My original plan was tacos. Tacos at the new Breddos on Kingly Street because really, who doesn’t love tacos? So I headed in that direction but then I thought “Wait! Rambla! Fay gave it five stars! Maybe they’re open.” So I wandered down Dean Street until I found it — hard to miss, it’s cerulean blue — just south of Dean Street Townhouse — and it was like 11:50 am (Sorry, I will always like to eat at 12) and all the blinds were closed BUT I could tell there were people inside.

Was Rambla open? What should I do? Tacos? Or Rambla? Rambla or tacos? I checked the Rambla website and — and my memory now is hazy — it either didn’t list the hours at all OR said they didn’t open til dinner. So I checked OpenTable. OpenTable was taking bookings but not til 5:15 pm. And then I checked Google. Google said Rambla was closed. So I checked Facebook. Facebook said that Rambla would open at 12. I chose to believe Facebook.

But really, maybe I should start a business where I manage restaurant websites and information.

Around 12:05 pm, the blinds came up and the door opened. I stepped inside. “Are you open?” I asked, in a hopeful manner. “Of course we are!” the team responded. I explained the different answers I saw on different websites. The team looked a little panicked. “But we’ve been getting OpenTable reservations for today!” I whipped out my phone. I tried to make a booking. I showed them the screen. “According to this, you’re not open til dinner.”

I don’t think we realize the impact OpenTable has on the restaurant industry. If you’re a restaurant that’s not on OpenTable, you will miss out. No one has the scale that they do. (Even though they totally suck in other ways — really, if you want to support the restaurant industry, book direct.) So for a new restaurant like Rambla, failing to update their hours on OpenTable must have cost them a few lunch bookings on their first Sunday lunch. Awks.

I was shown to a table at the window — luckily, most of Rambla’s tables are window tables and in fact, I might argue that Rambla has some of the best windows on Soho of any restaurant in the area. The windows wrap half the north-facing wall as well as the east Dean Street side. On a sunny afternoon, it’s really delightful. Big and bright.

The decor is also delightful. Hipster beach! I love it. There’s something calming about the colors (blue, orange) and textures  (wood, metal). Although personally, I think they could have done a better job with the floors. (Some gaps. Be careful if you’re in heels.)

The food, however, was just…good. Granted I am just one person and granted I only tried three dishes and granted one of those dishes was free (the croquetas). BUT! I wanted salt. Everything needed just a tiny smidge of salt.

Let’s start with the highlight — the supremely autumnal sea bass with Jerusalem artichoke soubise and port poached salsify. The sea bass was excellently prepared with a nice crispy bit of skin and the artichoke soubise made it like fall (i.e. autumn) on a plate. BUT…I just wanted a tiny bit of salt.

The lowlight? The escalivada, which normally I love. No smoke, very little garlic, no salt. Finally, I asked for some salt and they brought me enough salt for a dinner party of eight. I almost considered dumping the remaining salt into my purse because it was very nice salt but I didn’t.

The somewhere in between? The spinach croquetas. Which were free because I had asked how many croquetas were in an order and my server said four and I made a sad face and he said not to worry, they would make me two. The two were delivered, breast-like, with compliments. BUT. Cold in the middle. Pretty darn good but cold in the middle. And again — just like the other day — existential crisis. Do I complain? Do I complain about something that is free? (Or uh, do I wait to write about it on my website?  Only six people read my website these days –Hi dad look I didn’t mention champagne! — so that’s fine.)

So not five stars in my book. Maybe four, rounded up? 3.75 more for atmosphere than the rest.

The Verdict: Go because it is CHEAP and THE WINDOWS on a sunny afternoon. I haven’t talked about the prices and they are so cheap that I’m kinda like WTF. Why is this so cheap. (Isn’t Soho rent like a bajillion dollars these days?) Also, the staff is very nice and I like the disco loo mirror and the disco sink mirror but they need a hook on the back of the loo door.

The post Rambla, Soho first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

After a summer of working, working, working — where do the days go, my friends? — I am finally free for a bit. Hence my trips to Thailand and Venice, and hence my leisurely lunch with my friend John last Friday at Ristorante Frescobaldi off of Regent Street. Because you know, I haven’t eaten enough Italian food lately. Oh my goodness, the carbs.

John and I both made the same mistake at Frescobaldi — we tried to enter the restaurant from a corner of the building that is definitely not the entrance. So scan carefully as you approach. The entrance doesn’t seem to be where you might think it is. But once inside, everything is exactly where you’d expect it to be and THE CHAIRS. The chairs are amazing. I am immediately distracted by the chairs, they are so beautiful. Tables are spaced, well, spaciously, and you really get to see the chairs, which look Danish in their form. I spent a lot of time eyeing the chairs at Frescobaldi.

