon sashimi, salmon roe, salmon tartar & avocado on Tombo sushi rice

-Eats Esacapdes 

Cheese and wine night anyone?

Blanchette, is a lovely, petite French restaurant I stumbled upon one day in Soho, London. I had a friend visiting from abroad, as we haven’t seen each other in a while, we decided to to have lunch some place fancier than usual. On our hunt for a restaurant, we knew we didn’t want Asian food as she’s from east Asia and we wanted somewhere central. After searching on Google, we landed on Blanchette. We chose this due to the great reviews and beautiful pictures of the place; it didn’t disappoint!

The interior of the restaurant was a twist on old, victorian style with bricked walls, wooden floorboards and furniture but spiced up with large overhanging spotlights casting shadows around the room. It was small and cosy, perfect for a date/intimate gathering with a small group of friends. 

Each dish was designed for sharing, so we ordered a few to share amongst us. 

Everything was absolutely delicious. great wine, good food, lovely atmosphere 🙂 

-Eats Esacapdes 

Shake shack burger

Shack up this winter with some juicy, meaty burger at Shake Shack, London. Shake shack originated from America and recently opened up in London. Reminiscent of five guys (upper market fast food style service, originating from the states) shake shack serves decent burgers for days when you want to sink your teeth in some juicy burgers with quick service but not quite keen on going to a fast food chain (McDonald’s and Burger King shall be reserved for those 3am naughty cravings).

Our massive platter of burgers and fries

Close up of my Shackmeister: cheeseburger with crispy Shackmeister ale marinated shallots and shacksauce.

Yum 🙂 

-Eats Esacapdes  

Them fried chicken though…

What better way to get you through hump day than wings Wednesday! Fried chicken is no doubt a staple in everyone’s unhealthy food’s  guilty pleasure book but let’s not pretend we are all going to stick to some new diet plan to the T that we promised to start months ago. Rather, let’s openely celebrate cheat days  with some good old fried chicken to ride you through that mid-week hump 🙂 

Introducing… Wings Wednesday at Bird, Shoreditch, London. 

Above: 

• 12 buffalo wings with blue cheese dip 
• 12 honey garlic glazed wings 

The wings Wednesday deal consists of 12 wings and a beer for £10. Decent offer!

My friends weren’t that keen on the wings but it was great value for money and it was decent wings.

Saving the best dish of the night, let’s get a drum roll for the Original (fried chicken) Waffle Burger: 

In all its delicious, dirty, mighty glory, the majestic waffle burger consists of two boneless fried free range chicken thighs, bacon, American cheese, house BBQ, mayo, hour sauce, maple syrup served between two hot griddled waffles.

The waffle burger was honestly a lot to eat in one go, the portion was massive, sandwiched amongst multiple combinations of sauces. Overall though, I was thoroughly satisfied; succesfully satisfied my cravings for fried chicken 🙂 

-Eats Esacapdes

Who Thought Japanese BBQ was a thing?

The other day my friends and I visited a Japanese restaurant focused on Japanese BBQ. Now, I’m well familiar with Korean BBQ (Kbbq) but Japanese BBQ (Jbbq) is something I haven’t even heard of. So naturally I was skeptical.

As a curious foodie, I went along and was pleasantly surprised!

Grill

Table of Food

What: Japanese BBQ and Japanese food

Where: Kintan, 34 High Holborn, London WC1V 6AE

Why: You like kbbq (or bbq in general) but you haven’t tried Japanese BBQ before

Similar to Kbbq, you’re sat a a long table with the bbq grill in the middle. The difference is the meat is marinated with Japanese marinades instead. It tastes very similar with the kbbq marinades but overall the dishes were less spicy and a hint more sweet.

We ordered the grilled set menu for 4 people. It came with a good portions of meat and sides, definitely enough to feed 4 people full. Make sure you come hungry! We had more meat dishes which I didn’t manage to take a photo of. If I remember correctly, we had 6 plates of marinaded beef/chicken, a plate of squid, a plate of prawns and a plate of sausages.

 

Above: grilled beef & chicken, mmm.

It also came with sides, which was perfect company to the grilled meat.

Above: Edamame beans, spicy marinaded cabbage, french fries (how random! But it works) and egg fried rice in a hot stone bowl

To finish off, desserts of course!

Above Left: Grilled Taiyaki

Above Right: Some sort of doughy crusted bread with maple syrup and vanilla ice cream

Both dessert we had to grill it on the grill; we didn’t actually know in the beginning and the waiter had to come over and recommend it to us, lol! The taiyaki was pretty difficult to grill as it’s cold in the inside when delivered to us. It had quite a thick outer layer hence by grilling it, it only affected the crispiness of the outer layer. Which is great as it make the taiyaki crispy, but you had to grill it longer to ensure the inside is warm (not a fan of lukewarm taiyaki!). This also meant the taiyaki was slightly burnt but it added colour to it so I guess it worked out.

Great food, service was just alright. I’d definitely go back for the food.

-Eats Escapades