Proud Cabaret - Groupon deal!!

Woodsy and I purchased this deal from Groupon.co.uk for a 3 course meal and cabaret show for £20 at PROUD CABARET restaurant in the City. It sounded like a steal so we each bought 2 vouchers and each took a friend. Our party of 4 arrived at 8pm. Seating is at 7.45pm (it was pretty tricky to find) and we're seated in the downstairs restaurant right at the back!! We figured this must have been because we were Groupon customers??? Which I guess is to be expected?! But our table was situated behind a pillar so our view wasn't great and we were already right at the back of the restaurant! Not deal! If you're going to go to a dinner/ cabaret show you're better off spending the little extra and getting good seats, cause that's what it's all about really isn't it?! The food was just OK. My chicken came out cold and the chickpea accompaniment reminded me of baked beans. Hmmm! The lamb was much nicer but that wasn't really hot when we got it either. And the portion sizes of starters and mains were quite small. Although my third course, a cheese platter did the trick and I was definitely full in the end. Even though the food was nothing to rave about the entertainment was great! It had it all really. Burlesque, Cabaret, Comedy, Circus acts and tasteful nudity!!! Gotta love that! In the end our bill came to £200 (just drinks) so £50 each. We had a few cocktails, a couple of bottles of wine and the boys had spirits. The night was great but only because of the company not the place. I probably wouldn't go again as it still cost us £70 each and that was with a Groupon discount (OUCH!!). http://www.proudcabaret.com/

Tiroler Hut - An Austrian themed night!!

This place is awesome!!! A dinky little underground restaurant with super low ceilings in Notting Hill. Blink and you'll miss the entrance. Don't duck and you'll knock yourself out!! The Tiroler Hut is perfect for a large group to celebrate an occasion like Jono's Farewell! I had to book about 3 weeks in advanced to get a table for 12 of us on a Friday night. The nutty yet friendly Austrian staff offer a 3 course set menu for £28.50 per head. You can pick whatever you want from their extensive menu and if you can't fit in dessert you can have a shot instead! Perfect! We ordered our steins of beer on arrival while waiting for our party to arrive and watched the place fill up rather quickly! Entertainment started up, live Austrian musician and singer, to keep everyone in good spirits. About 8.45 everyone was seated and were were able to order our meal selections which ranged from pork knuckle & traditional sausage to turkey schnitzel & goulash soup. All of which were delicious! I think the highlight of the evening was Jono playing the cow bells with the owner and another patron dressed in her dirndl, and all while creeping!! A for effort Jono! Also Ricardo the Korean who sings in Italian at an Austrian restaurant!! WTF! But oh so funny! All in all we had a fantastic night, got really drunk and full, and stumbled out of there at about midnight having spent £60 each for everything! A must do at least once for a laugh with good mates!

http://www.tirolerhut.co.uk/home.html

PING PONG - All you can eat Sunday's!!!

It's been a while since i updated my blog and i do have a few gems to blog about!

The first being one of my favourite restaurants PING PONG!

Ping Pong is a chain with loads of restaurants around London serving modern Chinese Dim Sum everyday. Whenever i go they always serve up a huge variety of quality food at decent prices.

A few of us headed there on Sunday a while back for PING PONG'S all you can eat dim sum for £20!! I wasn't quite sure what would be on offer considering it was all you can eat but was surprised to find out that only a few items were omitted from the menu. Between the 5 of us we managed to eat our way through the entire selection of Dim Sum and other yummy dishes. Add in a couple of bottles of wine and their famous flower teas (the flower bud in the bottom of the tea glass grows in front of your eyes within minutes) and we ended up having a lazy 3 hr lunch!!! The staff didn't mind one bit that we were there for so long as usually Ping Pong is a quick in and out style restaurant. I would recommend the £20 Sunday lunch to anyone. Great value, friendly service, quality food, cocktails and wine! Ticks all the boxes really!

Check it out!!!

http://www.pingpongdimsum.com/

CAYTRE - Vietnamese with the ladies!

