Thanks to the #tocookbefore24 series, you may have known that my birthday was coming up. Last weekend, the celebrations kicked off and by celebrations I mean, FOOD. Obviously. London, you're such a babe when it comes to choices of places to eat.
As I'd made plans for the weekend, the rents did a mini celebration with me on Thursday night with fish 'n' chips and prosecco cos we're classy like that. There was also a cheeky chocolate cake and OMG A LE CREUSET PAN. What a present, eh?
On Friday night I was back in London and, after work, I managed to get a whole host of my friends together and we went to Mabel's in Covent Garden which has a cute, shabby-chic décor and is a combination of restaurant, bar and club, with a a hidden dance floor downstairs. With the great deals, and all-round decent prices, it was exactly what I wanted to bring a big group of people together. Between 5 and 8pm, it's 2-4-1 on all cocktails and 50% off wine, so naturally we were there at 5 on the dot. The cocktails were spot on and plenty were drunk; I especially recommend the super creamy Pina Coladas.
I booked a table for ten of us, and the food, whilst not especially exotic, was tasty and cheapcheapcheap for London. I recommend the fish finger sandwich.
The only downside was that the music was the kind of loud where you do manage to talk but realise later that you were probably more shouting at each other cos you wake up with that this-is-what-it-must-feel-like-to-smoke feeling in ya throat. We had a good laugh though and it was so, so great to have so many of my favourite people in one place.
Saturday morning was all HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME and G and I headed to Toast E.D. for brunch, in Dulwich, which I've wanted to check out for ages.
Guys, not gonna lie, I was disappointed. The homely, brick walls, wine shelves look advertised on the website was only one wall of the actual restaurant, and the rest was just like a pretty basic cafe. And some of the staff seemed pretty miserable, borderline rude if I'm honest. To give credit where it's due though, the smoked salmon, poached eggs and potato cake was so, SO tasty!
The food would have been enough to make up for the disappointing atmosphere but THEN, when I ordered the sourdough waffles (the birthday waffles I had been looking forward to alllll week, gazing longingly at the menu and pictures on the website) I was told they no longer did them. Um, say what now? Who advertises SOURDOUGH WAFFLES on their website, drawing people in and then cruelly telling them they can't have them? Evil, I tell ya.
Probably sensing we were in the danger zone, G suggested we go wander and find somewhere else. Luckily we were in Dulwich, which is the kind of place where finding waffles and/or pancakes is not a challenge. Within minutes, we'd walked past somewhere advertising piles of American pancakes and I was in like a shot. The place was called Le Chandelier and what a great find it was! The moment you walked in, you were surrounded by so many gorgeous looking cakes and smiley staff. We were lead through a busy, vintage, cosy little cafe, up some pretty spiral stairs and emerged into what I can only describe as Professor Trelawney's tower classroom (I search for Harry Potter references in all walks of life guys). It was full of little pouffes, solid silver tables and oh so many cushions. I was LOVING it. My pancakes came with local, sweet fruits and dashes of icing sugar and syrup. YUM-EY.
The rest of the weekend was a lazy one including a cinema trip to see Room which is the kind of film that goes round and round your brain for days afterwards. The actors, particularly the little boy, were so talented. A definite recommendation, although brace yourselves for feeling a little traumatised afterwards.
G and I finished the weekend off on Sunday night with a low-key celebration for our one year anniversary - with pink champagne!
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