Oh my honey, honey! Manuka Kitchen : LOCAL LOVES

After spotting a little AAGill review Mumma Morrow and I decided to give Manuka Kitchen on the Fulham Road a try. Boy am I glad we did!

I've gone past it a million times and thought nothing of it. It's very low key and unassuming, nestling in amongst the tea shops and salons. But as mum was in town, and she'd read the amazing review, a visit was put in the diary. 

Breakfast is served from 10am and although we didn't book I'd recommend doing so - I think word is going to spread like wildfire. We sat at a sweet little table in the middle of the restaurant, surrounded by families, couples and groups of friends. The atmosphere is lovely.  We ordered tea and coffee and soaked in the morning sun that was streaming through the windows. 

 

 

Tummies grumbling with anticipation we ordered blueberry pancakes and French toast that was served with bacon, banana and spiced honey. Sipping our tea and chatting about my sister's recent engagement to her lovely boyfriend we were happy as two larry's as the chefs prepared the breakfast masterpieces that soon arrived at our table.

The French toast was divine - cooked to perfection and beautifully presented with a brûléed banana still in it's skin on the top. It was utterly dreamy and a lady on the neighbouring table promptly ordered some after spotting mine.

A five minute walk from Fulham Broadway tube this is a definite breakfast hot spot and I'm planning to go for dinner soon - has anyone been? Would love an order recommendation!

xXx

London Strikes Again, All Star Lanes : LOCAL LOVES

Oh gang, I’m sorry. I’ve been gone for yonks! Life just got a bit hectic and I’ve not sat down for long enough to write. I have of course sat down at times, I haven’t been standing for weeks on end, that would be bonkers.

BUT, I’m back and while I was away I continued to photograph all the fun London things I did so have lots to tell you about – hurrah!

Shall we start with bowling? Yes, let’s start with bowling. Hands down the best spot in London Town is All Star Lanes – a 1950s throw back of underground delight. Varnished lanes, scrummy cocktails, classic diner food and retro tunes. What more could you want? Well, you could want Prince Harry to have been there:

I went with some pals of mine to the Bayswater venue, but you can also find them in Brick Lane, Holborn and Westfield Stratford too. Depending on when you go, bowling costs £6.95 to £8.95. They’re open until 11.30pm Monday to Thursday, and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. The best way to make the most of the night though is to eat there too and they often have deals that combine a meal and a game. The food is classic diner grub and doesn’t break the bank. There’s burgers, hot dogs and macaroni cheese – YUM. 

We kind of went to town with dinner.....

But obviously it's the cocktails we all go for and we couldn't resist 'The Ball' because it comes served IN A BOWLING BALL!

 

And after getting our fill we hit the lanes. Feeling cocky we opted for no bumpers. Pah, we're not kids anymore, we don't need bumpers!! Oh but Abbie, when you've had cocktails you do.... Chaos ensued. It turns out we'd all completely forgotten how to bowl. Even getting the ball to roll smoothly on the lane was proving hard but we persevered and looked pretty dapper as we did so in our bowling shoes.

 

It was very thirsty work so I got another cocktail. To ease the game along and bring out my inner-sportsman you see. I plumped for a Gin & Elderflower Julep Jar - Bombay Sapphire, elderflower, mint and apple juice. Much better than lucozade.

And by some weird twist of fate I won! I was mighty chuffed and skipped off into the night waving the score sheet aloft. Cracking stuff. All Star Lanes really is shed loads of nostalgic fun so get yourself booked in.

Pop to Paris - Day 1 : FURTHER AFIELD

“Paris is always a good idea.” 

― Audrey Hepburn

Exactly Audrey, exactly. It may always be a good idea but it doesn't always have to be expensive. If you're a Londoner getting to Paris is easy and cheap! I recently did a weekend in Gay Paree for a grand total of £215 and, considering we travelled to a-whole-nother-country, that is a total bargain, especially when you see what we managed to pack in. There's quite a lot to tell you so I'll split this bad boy into two posts.

So here you go gang, a step-by-step to 'doing Paris' on a shoestring....

Firstly, we got a brilliant deal on Eurostar tickets and I'll let you know a little secret - all tickets are at their absolute cheapest on the day that they go on sale and this is exactly 15 weeks in advance. So work out when you want to go and have your finger hovering over the Book button 15 weeks before. Simple! This means you'll be able to get a return ticket for £69 - even at peak times. Snazzy. And it gets better - if you book as a large group (we were a ten) you can get the group rate of £63! Cracking stuff. C'est parfait! 

