Kingly Court...

There are so many different restaurants in London covering all cuisines so it is usually really hard deciding on where to go for dinner. But not today! We went to Kingly Court in Soho which is a food and drink mecca with over 15 restaurants and cafes situated around the main courtyard. Instead of sitting down and eating our whole dinner at one restaurant we decided to go to 3 different restaurants and order 1 dish from each and share it.

We started right at the top of Kingly Court at Le Bab which is on the 2nd floor. We choose Le Bab as it serves posh kebabs which seemed like a novel idea. Also I had never had a kebab before so this seemed like the perfect place to try one.

Le Bab has a very interesting small menu with unique dishes. It was hard to just pick one dish but we went with the 15-hour free range pork shawarma kebab. We were definitely swayed by the crackling.

It really was tasty with flavours that I hadn't expected when we ordered it. For £12 it initially seemed pretty steep for what is essentially a pork wrap but after tasting it I would say it was worth it.

Moving on from the Le Bab, we next went to Señor Ceviche which is a Peruvian restaurant specialising in Ceviche. We definitely knew we wanted to go for a ceviche here and after perusing the menu for a while went for "The Spaniard" which is a sea bream and king prawn ceviche.

We got given a mini bowl of what looked like sweetcorn and I guess it was sweetcorn but it was salty and crispy. It was like popcorn that hadn't puffed and was very moreish, we finished our little portion.

I accidentally didn't take a photo before we split the ceviche onto our 2 plates but I promise it looked a little more presentable. It tasted really fresh and slightly spicy, on the other end of the spectrum to our pork kebab!

I do have to say that our waitress here was a little miffed that we only ordered one dish to share but I think that was because she was really enthusiastic about the food and maybe thought that she wasn't selling it enough to us. 

The final restaurant that we gave a go was Oka, a sushi restaurant. Here it was a no brainer and we ordered the Spider roll, a soft shell crab uramaki topped with avocado.

It was good sushi, not amazing (I'm talking about you black cod from Sticks and Sushi), but for the price it was really worth it. 

Now we were running out of time so instead of swapping restaurants for dessert we ordered their white chocolate and macadamia nut cookie skillet. This was sooo yummy especially when the ice cream melted into the warm cookie. It is a nice simple idea for a dessert which would be easy to recreate at home.

After our restaurant hopping we hurried up to Madame Tussauds for "The Game's Afoot" which is a live action immersive theatre show. You are the detective and you ask the actors questions to try and work out who the killer is. It was possibly the coolest thing I have ever experienced and I am definitely on the lookout for more things like that to do. I can't tell you much more about it as I don't want to give anything else away so go do it for yourself.

Out of the three restaurants we went to I think Le Bab was the best because it was so different to anything I have had before and the one dish we had was so flavoursome that I really can't wait to go back and try more.

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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!

Junkyard Golf...

Tucked away just off Brick Lane is a underground golf course consisting of 3 9-hole courses made from junk! Among these courses are 4 bars serving a variety of tipples to help your swing.

Boy and I set off for the "In da Club" course. We had previously had a cocktail so were at the perfect level to appreciate the old barbies, cows, wendy houses, speedboat, you name it, that the courses were made up from.

Don't go in expecting a luxury golf club as this mini golf really lives up to its name "Junkyard Golf" by being made up of things from a junkyard. Trying not to sound like a grandma here but the only way I can describe it is really quirky and cool.

Yes this hole was made up of a plastic cow with earrings, eyelashes and gemstone eyebrows.

The UV room was by far the coolest room. It had the last 3 holes in and makes you feel like you are in a club. Quick suggestion if you are planning on playing the same course as we did is to pick a light coloured ball as it will be lit up by the UV in this room. We chose a blue and a purple ball which camouflaged in with the background and subsequently became a great excuse for boy to use when he lost pretty spectacularly on the last hole.

All the other courses at Junkyard Gold looked really cool as well and they are opening a new course in September! I recommend either coming a bit tipsy or getting one (or a lot) of their cocktails or beers because it only makes the whole experience funnier.

If you are looking for a little classier mini golf course look at my previous post entitled "Date Day" as it includes another mini golf bar called Swingers.

Book your tickets online here and prepare for an afternoon full of "sporty" laughs.
http://www.junkyardgolfclub.co.uk/#!about-ldn/d2atf

Date Day...

We took the tube to London Bridge to visit Borough Market. We had a few nibbles here including scallops, a duck wrap and a glass of peach wine spritz. I would recommend sharing everything you get at the market as then you get to try more without getting too full.

For dessert (and because our feet needed a break) we got a Bread Ahead Doughnut and a coffee from Monmouth coffee. We were lucky enough to get a seat in the small coffee shop.

We had previously tried Bread Ahead's popular Sea Salt Caramel Honeycomb doughnut so this time we went for the chocolate ganache flavour with cacao nibs on top.

I would definitely have to say the caramel one is a lot better as the chocolate ganache did not have a very strong flavour. Then again maybe it is so the doughnut is not so heavy but as we were sharing it could have done with more flavour.

The cappuccino I had was of course as amazing as one would expect from Monmouth Coffee with a queue always out of the door. Bear in mind they do not have skimmed milk on offer but so not let this or the queue stop you from ordering a coffee here!

From Borough Market we walked to Swingers Golf Bar which is situated right next to the Gherkin.

There are a lot of cool pop up food joints at the bar including Pizza Pilgrims, Patty&Bun and Le Bab. Unfortunately we had just eaten so stepped straight onto the course to begin our mini golf session.

There are "Caddies" on the golf course to fetch drinks for you as you play so we gladly ordered a glass of rose for me and a bottle of Corona for boy. 

The nine holes went faster than expected. On the eighth hole, my amazing skill (luck) landed me a hole in one and with it a free shot of limoncello which was downed eagerly.

After finishing our round we moved upstairs to the bar.

We ordered two cocktails from their extensive cocktail menu.

The cocktail in the champagne glass is "The Albatross" which was Cordon Rosado Cava, pear saffron puree and cassis.

The cocktail on the left is a "Clover Club" which was Tanqueray No.TEN, Noily Prat Vermouth, fresh raspberries, lemon and egg whites.

As you can see from the photos I drank most of the "Clover Club" as it was definitely the better, and sweeter, of the two.

It was such a good day and such a great date idea to do both Borough Market and Swingers in one day as you can walk between them. I would 100% recommend both to anyone.