Pedalos, Picnics and Palaces...

This is a post about an amazing day I had a couple of weeks ago and I am blogging about it because it is a good date day idea for a sunny day.

Boy and I got to Hyde Park on the tube and headed straight for the pedalos on the Serpentine. You can hire them for either half an hour (£10 per adult) or an hour (£12 per adult). We hired them for the hour and made it the whole way around the lake with a few sunbathing and photo stops. On a beautiful day like this you might want to just float around as peddling becomes thirsty work in the heat!

From the pedalos we walked through the park and out the other side to Kensington High Street. There is the Serpentine Gallery on the way which is free so you can have a wander around if you fancy some art. Our sights were set on getting some food for our picnic so we skipped getting some culture.

We went to Whole Foods to buy food for our picnic and literally spent half an hour deciding what to get was there was sooo many options. We ended up with some freshly cooked beef, some marinated prawns, a salad box full of all sorts of things from the salad bar and a focaccia. We had brought a bottle of champagne and a punnet of strawberries with us too in our gorgeous white picnic basket.

Just across the road from Whole Foods is Kensington Palace and Gardens and this is where we decided to have our extravagant picnic. As it was a lovely day, the gardens were full of people but we managed to find a space for our picnic rug and dug in.

It was the best picnic I have ever eaten and the champagne definitely topped it off. We spent the rest of the afternoon lying in the sunshine feeling more than slightly tipsy, almost napping before we even looked around the gardens.

Eventually we hauled ourselves up and went to have a look at the Palace and the Gardens. Kensington Palace is the current residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and although we didn't go in, we admired it from the outside. The gardens were beautifully planted with all kinds of flowers. There is also a massive lake in the gardens that we may or may not have lay down next to again.

So pedalos, picnic and then palace, write it down in your diary and take your favourite person!

Caravan King's Cross...

On a cold rainy day last November, Boy and I journeyed down to Kings Cross in the hopes of having amazing brunch at Caravan. Alas it was not to be as they had a half an hour wait and due to hunger we hightailed it down the road to Granger & Co. It wasn't actually a problem as we had their famous ricotta pancakes which are still the best pancakes I have eaten to date. In spite of the divine pancakes we still had the desire to have brunch at Caravan one day.

Last weekend was finally the day that we were to try brunch at Caravan. We arrived early to ensure no waiting time.. Too early in fact, it wasn't even open! On Saturday it opens at 10am but is you are early like us there are fountains to look at in the sunshine. Whilst we were eating children actually turned up in their thousands (maybe about a dozen) to play in said fountains.

It was a sunny day so as soon as it opened we grabbed a table outside. The service was really great despite how many people sat down at the same time as us. We were offered water without even asking and the waiter came to take our order promptly.

In desperate need of caffeine we scanned the drinks menu. Boy has a thing for Cold Brew right now so ordered one of those. I inquisitively asked the waiter what a Cascara was and was somehow conned into ordering one. The waiter literally did not explain a thing about it and so when my so called coffee turned up with a lime in it I was a little taken aback. It was not coffee. For future reference, Cascara is Coffee cherry tea. As in tea made from the cherry a coffee bean is taken from. So basically take a coffee back and take away everything good about it (the coffee taste and caffeine) and then mince it down and make this tea. It was cold so refreshing enough and not horrible tasting but it was not the caffeine buzz I was after.

For my brunch I had the Barbecue beans, fried eggs, mojo verde, toast and chorizo sausage. You could pick your toast so I went for sourdough. It was such a good dish and a good choice too as I would never make this at home.

Boy ordered the Baked eggs, tomato pepper ragout, greek yoghurt, merguez sausage and sourdough toast. I can confirm that this was delicious too.

We were so tempted by all the sweet dishes, coconut bread and pancakes mmm, as well as the pastries and muffins but held back as we were going to a food market later.

Just outside the restaurants there are grass steps by the river so we sat and sunbathed until we got too hot.

We are definitely going to return to Caravan and if that isn't a recommendation I don't know what is! There are more adventurous dishes on the menu that we want to give a go and so should you.

Sloane Brothers...

Today I am going to share with you a very special secret place, Sloane Brothers Frozen Yoghurt Shop! Okay it is not that secret but I only just spotted it on Instagram a few months ago and it is tucked all the way at the top of Brick Lane. Not to mention if more people knew about this place there would be a queue out the door.