So after work on the Friday we all skipped out of our respective offices, floppy hats and fluffy coats in tow, and gathered at St Pancras station - which in itself is an experience. The architecture is just beautiful and it houses the longest champagne bar in Europe. A glass of bubbles starts at £13 so if you're feeling a little flush why not kick off your trip off with some fizz?

We however smuggled a small haul of prosecco onto the train so had our fair share of fizz, as well as every snack imaginable....

The journey takes just over two hours and suddenly you're in Paris. The train glides into Gare du Nord....it's very Railway Children, 'daddy, my daddy!'-esque with the train steam et al. We purposely booked a hostel close to the station so that we could dump our bags quickly and head out for a Parisian beverage.

For those of you that haven't stayed in a hostel before - they're basically a very basic hotel for when you don't intend to do much sleeping but need a base for a quick snooze and a shower. We decided to get a ten bed dorm room, y'know boarding school style. It was simple, clean and fantastically located. We dropped our bags and headed to the bar to plan the following day...

Saturday

After a breakfast of granola, natural yoghurt, apricot jam smothered baguettes and orange juice we headed off to Sacré Coeur in the Monmartre district of the city. It was a brisk 15 minute walk up to this beautiful spot, including a lot of steps but it's so worth the view.

And it's from here that we got our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower - and my gosh is it huge! I couldn't believe my eyes. It is so, so much bigger than any other building in the city. With that little taste of what was to come we headed off into the centre of the city. We decided to walk and it took about half an hour. Winding down through the streets we wondered past lovely fruit shops, bakeries, butchers and even a theatre!

Look! There it is!

  

We found a lovely little coffee place called L'entracte right opposite the Palaise Garnier (the Paris equivalent of our Royal Opera House), on Rue Auber, for a pit stop. Coffee is a delicacy in France and there are a million different versions but most of them come in espresso size. I plumped for a cafe noisette and it gave me that little zap of mid-morning energy a proper tourist needs! 

With the caffeine zipping through us we walked the last little bit to the Louvre so got the posing underway.

We of course were feeling really rather peckish by now, especially after all that jumping, so off for some lunch we went! We completely lucked out and stumbled across La Cooperative where we all ordered some form of cheese to refuel for the afternoon. It was such a sweet little place and the waiters were very patient (and a little flirty, wink wink!) as I attempted to order in French and pretended to understand when they explained the specials. Nod and smile guys, nod and smile!

Once every morsel was devoured we skipped off to le Jardin des Tuileries which is a beautiful public garden that runs along the side of the river from the Louvre. At the end it joins with the Avenue des Champs-Elysees which is famous for it's luxury shops but there was only one that we were aiming for and that was Laduree - the famous macaroon shop! Now, there is a queue to get in but it really is worth it! Waiting to be served is an experience in itself, this is true, luxury Parisian baking. We bought a box together and I went for a Rose one - my god was it scrummy! I can still taste it now! If you want to try one but don't have the time to pop over to France there are three little Laduree shops in London, but shhhhh!

We than skipped down the rest of the Champs-Elysees to pose cheesily in front L'Arc de Triomphe. By this point we were all utterly pooped so we hopped onto the metro (just like the tube but cheaper more spacious!) and headed back to the hostel. 

 
For dinner, on the recommendation of a friend, we were booked into Le Point Zero - now it's a not the kind of place you go if you want a 'truly French experience' but we were the only English people in there and the food was absolutely fantastic. We of course started the meal with a round of cocktails (gin, lemon and basil - phwoar) and a lot of baked camembert.

It's a really lively place and people from other tables kept popping over to say hi and one person even gave us the business card for their blog! We had such a laugh with everyone in there - as we left some of the other patrons were trying out their English 'Bye bye! See you soon! Catch you later!' and the waiters were ringing the bell behind the bar - utterly hilarious!

 

We were then led through the streets by Catriona to a secret speakeasy style club that was hidden down a rickety old spiral staircase behind an old, unmarked black door. I wouldn't usually suggest knocking on unmarked doors in unfamiliar cities but go on, this ones brilliant! It's called Le Ballroom du Boeuf and you'll find it at 58 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They have quite a strict clothing policy on the door so make sure you're dressed up. Here's a sneaky little blog about it from when it first opened. We arrived just before eleven and managed to grab a table from which we partied the night away.....

Day 2 to follow! Bisous, xxx