Tuesday, April 01, 2008

best of london? international cuisine

My favorite part about London was—can you guess?—the food. We were there for the first three days of our trip, and while we didn't get much British food on our plate (we saved that for the country) we did taste some delicious Italian, Indian and French cuisine. Actually, take away the food and there wasn't much left of our London vacation!

The first day, went to PJ's Bar & Grill right near our hotel. What we assumed was a cheap pub from the outside ended up being a posh restaurant with silver settings and huge soup spoons, white tablecloths and beautiful people at every turn. But we weren't disappointed. Instead of grabbing a quick lunch, we ended up staying for hours eating yummy food, drinking wine at the bar, and dropping a pretty penny when the check came. No worries.




That night for dinner, we were waiting for Hannah & Brian to arrive, so we stayed near our hotel again, this time at Carluccio's near South Kensington station. There was a nice open atmosphere with large, cafeteria style dining and a yummy Italian menu. My favorite was what Colin ordered for dessert: a glass of vanilla ice cream with a shot of espresso on the side to pour on top. What a great idea for a dinner party! Dinner ended up being cheaper than our lunch at PJs and we enjoyed the meal so much, we went back with Hannah & Brian for Easter Brunch.



Saturday brunch was at La Brasserie, a Parisian-style bistro on Brompton Road. The buckets and buckets of toast were no match for us—we enjoyed it with all the little jars of jam and honey on the table. The waiter picked up on this, and he wrapped some up for Hannah to take home with a pretty lily garnishing the package.


Saturday night, I had my first real taste of India at Vama. Oh the fantastic combinations of spices and sauces were out of this world. Even Kevin liked the meal! I have to say though, my favorite part of the meal was the drink: Vamamama. A delightful cocktail of apricot brandy, fresh mango and champagne. Totally worth the $14 pricetag (the American dollar doesn't go very far these days).


I should also mention that though we were trying to "get away" we did find a lovely little American-style bakery that we found, called Hummingbird, where we gorged ourselves on these delightful cupcakes:



Penelope

1 comment:

Hanushka said...

I made Vamamamas last night, and they were a big hit! The only thing is that these are really meant to be served in little flutes, not in huge plastic glasses on ice! 3 drinks later, I realised this morning, was really more like 6 drinks later... OOPS! I used Mango nectar instead of puree, worked quite well.

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