Birthday Feasting and Drinking

It was my birthday earlier this month! I turned 23 on Friday 5th, meaning I had an entire weekend at my disposal to fritter away on various birthday-related food and drinks. Which was exactly what I was planning. Prepare yourselves, dear readers - I've edited them down as best I can, but there's still an absolute onslaught of photos to follow.

Friday evening saw my parents and I stepping out in Soho for a good old-fashioned birthday meal on the town.

But first...cocktails. And not in any old establishment, but one hidden behind a slightly seedy-looking door on Gerrard Street in Chinatown - Opium! Its cocktail list is structured like the courses on a traditional restaurant menu, with aperitifs, entrées, mains and digestifs on offer.

I swapped drinks with my mum straight away, as we preferred what the other was having. So that worked out very well for me - mine was a bit too fresh and crisp for my taste, almost savoury. 

A Quintessential Cooler for Padre Lim which came in a suitably masculine rocks glass. (Really want a set of these for my future home!) Vodka, smoked pineapple syrup, grapefruit juice.

Wild Blossom Shaken, imbibed by yours truly. Noilly ambrebitter truth elderflower, lime juice, rose water and rose champagne. Delicious, especially when washing down the superb selection of dumplings on offer. Opium has everything from traditional king prawns to crab and samphire, lobster and mushroom and truffle. We tried them all. Probably not recommended pre-dinner, but it was my birthday, after all!

A brisk walk from the bar took us into the heart of Soho. Our destination? Ember Yard, for tapas-style dining. Here's the highlights from our meal.

Smoky bites of chorizo with a saffron aioli.

Iberico pork fat chips with chorizo ketchup. Cooked just the way I like them, crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Oh, and you might be able to tell from the hazy experimental shots, but my dad got me a pancake lens for my birthday so I was having lots of fun playing with it during this meal!

Buttermilk fried squid with capers, lemon, sage and thick squid ink aioli. Save me from myself. I could eat an entire bowl of these salty, crispy delights to myself. In fact, the squid isn't even in this picture as we'd scoffed the whole thing before I had a chance to whip out my camera...

Steamed and chargrilled octopus with pepperonata and mojo verde aioli. 

The sweetest spare ribs I've ever had. Roasted and chargrilled, glazed with a quince sauce and served on a bed of celeriac purée, these were sticky, unctuous and made me want to chew them right down to the bone. And... I did.

A burrata which provided a perfect creamy foil to the spicier, sharper tastes at the table.

And then home for not one but two birthday cakes! One made up of different cakes from the amazing Lanka, and a red velvet from Hummingbird. Double cake is what happens when parents don't communicate about who's buying...and I certainly wasn't complaining.

Saturday brought with it hastily made plans to see friends for dinner and drinks. We secured a table at Princi on Wardour Street for pasta, pizzas and other delicious Italian fare. I totally forgot to get my camera out, but some of my friends aren't used to my blogging tendencies anyway... Next we headed north of Oxford Street to quaff a few cocktails. I chose a place I've been wanting to try out for ages - Reverend JW Simpson! It's an underground bar designed to look like a dingy-looking flat recently vacated by a member of the church. With plaster and wallpaper peeling off, shadows of crucifixes hanging on the walls and fireplaces gaping open, it's got a purposefully creepy vibe - but the drinks are A+. 

We were brought the most amazing looking shots on a tray, and gleefully downed them in remembrance of our fresher days. How cool are those tiny goblets? Later it transpired that these weren't actually on the house but a mixed-up order, but we didn't have to pay for them anyway. A good reason to go back soon,  I reckon.

Lovely school friends Eleanor and Katy bought me birthday drinks. First, a Rebourne Royal (gin, lime, elderflower and fizz...I'm so predictable) and then an Aphrodite Sour (tequila, more eldeflower, Picon Club, lemon juice and bitters). I really need to look into buying myself an elder tree.

I spy a bit of Asian blush goin' on up there. Sigh at myself. But it was so nice to see the girls! Really need to make sure I do more of this in 2015. There's my first New Year's resolution!

Sunday rolled around quickly (a bit too quickly, actually - I'm not the spry young thing I was at 18, able to hop out of bed at 9 AM after a night of carousing...) and Alex came down on the train to visit me in the afternoon! We checked into a lovely hotel on Russell Square - the Hotel Russell, for anyone needing somewhere to stay near Euston any time soon - watched an incredible sunset from the sixth floor and opened presents. Am now officially a fan of staycations. The perfect break after a busy November.

