Taste of London 2014

Time again for the annual "Taste of London" and guess what? It didn't rain for a change!

We had a lovely time with too much food as always.. forgot to take photos of them all - guess i was too hungry :-)

Here is a selection of what i did take photos of...

Stripbar & Steak at the Malmaison - 18th of June

We celebrated our wedding anniversary on the 18th of June and i had originally booked this restaurant called "Canvas" but the day before we were due to go there i get a call and guess what? They've had a gas leak! Restaurnat is closed for a week and with that our reservation goes out the window..
After trying a few favorites like Roka and SushiSamba with no luck we decided to go out and have some steak instead and found a great offer at Stripbar & Steak at the Malmaison - 50% off the whole a carte menu! Yes please.

The Malmaison is a little boutique hotel situated on Charterhouse square and the restaurant is in the basement.. very dimly lit, music playing, banquettes and neon signs.... very friendly welcome by Fabio, the manager.

I had a lobster cocktail to start and hubby had a trio or cocktails (shrimp/prawn/lobster) We also had some interesting cheesy bread

For main we had steak (yeah, really!) I had a 350 gr steak which i could not finish but it was good. We had some Mac'n'cheese, spinach and some tomato salad on the side..

With 50% off this was really worth it. They also do a great sounding brunch menu.. might be back to try it out!

Duck & Waffle - 15th of June 2014

An old friend of mine was in London last weekend so we went out for a late lunch / brunch at Duck & Waffle.. such impressive views from up there!

I had the smoked salmon with warm flatbreads, gherkins, capers and creme fraiche - which was lovely. My friend had the ox cheek benedict and we shared the beetroot salad. Food was great and at a decent price too.

We also shared a decadent sounding waffle with home made nutella, banana, ice cream & peanut crunch - sounded good on paper but did not live up to expectations.. we even left some!!!

This was my second time here but i would definately go back again.

 

And here is a shot of the view /the Gherkin - and us! :-)

 

Home made chocolates with salted caramel and chocolate ganache!

I have some friendly bake off's with one of my bosses (male!!) at work - so far we have made macarons and cheesecake.

He is heavily into making chocolates - so our next date has been set for our chocolate making challenge (14 July) which means that i am now practising at home with my amazing new magnetic chocolate mould from Fat Daddios - perfect for chocolate transfers to make the chocs look professional. I used some slightly retro looking gold transfers in the bottom of my mould.

Check out the moulds here - they are FAB!
I followed the instruction for the tempering of the chocolate from Lindt and it worked a treat. I used dark 70% chocolate since that is the easiest to temper and for a filling i cheated and used a ready made caramel from "Bonne maman" (the same people who make those yummy jams :-) i just added some sea salt to make it tastier and not so sweet. I half filled the moulds with the now salted caramel and then i added a dark chocolate ganache on top (made from cream and dark chocolate) before "closing" the praline with more tempered chocolate.

I was sooo pleased with the result. Check them out! Fingers crossed they look and taste as good when i make them for our bake off!!

Mad Hatters Tea Party at The Sanderson Hotel

I quite like a spot of afternoon tea now and again - i mean, who can resist just out of the oven scones with lots of clotted cream and jam?
The best afternoon teas i have had in London would be the Langham and the Ritz - both with to die for scones :-)

This time i went with 2 girlfriends to the Sanderson hotel for the Mad Hatters tea party

What a popular place - when we arrived if felt like it was a Saturday evening at 10 pm - not a Saturday afternoon at 3:30pm. Lots of (mostly) women dressed up in cocktail dresses sipping champagne.

It was busy but staff were very friendly and organised. I loved the look of the afternoon tea and the lovely touches like the sugar box and tea choices but it was a little bit of style over substance. The sandwiches were not great - just lots of bread and hardly any filling - the best one was the salmon on rye.

Same goes for the mushroom marshmallows and meringue carrots.. looked great but lacking in flavor.
The mini sweet and savoury scones were great and the green tea /white chocolate mousse was also very good. I also loved the "drink me" potion.. :-)

The other good thing was that they happily refilled anything that you wanted more of - and you could also switch to a different tea/coffee if you wanted - nice touch.

We had a great time and the damage was £38 for the afternoon tea per person (or £48 with a glass of champagne or £58 for a glass of rose champagne)

PARIS

Paris is such an amazing city - i love just walking around exploring and finding amazing little places along the way. Saying that - i also do research to know where to find the best places for chocolates and patisserie too. This time i focused mostly on eclairs since i have done macarons so much.

I had read about 2 places: L'eclair de Genie & L'atelier de l'eclair

We first went to L'atelier de L'eclair which was on a quiet little side street (top tip - great parfumerie a few doors down called "Nose")

They had lots of display cabinets with eclairs in both normal and mini size. I quite liked the idear of a smaller size since you can try more of them. You can also sit down and eat your eclairs over a coffee in comfy sofas.

We shared a salted caramel, Vanilla and 2 pistachio eclairs and they were good but visually they were a little bit disappointing - not as perfect as they are on the website.

HOWEVER - we then went to the L'eclair de Genie in the Marais.. surprise surprise - a loooooong queue outside which luckily only took about 15 min - and YES it was so worth it.. the finish of the eclairs was stunning and the fillings amazing. They win hands down.
We shared a Pistachio/orange, Praline/Noisette and a Vanilla/caramellised pecan.. all amazing.

I really recommend this place to anyone who wants the perfect eclair!

Chocolate, transfer sheets and banana parfait

LOVE trying to make great desserts. This time me and my friend decided to get into the dangerous territory of chocolate tempering and transfer sheets.

After cutting up my transfer sheets to fit and nervously tempering the chocolate we went for it and created chocolate cylinders - we placed them in a muffin tray to keep them stable before letting them cool and harden.

We then made a banana & caramel parfait which was piped into the cylinder and then put in the freezer - which was amazing.. i just can't find the recipe anymore! Sigh.. also made a tuile, some mango coulis and some salted peanut brittle - voila - here it is. Not too shabby if i may say so myself!