While I waited for John, I tried to order tap water. I tried three times before they actually brought me tap water and not bottled still water. I’m not into the miles or the price on bottled water when London tap water is totally a-ok.

The lunch special! That’s why we’re here. 25 quid for two courses from the very succinct lunch menu. Some lovely, lovely beef carpaccio for me to start…soft and delicious. And then the autumnal tagliatelle with mushrooms which I swear got more autumnal with every bite. Every bite. Many carbs were consumed — i.e., the entire bread basket — in making sure that tagliatelle plate was clean before it was returned to the kitchen. This was all washed down with a very affordable bottle of Frescobaldi’s own attractively-priced Chardonnay, a bottle that never seemed to end. Either that, or I am losing my ability to make half a bottle of Chardonnay magically disappear.

For a Friday afternoon, Frescobaldi was strangely empty during our visit. With the exception of the “Tap Water Incident,” service was prompt and friendly, although don’t mention Monica Lewinsky to them. (I, for one, am a fan of her anti-bullying agenda.) Ah…strangely amazing was the array of candy that was delivered to our table at the end of our meal. It’s like someone had run down to Sainsbury’s and picked up all the Halloween Candy they could. We ate it all, plus the homemade mini meringues and biscotti. I stumbled out of Frescobaldi in a glassy-eyed sugar coma. (John’s words, not mine.) Fascinating.

The Verdict: I like it here. I like the space, I like the chairs, I like the food, I like the wine, and I like the service. I don’t understand why there weren’t more people there. You should go.

The post Ristorante Frescobaldi, Mayfair first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

I’ve been to Casita Andina three times now, once by myself, once with my friend Jen and her two-year-old, and once with my friend Karen from Chicago. And each time, I’ve ordered the luscious trout tiradito and wanted to bathe in it. Also, each time the service has been just so wonderfully sweet and friendly. If not for the fact that the loos are on the top floor, I would eat here all the time. (Top floor loos are a terrible idea.) If it’s a nice day, get there early so you can commandeer the outdoor patio on the 1st floor. We did that with Jen and her little one and it was perfect.

Casita Andina is part of the Ceviche empire. The 1st floor dining room is super cozy and cute — like lunch at your grandmother’s. One thing I didn’t notice until much later — the restaurant is gluten free! Ask for bread to mop up anything left over and the best they can do is quinoa bread. (It’s grainy.)

The Verdict: Go and go again. I like it here.

Website: http://www.andinalondon.com/casita

The post Casita Andina, Soho first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

The first thing I notice about the all new House of Ho in Fitzrovia — the original House of Ho in Soho is now just called “Ho” — are the stairs. The all new House of Ho is set in an old townhouse, and if you’re not dining on the ground floor, there are a lot of stairs. And they’re creaky. The front of house staff have advised me to climb all the stairs to the top of the restaurant and wait for my party in the bar.  My gym got rid of their last StairMaster a few months back, and as I climb the stairs, I start a strongly worded letter in my head, suggesting they bring it back.

Luckily, my party finds me before I make it to the top floor — we’re in the very lovely and serene private dining room on the 2nd floor — and a heart attack is averted — although I make a solemn vow to up my gym visits from .5 times a week to at least 1.5 times a week.

I’ve been invited to a social media night at the restaurant but of course I’ve forgotten my camera and my blog cards. What sort of blogger am I?? (Hint: An old one.) And there’s assigned seating at the dining table, which makes me wonder briefly about the conversations that must have occurred to put this all in place.

This is quickly forgotten when our servers plop a nice plate of bo la lot down in front of me. Bo La Lot is very, very special to me — I had never had them before visiting Cay Tre in Old Street back in 2005, and now I love love love them.  (Don’t you love the effusiveness of my earlier writing style?) Like really love them. I hold myself to one piece at House of Ho, and it’s a great, high-quality version — the quality of the beef being deliciously higher than that at Cay Tre.

Bowls of duck and watermelon arrived early on during the meal and while I am not the hugest watermelon fan, this worked amazingly well, the light acidity of the watermelon combatting the richness — not that there’s anything wrong with that — of the duck. I could have had more of this.