The hotel had a wonderful old-school charm about it and reminded me a little of the more old-fashioned hotels in America (genuinely don't know where I'm getting this from...Home Alone 2, maybe?) despite being situated slap-bang in the middle of London. 

When night fell, we headed to the Soho Grind for a quick coffee and I fell in love with the interior (if not the coffee - somehow I've gone 23 years without ever having a cup of the stuff).

And I ended the weekend where I'd started it - at Ember Yard! Yes, my parents and boyfriend managed to book exactly the same restaurant, out of the hundreds of dining establishments available to us in London. Just goes to show how well they both know me and my love of small plates...!

We kicked things off with cocktails - no idea what they were, as the menu's already changed since we were there a fortnight ago - but both were very good indeed. I think mine involved Basque cider of some sort, whereas Alex's ice sphere was so cool (geddit) it's eclipsed my memory of what the actual drink contained entirely. I'm going senile at 23.

Alex was pretty upset that I was dining at the same place twice in one weekend, but I reassured him by picking my favourites from the previous meal as well as some of the dishes we hadn't tried on Friday.

That incredible calamari again. I wasn't lying when I said I could eat another bowl...

The best pre-Christmas (or post-Christmas, for that matter) Brussel sprouts that have ever passed my lips. The sprouts were hidden in a creamy swiss chard gratin made addictive with pieces of celeriac, smoked ricotta, and migas. 

We also ordered courgette flowers stuffed with goat's cheese and drizzled with honey, but they weren't particularly photogenic. So here's a photo of Alex's happy diner face instead.

Yup, the ribs again. Though this time they'd been sliced in a way that made the meat harder to get to - it certainly didn't fall off the bone like it had on Friday. Something that one notices when one has the same dish twice in one weekend, I reckon!

And the star of the entire weekend - Ember Yard's signature dish. Sweet, tender Ibérico presa (shoulder meat) bites to be smeared with whipped jamón butter. I honestly couldn't fault this. So memorable it makes my mouth water a fortnight later.

And a wonderfully wobbly cinnamon and milk tart with a scoop of chestnut ice cream and cranberry jam. Festive flavours that melded very well together, and the perfect full stop to my weekend of birthday indulgence.

So I think I managed to expand my stomach adequately in time for Christmas, don't you? Thank you very much to everyone who made my birthday revellings so lovely! It was so wonderful to be surrounded by friends and family, especially at the end of the year. The perfect start to the festive season. 

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Maltby Street Market

Maltby Street Market is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of my favourite places in the city. Located in the historically rich borough of Southwark, a Saturday morning in the market sees all the flavour of Borough without the relentless tourist hustle and bustle. It also hosts some of the most unique food traders I've come across in London, as well as Lassco, an incredible antiques showroom.

Fresh produce and craft vendors rent out the spaces under the railway arches. 

My favourite stalls, though, are to be found in the open market along the 'Ropewalk'. Festooned with world flags, it buzzes with traders selling everything from Hansen & Lydersen smoked salmon (the best) to excellent espressos and cake, with tables spilling out on to the promenade for punters to sip cocktails and wine in the early afternoon. Yes, even if it's drizzling. We're British - what do you expect? 

Right in the middle of it all is the Lassco Showroom.

The showroom is filled with curiosities and ephemera from all corners of the world. Bunting and chandeliers, decommissioned theatre lights, antique taps polished to an enviable sheen, covetable furniture and vintage pamphlets are just some of the objects on sale here. Also on sale? The medieval monstrosity, the Hamburg Hydra, gracing the front cover of a magazine from the '80s, below.

Print typewriters...

...real typewriters...

...and early festive decorations. A far cry from the tinsel we wind round our trees or the bright lights along Oxford Street, these quaint hand-blown glasses hail from the Victorian era. Filling them with candles at Christmas would turn them into 'fairy lamps' to be hung in the windows or placed in the porch. So enchanting and simple.

After wandering around the showrooms we sat down for lunch at St John Bakery Room. Our family loves Fergus Henderson's cooking so much that my mum celebrated her 50th birthday with a private meal at St John! Above: fried sprats with a horseradish cream.

Squid in black ink. 

A kohlrabi salad.

And an old-fashioned pâté with perfectly crisp cornichons. I'm pretty sure I polished off 80% of this hunk all by myself.