Jenna had been nagging and nagging like an old lady trying to get us girls to her favourite Vietnamese joint in Old Street. Apparently amazing! But living in W3 we haven't had the drive to head all the way out there until last weekend! Cas, Sal & I met Jenna at Old St tube station and headed to the restaurant, bumping into Jenna's sister along the way who also raved about this place?!! When we arrived we were told it was a 10 min wait...... You can't book tables they're THAT busy! And true to their word it was only 10 minutes until we were seated. Now this place has a time limit on how long you can dine for (90 min to be exact) as seriously they are THAT busy! Jenna the CayTre pro ordered her favs like beef bun sa, prawn summer rolls, Vietnamese pancakes and we added a few newbies, the chillied salt & pepper soft shell crab, fillet mignon & chicken royale. The food came super quick and OMG it looked and smelt fantastic. Sal nearly stopped breathing when it arrived she was that excited! Lol! All the dishes were ridiculously yum, light and the great thing about Vietnamese is that is also pretty healthy! We were so impressed by the food that we had to order a red wine to celebrate. Check out the pics to see their HUGE wine glasses. It always tastes better from a nice glass. Well our 90 minutes was up, time to leave. But not before we payed our bill of course. 4 starters, 3 mains & 3 glasses of wine and great service came to £66....... £16.50 each!! I think that's super cheap for the best Vietnamese I've ever tasted. If you don't experience the CayTre while in London you need to be shot!

Otto Pizza - Best Pizza in London!

Last Thursday night I enjoyed some amazing corn meal crust pizza with Miss Sophie Rose in Notting Hill. We went to a little place called Otto tucked around the corner on Chepstow Rd. I wasn't sure how good their pizza was actually going to be with a base made from corn meal instead of normal dough, but wow was I surprised!! Soph and I shared a large fresh walnut and blue cheese salad and we picked 3 pieces each of their gourmet pizzas from the menu. You can buy by the slice for £3.50 per slice or get a half pizza for £10 and a whole for £18. I would recommend buying by the slice so you can taste a selection of different toppings. ALL ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! I also have to mention the quality of the wait staff and owner/ manager. I think we were served by the owner (Aussie accent i think?) Oops! And he was lovely and knew the menu inside out and made fabulous recommendations. Although that's not hard as the entire menu is amazing. The other female waitress was also brilliant and friendly. Our bill came to £35 between the two of us. I consider that a cheap meal out!!! Overall a great little place for healthier, gourmet pizza to die for! Also great for gluten intolerant people because the base is made of corn meal. They do have a completely gluten free base if you need. Best Pizza in London I think!!!

TOTEM - Cirque du Soleil

OMG! WTF! These people are AMAZING!

Yol, Simone, John and I headed to the Royal Albert Hall last night to get a glimpse of the best Circus in the world..... CIRQUE du SOLEIL! Their new show is called Totem and it tells a story about the evolutionary progress of species through science, myths and legends. The show explores how man is tied to different species and the fascinating journey of man from it's amphibian state to it's ultimate desire to fly. In other words you will be thoroughly entertained by the array of characters such as The Scientist who juggles balls in a test tube, Indian hoop dancers, Rings trio, Chinese unicyclists throwing bowls to one another and catching them on their heads, Crystal ladies foot juggling mats (one of my fav's) and the ultimate ending, a group of artists dressed in Neon South American inspired morph suits performing ridiculous acrobatics, flying through the air from one bar to another. It's really too impossible to explain how amazing these circus artists are, you just have to go and see a Cirque du Soleil show if you are in London. They are constantly reinventing their shows with new stories, characters and acts. I've been to one before and this one is totally different to the last and never ceases to amaze! Our tickets were £55 and soooo worth it. Cas & Shayd went the week before and scored £90 box tickets for £50!!! BARGAIN!

Check it out http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/totem/show/acts.aspx

Hula Hooping @ The Old Queens Head

I never thought I would say this but we actually got a workout doing Hula!

Cas and I missioned it all the way to Islington last Saturday to the Old Queens Head Pub for our very first Hula Hooping class/ workout/ lesson..... Whatever! It's a bit of an old dingy pub but has loads of character and friendly locals. Upstairs we met Charlene our Hula expert/ teacher who had the house tunes going and disco lights flowing. Wasn't sure what to expect when we found a pretty much empty room, bar one other girl. I thought maybe this was more of a play around nonsense sort of gig but 'what the hell' we did come all this way so we stayed and gave it a good crack! Well it turns out that Charlene's class last Saturday had about 23 people in it with barely any room to dance or hula!!! So we were quite lucky to have the place to ourselves and a one on one lesson. Charlene turned out to be such a pro with the hula hoop. Spinning it round every part of her body and still dancing around to house music and LOOKING AMAZING!