Luckily for us when we popped in at about 7pm on a Sunday, there were only a few people already there munching on their fro yo. Although the no queue meant I kind of panicked on toppings but in the end it was super delicious and anything I chose would've been heavenly.

There are four flavours of fro yo to choose from: Natural, Chocolate, Strawberry or Dulce de Leche (which is basically a creamy caramel flavour). 

Toppings wise you can go crazy and crown your fro yo with all types of delicious things from desiccated coconut to giant (absolutely incredible) homemade brownies to party rings to strawberries. You can also douse the whole thing in sauces such as chocolate or caramel.

I chose the Dulce de Leche fro yo topped with a peanut butter (!!) brownie and raspberries. I didn't get a sauce as I thought, even for me, it would be sweet enough.

Let me just tell you something, Boy and I both agreed that if they sold the brownies separately and we didn't feel like fro yo we would be back for them alone. That's how good they were! The Dulce de Leche fro yo is also mouthwatering and incredibly creamy for fat free fro yo, it tasted like caramel soft serve ice cream.

Moving on to Boy's fro yo, he got Dulce de Leche fro yo too (usually we wouldn't get the same but we made an exception as we were such this was the best flavour) topped with a salted caramel brownie, strawberries and mini jammie dodgers.

It really is a charming little shop with  bright colours everywhere, a story on the wall about where the Sloane Brothers supposedly got their inspiration, and little milk churns to sit on.

I've tried big chain companies frozen yoghurt before (Snog and Pinkberry) and Sloane Brothers definitely top them due to the creaminess of the fro yo, you seriously would not even be able to tell the difference between soft serve ice cream and this. Also because of the toppings, you really cannot beat 5 different flavours of homemade brownies to top your fat free dessert with!

If you are in Shoreditch get yourself to the Sloane Brothers. They are open until 8pm everyday except Monday so there is no excuse!

Abu Dhabi...

Another holiday post today! This summer my mum, my twin and I went to Abu Dhabi. This post is going to be very photo heavy as I always get snap happy on holidays to help me remember it all.

We stayed at the Hilton hotel which was lovely. It had its own private beach and pools with waterslides. It also has a gym and 10 restaurants! 10! We only stayed for 4 nights so could not try all of the restaurants but the ones that we did eat at were really good. I am a sucker for a good breakfast buffet and the Hilton delivered a great one.

One of my favourite days was when we went to see the Abu Dhabi Mosque. It was beautiful and modern, decorated with flowers from all around the world. We tried to cover up before we came but ended up having to rent abayas. I think it was a great experience even though we were baking inside our new outfits, luckily the inside of the mosque is air conditioned. Definitely go and visit this mosque if you are in the area, there are free tours which are very informative.

There are lots of malls in Abu Dhabi. Really big ones with lots of stores from America, Australia, UK and some Middle Eastern stores too. We went to the Abu Dhabi mall and the Marina mall. It was great because they are open until 10pm so we went in the evening when it was a little cooler.

One afternoon we walked to the Emirates Palace hotel to look around and have afternoon tea. It is the hotel that features in the movie Sex and the city two and is extremely glamorous.

I got a mojito, my twin got a vanilla and white chocolate milkshake and my mum got their signature 24 carat gold cappuccino. The cappuccino was very decadent but honestly did just taste like a regular coffee with flakes on top that stuck to your lips. Still cool though, where else can you drink gold?!

We got some scones that came with raspberry jam, blackberry jam, apricot jam, lemon curd, cream and fresh berries. They were an amazing treat and we enjoyed having such a traditional english thing in a completely different setting.

Our quick trip was a whirlwind of sunbathing, shopping and food. It was so much fun and despite the over 45 degree heat, we managed to get a lot done. We worked out everyday around 2pm in the hotel gym because this was the hottest part of the day so we wanted to be out of the sun and the air con was frosty in the gym.

I would say that Dubai is more of a tourist spot than Abu Dhabi but if you are looking for a bit of a different holiday then definitely give it a go. There is always the option of staying in Dubai (maybe in my favourite hotel of all time The Atlantis) and getting a taxi to see the mosque, or Ferrari World, or even the Grand Prix if you come at the right time.