For dessert, tempting brownies and pastries from the St John bakery just around the corner. And sourdoughs that kind of resemble giant chocolate biscuits in the picture below...Mmm. 

Also for dessert: a bag of these chocolates masquerading as cocktails, dusted with cocoa powder. Indulgent, rich and extremely addictive.

I love Maltby Street! Can't wait to go back again soon to visit the excellent fruit and veg grocer's at the Dockley Road end of the market, as well as pick up some of the mouthwatering desserts from Poppy Smadja. If you're a foodie at a loose end on a Saturday morning, Maltby is a must.

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The Hand and Flowers

One evening far too many weekends ago, my mother and I drove down the M25, escaping London for a brief excursion to Tom Kerridge's renowned restaurant The Hand and Flowers, a.k.a. the only pub in the UK to hold two Michelin stars. It's not that far away from London - just a short drive to the small town of Marlow in Buckinghamshire - but my mother being my mother, we arrived about an hour and a half before our table was ready. I was pretty pleased about this - it meant we had the time to wander peacefully around town as the sun set, marvelling at the charming, low-ceilinged houses and trying to imagine what Marlow might have been like before the ubiquitous high street took over.

Not knowing a thing about the town, my mother and I were pleasantly surprised to stumble across the house where Mary Shelley penned Frankenstein! Something to visit properly if we ever come back.

True Londoners at heart, we couldn't resist the pull of the Thames in its younger, fresher incarnation, closer to its source in Buckinghamshire.

After I'd had my fill of gazing at the way the dusky light played on the river, we meandered back to Tom Kerridge's gaff for a bite to eat. All casual, as if we hadn't waited a year for the table...

As soon as we sat down, a very polite waiter carefully laid a selection of sourdough and rye bread in front of us. But I was too busy salivating over the twist of teeny, crispy battered whitebait that had appeared at the table to pay much attention to the bread. The presentation mimicked the way fish and chips is traditionally rolled up in that day's newspapers; a nod to the standard fare on offer in gastropubs. Salty and moreish, my mother and I polished the fish off in less than a minute.

For starters, my mum chose crispy pig's head with spiced date purée, apple, plum and pancetta. The report? Succulent, sensuous and deeply flavourful. So top marks then! And I can attest to that: I had a piece of the crackling and nearly swooned.

I had the lovage soup with bramley apple, smoked eel and ham and cheese tortellini. The soup was beautifully presented and super-green; the cubes of eel and apple were perfectly matched with the flavour of lovage, which made me sit bolt upright as soon as I brought a spoon of it to my lips. The tortellini, however, was a slight disappointment - I'd have liked there to be more than one and felt that the ham and cheese filling drowned when faced with the stronger, smokier flavours that jostled for attention in this bowl. 

For mains: a medium rare fillet steak of Stokes Marsh beef with chips and béarnaise sauce for my mother. A classic choice, my mum said it was wonderfully cooked and seasoned, and the béarnaise extra special with the tarragon flavour coming through more than usual. Perched atop of the steak were two beautifully caramelised onion rings, which my mother claimed as the best onion rings she'd ever eaten. Wow.

And for me, an amazingly tender duck, its texture achieved with sous vide cooking. Nestled atop a bed of duck mousse, and garnished with the crispiest shard of duck skin, it came with chips taken to another level, cooked in duck fat, and Savoy cabbage with crispy duck. The duckiest dish I'd ever had for sure. Oh, yes, this was gastropub cooking at its finest. 

Looking around, I could see why we'd had to wait a year for a table. The Hand and Flowers is tiny inside - true to the architecture of the surrounding area with low-ceilinged rooms complete with bare beams - and can probably only seat about twenty five covers at a time. But the size means that the service is impeccable. We were waited on hand and foot, had the menu patiently explained to us. And when I described my ideal glass of white wine (pale, sweet but not overly scented), I was brought a perfect Riesling. 

And finally, pudding. You've got to have it when you go to the pub for Sunday lunch, right? But this was of a completely different class. Mum ordered blueberry soufflé with lemon verbena syrup and an extraordinary parma violet-flavoured ice cream. Tasting it took me way back to primary school, confronted by the perplexing flavours I encountered in those hated lilac sugary tablets, encased in cellophane. Only this time, my grown-up tastebuds probably appreciated it more...