Cas and I managed to pick it up pretty quickly and could show off a few cheeky spins, grapevines and booty shaking while keeping our hopps spinning. But it is SO much harder than you think!! We left the class desperate to buy our own hula hoop, that's how much fun we had. And Charlene had showed us so many tricks that we struggled with, we were determined to become professional Hula Hoopers. LOL! A decent hoop costs about £20 (charlene makes them). But her class costs only £7 for the hour. Money well spent and we were sore for a few days after!!! Crazy! You can check class times and info here http://www.theoldqueenshead.com/whats-on/

The Blind Tiger

What a great night last night! Although it was freezing Jenna, Nicole and I made the trek to Clapham to experience The Blind Tiger restaurant. And we weren't disappointed. A 7 min walk from Clapham Common tube we found the Lost Society and next to it The Blind Tiger restaurant hidden behind a big black mysterious door. It doesn't look like much from the outside, just a black door and a buzzer. So we rang the buzzer hoping someone at the end would be able to steer us in the right direction. Our call was answered and the gentleman on the other end assured us he would come and meet us. Ooooo the mystery! The black door opened, the waiter greeted us and proceeded to show us through to the restaurant. We were suprised and excited to see a gorgeous courtyard (for all you smokers) lite up by candles and mood lighting. Entering the restaurant we walked past candle lite tables hidden behind beaded curtains, 1920'S inspired art work, deep red, black and gold colours and loads of textured walls. Our table was also lit up by candles and above it was a huge chandelier. Impressed!!!
The whole dining experience was amazing. The wait staff were super friendly and knew the menu well. I had the pork belly and the girls had the rib eye steak. Both dishes were fantastic! They specialise in cocktails inspired by the 1920s and their list is extensive. We were lucky enough to receive a free one with our meal for the January offer. Thanks Jenna!! Tre Good! My meal came to £23 all up including a nice glass of Cab Sav. The girls meals came to £30 each. I think pretty reasonable considering the food was yummo! And a main is plenty to fill you up. The only disappointment was that our dessert never arrived!!! Not so bad because i was full and didn't want to spend the extra anyway. Would definitely go back! Oh and they have live music Thursday and Fridays! We had the pleasure of being entertained by a Willie Nelson style musician and singer. :)
Great dinner date with Jenna & Nic. Love you girls! xx

The Hoxton Pony

Today I am definitely still feeling the effects of a wicked Saturday night out in Shoreditch! My good friend Mel and about 15 of us headed to The Hoxton Pony to celebrate her 23rd birthday. I'd been to Hoxton Pony once before and had a great night. So when my friend and flat mate Woodsy heard that The Loose Cannons (DJ/Producers and Radio Broadcasters) were playing there on Saturday and suggested we go for Mel's birthday I was keen as. The venue is stylish and people dress to impress. Entry was £10 on the door but a few of us got there early (just before 9pm) and managed to get in for FREE! With coats checked in for £1 we were ready to drink. I was keen not to drink too much as I'm on a budget and we had a few pre drinks at home. But as always when the venue is nice, music is awesome and friends are in top form ready to party I couldn't help myself and got pretty damn drunk! Easy to do when their standard spirits are served as doubles. Eeeek! But we love that! Pretty sure the double shots were to blame for a few of my wipeouts on the dance floor!! Top night! Drink prices are pretty decent with their spirits at £7.50 each and cocktails range from £7.50 - £8.50 each. Can't complain. The only annoying thing was at the end of our night my friend Brett and I went to collect our jackets and they said they couldnt find it and to come back at the end of the night to see what was left over. WTF!!! So I had to head home jacketless in the middle of winter. Lucky for them I was drunk enough and didn't care too much! Not very helpful though. I called them this morning to check if they had my jacket and they do. Thank god!Overall the night was excellent. I highly recommend the Hoxton Pony for a Saturday night out. Saturday nights are best if your're looking for wicked House and Electro tunes! Check out their website for listings of what's on.