Soft shell crab with chilis wins for most photogenic dish of the night. I wonder what do they do with all those chillis after each meal? As a huge fan of soft shell crab, I kept plucking and plucking at the bowl. It reminded me of Easter in America, where you would scrounge around in your Easter basket for the remaining jelly beans, knowing, hoping that there would still be something in there for you to enjoy. While the dish wasn’t listed on the menu at the time of our visit, it can be ordered by special request.

At the end of our meal, they leave us with these lovely little bowls of pebbles — chocolates really. A sweet ending to a very nice meal. Despite the stairs.

House of Ho is now commanded by Ian Pengelley, who used to be over at Gilgamesh in Camden many years ago. If you want another dip into my seemingly limitless archives, check out my visit to Gilgamesh many years ago over here. Good times. (By this point, it’s 2007 and I have discovered my writing voice and dropped the word “yummy” from my vocabulary.)

The Verdict: House of Ho strikes me as a great place to go if you need a private dining room and something different for everyone.  I would return for more of the bo la lot and beef with watermelon.

I was invited to House of Ho for a dinner with other social media types. I did not pay for my meal. As always, my opinions are my own. 

The post House of Ho, Fitzrovia first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Cheung Fun

Cocktails!

Assorted Dim Sum

Shumai and other Dumplings

Hakkasan Hanway Place was seriously one of the first restaurants I ever went to in London as an adult. (My 1993 London visit while I was in university doesn’t count for anything. One day, I’ll tell you about the sleeping arrangements.) My first visit to Hakkasan was in 2001 when I was here from the States for six weeks for work and the “Design Guy” came over and took us all out to Hakkasan and paid too. He must have read about the restaurant in one of those design magazines because this was 2001 after all, before blogs and Yelp and all those other Internet-Web-App things.  My, how times have changed.

All these years later though and Hakkasan itself has not changed all that much. It’s still the darkly sexy place it once was and I still get a little freaked out when I try to find the door to the loos. Ah! They’re behind that wall/door thing! I get it! Hakkasan has also expanded, thanks to our friends at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, a very sovereign and very wealthy sovereign wealth fund. If I were Mr. Yau, I would roll around in all my money all the live long day. Maybe, just maybe, I’d buy a small island somewhere. A tropical one.

Although I don’t have Mr. Yau’s money, I did find myself at Hakkasan Hanway Place the other weekend, thanks to the kind invite of Fiona from London Unattached and the lovely PRs behind Hakkasan. We were joined by A Girl Has to Eat too, and as with our Duck & Rice experience, I was happy to let AGHTE do all the ordering. She’s very, very good at it!

Only we really didn’t have to order much except for some cheung fun. Because Hakkasan Hanway Place is offering a new Sunday set brunch special. And it’s an amazingly good value, even though this is going to seem like a big number when I tell you the number…

It’s £58 quid. And it is so so worth it because…

For £58 quid, you get all this…per person!

Drinks…

• Choice of cocktail
• Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV Champagne, France 12% half bottle
• Choice of after dinner cocktail

Food…

• Crispy duck salad with pomelo, pine nut and shallot
• Har gau
• Scallop shumai
• Chinese chive dumpling
• Duck and yam bean dumpling
• Royal king crab and truffle roll
• Baked venison puff
• Smoked duck and pumpkin puff
• Golden radish crab meat pastry
• XO seafood and water chestnut lettuce wrap
• Stir-fry black pepper rib eye beef with merlot
• Seasonal vegetable
• Ginger and spring onion fried rice
• Selection of dessert

If that’s not amazing, I don’t know what is. For £58 quid!! I mean, like I said, I know that’s a big number, but talk about getting your money’s worth!! Sure, there are some misses on the menu — I didn’t die over the lettuce wraps — but there are more hits than misses and that counts for something.  Check out the full menu online and then drop into Hakkasan on a Sunday afternoon and then roll yourself home! Vegetarian menu available.

The Verdict: Nothing not to like!

I was a guest of Fiona’s and Hakkasan. I did not pay for my meal but I did tip on the full amount. 

The post Sunday Dim Sum Brunch at Hakkasan Hanway Place first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

The Duck and Rice is the latest outlet by design supremo and superstar restaurateur Alan Yau who is best known for the Michelin starred Chinese restaurants Hakkasan and Yauatcha,and the high street dining chains Wagamamas and Busaba Eathai. With The Duck and Rice, Yau pays “homage to the ‘holy’ [sic] British drinking establishment” by converting what was once the rather shabby Endurance Pub into a modern day boozer on the ground floor and a funky Chinese restaurant on the first. (KN note: I don’t understand why the restaurant uses [sic] in that sentence on their website.)