I ordered a burnt honey panna cotta, bedecked with gem-like honeycomb, silky meringues, English pear and a lavender sorbet. Presented with a wonderfully delicate touch, this was the point where it became clear to me that The Hand And Flowers really deserved both of its Michelin stars. And that this wasn't just pub dining any more. 

My mother and I soothed our distended bellies with hot drinks - coffee for her for the road, and a mint tea for me. I'm a huge fan of glass tea receptacles and the teapot and accompanying glass were so covetable. I was so impressed by the design of the glass, allowing the drinker to cradle their tea without getting burnt fingertips. And that was really what summed up our experience at The Hand and Flowers for me: food that wasn't too many light years away from the familiar, homely dishes that I'm used to, but a level of considerate service that took us leagues away from the establishments on the high street. Suffice to say, I'd really love to come back some day - if I can be fitted in with the hordes of people dying to dine here!

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November Favourites

December is here! *insert bemused gripe about time flying here.* And this is my hundredth post - can you believe it? November was packed and December is shaping up to be even more hectic, meaning I've only managed to post once or twice a week lately. Even so, I'm still enjoying this little space of mine and am thinking about how to improve it next year.

November absolutely galloped past me. Despite feeling that it was so brief, I still have lots of moments to share with you. This month I've enjoyed...

Picking up a free pumpkin from behind King's Cross the day after Halloween and spending all day transforming it into a pie! 

Missing my tube stop once or twice thanks to a certain podcast. I was a few weeks late to the Serial party, but as soon as I tuned in I was hooked. Miho, Lulu, Lisa (fantastic bloggers all three!) and I were chatting about this on Twitter and we're all unhealthily hooked. Truly compelling listening. Go and check it out for yourself! Tamsin Lim takes no responsibility for the addiction that may or may not ensue following episode one.

Discovering a quiet little rooftop lunch spot just a stone's throw from the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street, overlooked by a monumental Ukrainian Church. How did I not know about this place? It's a bit too cold to eat outside now, but I'm keeping this in mind for next summer!

Melting over the most adorable hedgehog video from Wildlife Aid. So cute, and the graphics are beautiful! Makes me want to help urban hedgehogs (and possibly adopt a domesticated one?)

Jumping up and down with excitement at the first frost. Yes, I'll technically have been an adult for a full five years as of tomorrow, but I'll be a winter child forever! The novelty will wear off as soon as my dad needs me to de-ice the car.  

De-frazzling my brain at the end of the day with various cinematic and televised delights. In particular I enjoyed Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, which ticked all my boxes where it came to drama, sci-fi genre and a dying Earth. Noisy, with jawdropping visuals and hints of 2001, I felt as if I was in a rocket or flight simulator. I also binged on Les Revenants - not your typical TV show about the walking dead... And lately I've been watching Remember Me, another creepfest about a vengeful ghost that seems intent on wreaking havoc across Yorkshire! 

Allowing myself to be bewitched by the Christmas windows. Every year my family drive down to Oxford Street to check out the Liberty and Selfridges Christmas displays, and this year is a good 'un - with a sparklingly enchanted forest at Selfridges, and nautical-themed windows at Liberty that tie in with their history, the shop having been constructed from the timbers of two ships!

Skywatching more than usual. The morning light has been amazing this month, and the cold weather always brings interesting cloud formations with it. I thought this particular sky looked almost like marble.

Guzzling all the chai lattes I can get my mitts on. Not like proper chai tea at all but made using a chai-flavoured syrup, they're milky, frothy and sweet, and the perfect way to ease into the afternoon, I think. I find the ones from EAT, Timberyard and Gail's particularly comforting.

Noodling my way across London and the North. Yup, this was truly Noodvember. (Can you tell I'm all about the neologisms today?) I ate tonkotsu ramen at Bone Daddies, Tonkotsu Selfridges and United Ramen, and a very pleasant char kway teow at Tampopo in Manchester. Tampopo is a film about creating the ultimate bowl of noodles, so maybe finding perfect noodles will be my goal for 2015!

November, you were lovely, but December, I'm ready for you and the foodie carnage you're about wreak on my hapless, unwitting body. Because...I'm having four birthday dinners this month. That's right, folks - a waistband-expanding three celebratory meals this weekend and then another when my sister comes back from uni in a few weeks! And then, Christmas lunch, the mother of all festive foodie blowouts. Better factor some workouts into my goals post for this month...

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