as i mentioned on monday, i've done a lot of eating this week. i realise this is entirely normal, to eat a lot of food, but the food that i've consumed this week has even impressed me, and i've been the one eating it. i'm not entirely sure how it all came about, as i try to break my "eating out" up across the month so that i can still maintain ignorance at how i am not a picture of health from all the home-made stir frys and black coffees, but somehow last week, i managed to eat out three days in a row. and... well... a lot of food.
rebekah and i headed over after work on thursday, to finally fulfil the barbecued-meat dreams that plagued us since we were unable to get in the chain's original restaurant in leeds. rather than choose mains, we decided to throw caution to the wind and sample a few of the side specialities instead. i say "a few", and it was only ~after checking with the manager that it wouldn't be ~too ~much ~food, but realistically we did order far too much.
i went for the swine fries (a mix of sweet potato and skin-on fries topped with pulled pork, cheese, chipotle sour cream, coriander and lime salsa, and jalapeños), bbq buffalo wings (mild, with blue cheese dipping sauce) and rib tips (the trimmings from the smokey pork ribs) while rebekah went for a combination equally as lethal. and together, we ate nearly half of it all. not only because it was a ridiculous amount of food for two humans, but also because...well... it just really wasn't that great.
some of the sauces were a bit, well, bland while others were far too, un-bland, if you know what i mean. also, some of the meat was really very fatty for what you expect for bbq food (like just just don't want fatty rib ends man!), and that kind of ruined the fun - i hate having to pick through meat to get to the good bits, but i did spend an awful amount of time cutting up those tips, pulling out chunks ogf fat. *sick face emoji). the price was pretty good though, and for six starters and four drinks, we only paid thirty quid each - for that much food and drink, and excellent service, we were happy enough. 5/10 would go back.
the next night i headed out to the newest street feast to hit the scene - hawker house at canada water. nice and close to home, which is always a win, the work crew and i headed out to reap some well-earned rewards from a very long few months. we had pre-paid for our night by way of some fabulous monopoly-money-esque hawker house dollars, which you can see me playing fondly with here, which basically meant...i was eating for free.
with traders such as rola wala, the meringue girls, smoke stak and bleecker street on the cards, i was excited to jump in and eat.it.all, but i knew i had to pace myself. i started with a trio of tacos from breddos tacos, before moving on to a trio of naan sliders from rola wala. full, but not to-full, chloe and i then decided to break our mains up with something sweet so we decided dessert was necessary. appel strudel with vanilla bean ice cream and meringue was the third course, before filling up for good an hour later with a hog roast roll from spit and roast.
that was four - count 'em, four, courses in so many hours. nothing was cheap, which was to be expected. but i 10/10 would go back. i 100% plan to go back. and soon. because: indoors. and because: near my house. and because: so much delicious food.
and then the very next day, i picked myself up - already full of food, and went out for lunch with the girls. selfridges have transformed their rooftop restaurant into an autumnal spectacle, fit for anyone who's ever dreamed of dining in narnia. well, there was a lot of exposed wood and fairy lights in there, at least.
the menu was not incredibly dense, but was varied enough as far as mains were concerned, though we each played it safe and went for either the burger (me and louise) or the fish and chips (carmen). because boring. the food was ~fine. it was cooked and seasoned, and there was enough of it. it was certainly ~not cheap for how fine it was, and we ended up paying £15 for a burger, £4 for chips and £ 3 for a bottle of coke. the only reasonably-priced thing on the menu was the wine, so of course we had that too.
the restaurant is really quite small, and not very private, though it spans quite a length of the building - very narrow i suppose i mean. also there's no actual chance to get out on the roof to ~see the view from up there. it was chucking it down while we were up there so there wasn't a lot to see anyway, but to be able to look out over such an icon strip of road would have been nice. and then, the getting down bit was a chore; there were about ten of us waiting to leave, and only one tiny elevator. we ended up having to ask to use the staff stairs as waiting around was killing our buzz. it was great to catch up with my friends, and check out a new and fancy restaurant in town, but it feels a bit like somewhere you'd go to pretend to be fancy, when you're not. like me. 0/10 would go back. no plans to ~ever go back.
so that was a very meaty 72 hours, wouldn't you say! some good, some great, some just, well, fine.
have you been to any of these, or have plans to? thoughts below!