It’s an interesting new approach to Chinese eating, and it certainly adds a new twist to the concept of east meets west. I went to The Duck and Rice with Krista from Passportdelicious.com and we both agreed that we loved the ambience of the restaurant. It was very COOL with a dynamic energy that made it a great dining venue. Krista was happy for me to order and so I did my best to order as much food as I could with the £50 that received for writing about the UNCOVER app.

We started with some sesame prawn toast (£6.50) which had been recommended in many reviews. These proved to be really enjoyable and had been expertly prepared with a generous spread of tasty and well-seasoned minced prawn topping. The sesame seeds worked well to complement the flavour of the prawns, and the toast was crispy and admirably did not taste oily.

Venison puffs (£4.80) are a take on another dim sum classic, the char sui (BBQ pork) puff, and here they were delicious, packing in lots of great flavour. The sauce in the filling had the right level of consistency and sweetness and was very authentic tasting. However the pastry was ever so slightly underdone and not quite flaky enough. A few more minutes of cooking time and these could have been perfect.

Jasmine smoked pork ribs (£14) were sublimely tender with a great flavour. But the ribs needed more sauce, and the sauce needed more spicing. Nevertheless, we really enjoyed the ribs. We both agreed it was better to have good quality ribs that were well cooked with not enough sauce, rather than badly cooked ribs with too much sauce.

A dish of wasabi prawns (£10.50) contained some good quality battered prawns that were sweet and meaty. But we didn’t enjoy the wasabi mayonnaise that came with the prawns as it was too rich and a little sickly. Serving the mayonnaise as a dipping sauce would probably have worked better. This would have also meant that the batter on the prawns would have stayed crunchier for longer.

Our final dish was the No23 (a reference to how in some Chinese restaurants you order by the number). The No23 was a chicken chow mein (£9.50) which we both found a little disappointing as it tasted flat. The dish lacked for that fragrant (香), almost slightly caramelised effect that you normally get with really well cooked Chinese wok noodles, and this usually comes from having the right level of wok heat.

We both enjoyed The Duck and Rice, especially for its great ambience and funky vibe. As for the food, notwithstanding some weak spots in the cooking, this was fairly tasty with the occasional glimpses of authenticity. The service was pleasant and friendly, and far better than what you would get in a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Price wise, we were rather impressed with ourselves for managing to order as much food as we did for about £50. That said we found the 13% service charge (rather than the standard 12.5%) to be quite cheeky.

Food rating: 3.5/5

Service rating: 3.5/5

(Hi…it’s Krista again…)

So A Girl Has to Eat and I were pretty much in agreement on all of the dishes, although it’s fair to say that I probably would have rated this on an overall basis more like a 3 than a 3.5. When you start thinking that your local Chinese take-away does a better job than Duck & Rice, well, that tells you something.

Also, we had a small snafu when we first arrived that A Girl Has to Eat doesn’t mention, and I really want to talk about it. We arrived at the restaurant just in time for our booking, and I forget if I said this or if AGHTE said this but one of us said, “Oh, and do you have a note about our voucher with Uncover? There should be a note in our reservation about our £50 voucher?” We were very polite in asking this and remained polite throughout. The female host though was kinda rude. She told us that there was no note and she would know about it. At which point I said something like, “I have the email confirmation from the PR. I can show it to you…” and she really didn’t even want to see it, and repeated that if indeed there was a voucher, she would know about it. At that point, I think I said, “Maybe there’s a manager you check with? I really do have an email from the PR and I’d be happy to show it to you…” Can you guess what she said next? You guessed it…she reminded us that she would know about the voucher. She didn’t even give us a chance! Then, all of a sudden, a nice young man appeared out of nowhere and said “Do you mean the Uncover voucher? Yes, they called earlier. It’s all sorted. Follow me.” He apologized to us but I just go so mad at the woman at the front. I hate when people insist that they are right to the point of not even giving someone a chance. And well, once she realized she was wrong, I expected more from her.

Best of all, visiting Duck & Rice was fun for me because it reminded me of my “With each passing day, your ovaries are dying” Internet date many years ago. Now that’s a good story!

AGHTE and I dined at Duck & Rice with a £50 voucher from Uncover, the last minute lunch and dinner reservations app. We received the voucher in return for writing about Uncover.  

The post The Duck & Rice, Soho first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

We liked the focaccia

That's £16 alone for just the hand wash. Not available for sale at R&M.

Grilled prawns

CLAMS. LOVE.

Raw Sicilian prawns with some Instagram

Tuna!

