The East Room
2a Tabernacle St, Shoreditch, EC2A 4LU
Tel: 020 7374 9570

Date of Last Visit: Wednesday, October 15, 2008

The Victim: Fellow London restaurant blogger, Chris

The Damage: Oh God I forget. £20 each? It was more than I thought it would be given that all we had were mains and tap water.

The Background: You might know Chris from his blog, Cheese & Biscuits, where he reviews some of London's finest restaurants. Turns out we work RIGHT across the street from each other. Random. The world, again, is a small place. The other day, for example, I had lunch with Ian, the first commenter on my Perfect Saturday in London post. (He did offer to marry me, after all.) Turns out, he knows Douglas. Yes. Odd.

Well, after much dilly-dallying on my part, Chris and I finally meet up at The East Room for lunch. He doesn't take any pictures. I do. WIth my Nokia N82, of course. 

I love the company of food bloggers. Because we can talk about food and blogging and wine and blogging and cheese and blogging and no one will think us weird and boring and/or obsessive. So that's what Chris and I did.

Now let's hope he brings back Cheese of The Month. I think I convinced him. But I'm not quite sure.

The Food: Lamb and veg for him. Linguini with chili crab for me. I like my linguini. To be honest, it's a little pedestrian and mushy. But it's really buttery and luscious and spicy. I'm happy. And I know I have the Shoreditch Twit later, so I'm filling up…

He likes his lamb. He particularly likes his veg. I'll let him add his comments and expand upon both. And maybe he'll post his own review.

The Decor: You might know I'm a huge sucker for Danish Modern. So I love The East Room.

The Fullness: Empty! At 1 p.m. on a Wednesday.

The Verdict: I love The East Room. It's not the food though. Really, for me, it's the tilework. I'm serious. I appreciate good tilework.

P.S. Don't forget…blog about Your Perfect Day in London by October 24th. I'll summarize all the blog posts for all to publish on their blogs as a traffic-building exercise…

The post The East Room first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Carnevale
135 Whitecross Street
EC1Y 8JL
Tel: 020 7250 3452

Date of Last Visit: Tuesday, October 15

The Victim: Feathers

The Damage: £25

The Background: I ate lunch earlier than normal yesterday because I had to be in three places at the same time. So come 6:30 p.m., I was STARVING. And I knew my refrigerator was empty at home. Enter Feathers, whose husband is somewhere in London at a poker tournament. She wants to know if I have any ideas.

The only place I haven't tried that's within Walking Distance is Carnevale on Whitecross Street. (Note that there is a strip of restaurants on City Road that I haven't dared to venture in in four years, and I have no desire to.) The only thing about Carnevale is that it's vegetarian. And I know Feathers likes bacon. But still, I convince her.

The Entrance: Carnevale is empty when we arrive, except for two guys in the back having coffee. By the time we leave around 9 p.m., it's filled up a bit. And I'm dying to know if everyone is a vegetarian.

The Starters: Quinoa with squash? I really should pay more attention to these things. It was fine, but it needed salt. Feathers got a goats cheese starter that was exactly that. A big round of goats cheese. That's a lot of goats cheese to eat.

The Mains: Ravioli stuffed with squash for me. With lots and lots of lentils. Almost too many lentils. Some sort of squash dish for Feathers with a big gob of something flaky and deep-fried in the middle. They lose points for presentation on her dish. Both our dishes needed salt.

The Service: Sweet but shy. Oh, and he's not a vegetarian either.

The Verdict: Eh. Not sure about this. I could have used some bacon.

Interesting: I've finally been upgraded to the new version of Typepad.

P.S. Don't forget…blog about Your Perfect Day in London by October 24th. I'll summarize all the blog posts for all to publish on their blogs as a traffic-building exercise…

The post Carnevale first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Date of Last Visit: Saturday, September 23rd, 2006 (Yes, a belated posting. I wrote it, but didn’t post it. Apologies.)

The Victim: My fellow “Strong”–you may know it as Long—Islander (NY, USA), Stacey

The Damage: Unknown! Stacey paid.

Counterbalance: 5K, or 3.2 miles!

We were supposed to be having Thai foot massages. Yes, I had run a 5K that morning (good for me!), and having done most of my running on stationary treadmills as of late, the five kilometres on pavement had my shins a-screaming. I mentioned this in passing to Stacey later that afternoon, and she promptly took me to her local Thai foot massage parlour. Yes, you read that correctly. Said parlour was also offering 20% off if you had an appointment. So we dropped in, made appointments for 45 minutes later, and went in search of sustenance.

We dropped into Fig and Olive, which looks lovely from the street. The windows are full of all sorts of gorgeous tarts and chocolates. Behind the desserts, you’ll spy trays of fresh string beans, chickpeas, feta…all sorts of beauteous cold salads.

As soon as I sat down, I knew F&O was a mistake. There were plenty of wait staff, but they were wandering aimlessly, making needless trips from the front of the narrow restaurant to the back, front to back, front to back, stopping everywhere but where we were. Foot massage appointment in jeopardy!!! We finally grabbed one meanderers eye, and he took our order: carrot soup for Stacey, cold salad plate for me. As it was a salad BUFFET, I asked if I should help myself. Our meanderer explained he would make the plate up for me. How nice, I thought. How gentlemanly even.

Alas—there is something so very wonderful about the Ponderosa. You can serve yourself; you do not need to watch the staff wander here, wander there, wander everywhere but where they need to be. You do not need to watch the lonely string beans grow colder by the minute so far away from you on the other side of the room. You can just eat.

Eons later, our food arrived. It was okay. But its arrival was timed not-so-nicely with our foot massages. We ate. We paid. We ran. We let strange people touch our feet, and we were safe in the knowledge that we would never go back to Fig & Olive again.

The Verdict: Don’t.

The post Get Me Out of Here: Fig & Olive first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.