Super delicious fritto misto.

Salmon carpaccio

Wine on tap!

For someone that is normally bang on time, I’ve been late to the Rex & Mariano party. Actually, I’ve been late to a lot of parties since I returned to London last summer. All work and no play makes Krista a very, very dull gal. So I am making up for lost time! Lots of lost time. I’ve missed Mr. Noodles and Su-Lin! It’s been too long. But there we were, just like it were yesterday (or, errr five years ago) helping ourselves to all the delicious things at Rex & Mariano with greedy abandon.

Because Rex & Mariano is delicious. Very delicious. Especially if you are like me and want to eat nothing but seafood until the day you die. (I will die slowly…of mercury poisoning.) And Rex & Mariano is not too pricey either! iPad ordering keeps their labor costs low. So that’s neat.

We ate a lot of things at Rex & Mariano and there were only two disappointments: the mushy salmon carpaccio and the courgette fries. So don’t get those, but get everything else! Especially the fritto misto. And the Sicilian prawns. All the Sicilian prawns.

Strangely, for a Saturday lunch time, the place was eerily empty. In fact, every time I’ve walked by Rex & Mariano, it’s been eerily empty. That’s more Sicilian prawns for me then!

Other lessons learned:

• Pace your ordering. We ordered all our mains at the same time and, well, they all arrived at the same time. (Surprise!!) We could have used some spacing in between, given that we were sharing everything.
• Wash your hands! You can wash your hands all over Rex & Mariano! It’s actually GENIUS. And they have Ren products in the loo if you really want to walk all the way back to the loo to wash your hands with very expensive stuff that smells really nice.
• Wines on tap! Lots of wines on tap! Another genius idea! I want to hang out at the bar at Rex & Mariano just so I can drink from all the wine taps! That being said, I am a firm believer now in the £3.50 125 ml house wine. (That’s a £21 bottle. Just take a £10.50 bottle and put a 50% markup on it and then sell it by 125 ml pourings and you’ll get to £3.50.) I am going to forget the exact numbers on R&M’s menu, but the wines by the glass started more in the vicinity of £5 quid a glass.
• I’ve been spelling focaccia wrong for most of my life.
• I really should start cataloging the hand wash used in restaurant loos along with the cheapest wine by the glass. It’s fun!

The Verdict: GO. Eat all the Sicilian prawns and wash your hands multiple times.

Oh look, Urbanspoon is now Zomato so here’s the new Zomato spoonback…let’s hope these puppies load faster than the Urbanspoon ones…

The post Rex & Mariano first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

When people would ask me what I missed most about London, I would tell them honestly, “Waitrose. And Bob Bob Ricard.” American supermarkets were fluorescent nightmares, and American restaurants were full of cheap chairs and limited sparkling wine choices. I ran away from the Jewel’s and Dominick’s of the world, and started doing most of my shopping at the very tiny Green Grocer, which had everything I needed, really. (But still, no Waitrose.) And I found myself spending more and more time in the velvet and brass lobby bars of the grand hotels — The Four Seasons, my preferred choice — chasing that sense of escape and other-worldliness I had found in London at the all plush and all lovely Bob Bob Ricard.

So when Leonid (one of the Bobs of Bob Bob Ricard) invited me over last weekend for BBR’s “Hey look now we’re open for lunch on weekends” grand affair, there was no hesitation. Yes, Leonid, YES. I will be there. And it was just as beautiful as I remembered. One day, when I make the millions I deserve, I will paper my home with Bob Bob Ricard’s wallpaper and install “Press for Champagne” buttons in the most unexpected of places. I will smother myself in caviar, eat everything off of blinis and stamp all my toast with the BBR logo.

Bob Bob Ricard is an escape, a journey to a place you do not want to come back from. Where the sommelier Jeremiah, who you haven’t seen or spoken to in over four years, remembers you and the photography course you were taking in 2009, and you have to wonder if there’s a file on you somewhere, a photograph, a list. (“Prefers tap water, known to break glasses…”)

At the end of my meal at Bob Bob Ricard — caviar, sea bass, filet mignon — when the dining room was quiet again and the staff were gearing up for dinner service, I wanted to hug every single employee. I wanted to cry. I couldn’t stop saying thank you — thank you! — because if there was anything that confirmed to me that I was back in London, it was being back at Bob Bob Ricard. So thank you, Leonid. Thank you!

OK, now off to Waitrose…

I had lunch at Bob Bob Ricard with four — and then five — friends, as a guest of Leonid’s. He was — and is — extraordinarily gracious. And while I am no Tom Parker Bowles, I hope you read this and make yourself a reservation at Bob Bob Ricard’s soon. Tell them I sent you.

The post Bob Bob Ricard, I Love You first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Dude, I was on a Hotwire roll in London. Who doesn’t love a discount? Particularly if the discount gets you a centrally-located luxury hotel like The Langham. Although upon check-in, as you can tell from the video, I wasn’t too enthused about my room — the furniture was ancient but not in a good way and the bathroom was badly in need of an upgrade — by the time I checked out, I was converted. There’s something to be said about staying somewhere with a high level of service.

Here’s what I liked and what I didn’t…

Likes

• Location. I love Soho so being just a short walk away up Regent Street was perfect for me.
• My bed was a marshmallow cloud. Seriously, the linens, the pillows, the mattress…the Holy Trinity of beds. Absolutely lovely.
• The staff. Lovely, everywhere, helpful, funny, sweet, everything.
• The bar. The bar at The Langham is absolutely gorgeous. I would gladly meet anyone here for a drink or five. Maybe even a mandarin panda drink. It gets way too buzzy and popular in the evenings, but in the afternoon, it is an oasis of calm with lovely and attentive service.
• Bath products. Many and plentiful and restocked over and over again. I am past the days of collecting hotel bath products, but if you are still in those days, you will love it here.
• Free wifi. Plentiful and everywhere and always connected. Well done, Langham.
• Free canapes in the bar! Apparently at 6-something every evening, The Langham celebrates the year of its founding and sends out free canapes to everyone in the bar. NICE.

Dislikes

• The room was a little dated. The service and the amenities made up for this, but I would generally prefer something a bit more updated.
• The clientele. OK, this is picky of me but there are some very wealthy people who stay here and they act it, in that new money way. (Is that terrible of me to say that? To talk about new money vs. old?) Not once but twice while waiting for the concierge, I was cut in line by men who totally knew they had cut in front of me and they didn’t give a shoot.

Now all this being said, I did not get a chance to try out the fitness center or the spa. I was out and about for most of my stay. But while I was in my room, I was rolling around in my marshmallow cloud and feeling quite smug that I hadn’t paid $600+ a night for my stay.

The Verdict…And Hotwire roll

If you visit London and you like fine things, you should stay here. It’s tremendously lovely. I was lucky and got it via Hotwire. I booked this five-star mystery hotel for $275.83 a night. At the time of booking, a comparable stay booked directly with the hotel would have been $6334.33, so I saved 56.16%. And I slept in a marshmallow cloud. Fantastic.

The post Staying at The Langham, London first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

I also did other really important stuff today. Like get my nails done. Sorry…you can take the girl out of Long Island, but you can’t take the Long Island out of the girl. I found this other place in Soho — also on Yelp —  that does manicures and stuff and I walked in at 10:45 am and they took me immediately and did a shape and polish for 13 quid. They also did my eyebrows. Totaly cost? 19.99 GBP! A huge bargain, by London standards. (Normally, I go to Selfridges for my eyebrows where it costs about 20 quid.) This Soho place isn’t fancy but it does the trick. It’s called The Beauty Lounge and it’s at the bottom of Kingly Court in Soho. They might try to sell  you all sorts of other things, but just say no.

Other things…I went to M&S and bought some new black tights, because M&S is where I get all my black tights. I also went to Boots and bought a million things I really don’t need. Boots is my favorite place.

What else? I checked my blog email. Words really cannot describe how much email I get via my blog. But then again, I just did the math and maybe it’s not that bad. So far, in April alone, my main blog account received somewhere in between 300 and 350 emails. (Sorry, I don’t feel like counting them all to find the number in between…maybe it’s 330?) I haven’t read my blog email all month — bad blogger, I am — but now I am caught up back to April 1. No, I still haven’t ready March or February. (Yes, LIFO.)

In between all this operations and logistics, I had a nice lunch at Antidote, also in Soho. A nice lunch, but that’s all. (Can you tell this was a Soho kind of day?) Oh wait…I should mention…the service was very French and VERY lovely.

Most time-consuming? Finding somewhere to have my 40th birthday party! (Yes, I’m 40. I still feel like I’m the 29 year old that started this blog — or, well, the precursor to this blog — back in 2004 but I will actually turn FORTY next week.) I called and e-mailed every place I could think of in London — with the exception of my favorite, Bob Bob Ricard, because the bar downstairs is apparently closed. The places I called told me to email them. My hotel concierge told me I should have my party at Sketch or Navikov. !!! I said nothing and instead sent all the places I wanted to go the same message:

I am looking to organize birthday drinks on Wednesday, April 30th. Probably 20ish people.I’d like to do something pretty easy and informal…some wines, some snacks, etc. 6:30 to 9:30 pm. (Worried about the tube strike so would like to keep this easy.) Can you oblige?

 No one has responded! I die.

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I moved into the compact but efficient Zetter in Clerkenwell for five nights. This made me more than a little teary-eyed because I was staying just a few blocks away from my old flat, a flat I lived in for over five years. Amazing how quickly London has changed in the short period I’ve been away.

I liked The Zetter. But the rooms are VERY small. (If you need to stay in this general area, The Hoxton is a bit more spacious.) The Zetter staff were lovely though and the bath products (Ren) were much much better than The Hoxton’s. (The Hoxton is generally cheaper than The Zetter though.) In short, if I could swing it, I might stay here again. But I think The Hoxton might still win out.

Here’s where I ate and drank…

Salvation Jane, 55 City Road, Shoreditch/City. I was glad to see something useful had finally gone into this strip of City Road. Let’s hope Salvation Jane lasts because the Indian street food place didn’t last long (and there were a lot of bailiffs involved) and then there was that Thai place that was all quite dark and scary and they were always rehabbing the toilets. We had some good coffees at Salvation Jane though, and the service was nice and overall, I like the vibe. The Verdict: Recommended for coffee talk.

The Old Fountain, 3 Baldwin Street, Shoreditch: I returned to one of my favorite pubs in London, The Old Fountain, with my friends Gerry & Ben. It was ridiculously different. There were no old men, the carpet had been replaced, and it had been entirely repainted and refurbished. I appreciate gentrification, but I was still a bit sad. That being said, the beer selection was ace and the rooftop was lovely. The Verdict: Recommended if you’re in the area and want to have some beers in a quiet place.

St. John, 145-57 St. John Street, Clerkenwell. I couldn’t not stop into the bar at St. John for some drinks and snacks. Eccles cake and Lancashire cheese for the win! The Verdict: GO.

Hoxton Beach: Whitecross Street Market, Barbican. You can’t see what’s in there, but it’s the most delicious falafel wrap EVER. I love these guys. I dream about them. And their pickled vegetables. Get a falafel wrap (this is the small) from Hoxton Beach and then head on over to the Two Brewers down by Waitrose for a cheeky pint. The Two Brewers lets you bring in food from the market. Genius idea. The Verdict: Yes to Hoxton Beach!

Grab Thai, 5 Leonard Street, Shoreditch: I think I’ve written about these guys before. Incredibly inexpensive, incredibly delicious. I normally stick to the green chicken curry for lunch. Good times: The Verdict: Cheap and filling and very good lunch. GO.

Tramshed, 32 Rivington Street, Shoreditch. (If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m an East London girl.) I really enjoyed my steak and chips. Couldn’t really complain. I also liked the design of the place and all the tilework. (It’s a Mark Hix place, btw.) Not sure how I felt about Damien Hirst’s preserved cow, but luckily, it’s high enough above the dining room that you don’t have to look at it while you’re eating. The Verdict: Very good.

10 Greek Street, 10 Greek Street, Soho. I’m somewhere in between on 10 Greek Street. I like the idea of the place and I like that it’s small and I thought all our servers were lovely but try sitting on a bar stool where a creepy man is pressing his sweaty back up against yours repeatedly for 45 minutes and, well, you might just end up feeling a bit UNWELL about everything. The food was very nice, but I drank a lot of white wine to get over my feelings of violation, so I am no good judge. The Verdict: I need to go back. (Talk about the beauty of natural light for photos, huh?)

Pitt Cue Co., 1 Newburgh Street. Somehow, during all my wanderings around Soho, I’ve never managed to make it down Newburgh Street. But here I was, hanging out on a street corner, 15 minutes before Pitt Cue opened. I think I might have fallen in love with one of the proprietors while I was waiting. Sigh. I meant to order the pulled pork bun but got the pulled pork meal instead (with a side of baked beans), but it really didn’t matter because it was all pretty excellent. And only 11 quid. The Verdict: GO. But don’t show up with 12 people. They are super super tiny.

The Gate, 370 St. John Street, Clerkenwell. So here’s my first question…when you KNOW you are going to open a restaurant on St. John Street, WHY do you give it the same name as a  BAR further down on St. John Street? Confusing. Then, when I enter your restaurant, why do you ignore me? And then when you finally take my drink order, why do you walk away in the middle of my conversation? And then when you come to take my order, why do you tell me not to order anything on the menu because it is all going to take a really long time? And then when you come to ask “How is everything?,” why do you walk away before I can even answer??? My dining experience at The Gate is worth a short story of its own. I think you get the gist. They are CRAZY. The weird thing? My asparagus rotolo was weirdly EXCELLENT. The Verdict: I’m afraid to send you here. But the food is really good. (Note entirely vegetarian.)

While I was in town, I also saw the Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate Modern, which was quite affecting. I’d recommend it. I’m still thinking about it, a week or two later, and I think that’s what art is all about. I also saw the Christian Louboutin exhibit at the Design Museum, and while it’s nice to look at shoes, the exhibit didn’t give you much context about the artist, which was disappointing. There were also a lot of screaming 10 year olds. Who takes 10 year olds to a French shoe exhibit? Odd.

I’ve been thinking lately about trying to get back to London more often. Let me know if anyone is interested in an intermittent flatmate. 😉

P.S. I’m realizing after posting this that I didn’t include Sedap on Old Street or The Modern Pantry on Clerkenwell Road. I revisited both. I still highly recommend Sedap, but I wasn’t too impressed with my watery omelet at The Modern Pantry, unfortunately.

The post The Return to London, Second Part first appeared on Passport Delicious | Solo Travel Blog | Solo Female Travel.

Date of Last Visit: Late April, 2011

Americans who go abroad often have a problem with European hotel rooms. They are too small, they say, Read TripAdvisor or anything similar and you will find gazillions of my countrymen (sorry — countrypeople) lambasting the size of European hotel rooms.

So let’s just get it out of the way now. My room at The Dean Street Townhouse was small. Pretty small.

But it was also absolutely gorgeous. GORGEOUS.

I want to hire the person who makes the bed to come to my house and iron all my sheets and make my bed every day, so tight and snugly was it done up and so soundly did I sleep here.

When I lived in London, everyone that was up on London and restaurants and drinking establishments knew about The Dean Street Townhouse. Part of Soho House (and Shoreditch House), it was quite hard to ignore. But what people knew about was the restaurant. Not the hotel.  Sascha over at LibertyLondonGirl posted a video review of the hotel quite some time ago, and I remember being charmed by all this small boutique property had to offer. So when it came time to book my birthday stay in London over Royal Wedding Weekend, it was the first place I looked…after I figured out that every other hotel I’d want to stay in was going for more than $600 USD per night. (The Dean Street Townhouse was still not cheap in American terms…£250 or $410 a night. Ouch. Hurts me to think about it in dollars. But in pounds, £250 sounds so much better.)

For a small hotel, Dean Street was jam-packed with amenities. I’ve yet to stay in any other hotel that offers Sky+ to their guests. (That’s Tivo, to my American readers.) There was free-wifi throughout the hotel — even next door in the neighboring restaurant — and even better, there was this…

See all those bottles there? Those are Cowshed products. Four different types of body wash to choose from, along with a lovely shampoo and conditioner. FULL SIZE. The conditioner was so good that I bought a bottle before I left. Really…amazing. (I have ridiculously thick hair with a wave that only responds to professionals. — I’m on the 4th week of a very intense Keratin treatment at the moment. — Cowshed’s conditioner tamed it more than any other conditioner I’ve ever tried. Truly.)

Ah and see this…these are all the goodies that maybe you forgot to bring along with you. Like I had forgotten facial cleanser. So I used Cowshed’s. I don’t normally use toner, but as long as I was using the cleanser, I also used the toner and let me tell you…I am now a believer. My skin has never — honestly — felt younger. I don’t understand why the best of hotels don’t provide this sort of amenity basket. The upside from someone like me buying the £18 bottle of conditioner certainly pays for all the products in here. Including the prophylactics. Yes. There were even prophylactics in the basket.

The rest of the room — what admittedly there was of it — was similarly delightfully and thoughtfully put together. Every day, they filled up my tea and biscuit tins. And in the drawers of that cupboard there was not only a Babyliss hair dryer, but also a HAIR STRAIGHTENER. I have never stayed in a hotel before that offers hair straighteners. That’s awesome.

The only downside to my three-night stay here? The floor covering was something rattan-like. I accidentally left a sweater on the floor one night and was picking hay off myself for the next 48 hours.

The Verdict: STAY. NOW. OBEY.

The Damage: Significant. But it was my birthday. So there is that.

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