Shrimpy's

I'd booked our trip to Shrimpy's months in advance and just couldn't wait to go.

We'd tried to add extra people to the booking to take 2 friends and my sister and brother in law - but they told me they didn't have the room to add them to our booking. Never mind, i thought, this is going to be a fantastic meal and we can make it a romantic one. The only booking I could get on the friday night was at 6.30pm - an early dinner, but I was prepared to put up with that as I really wanted to visit. Oh the disappointment. We arrived at 6.30pm to a completely empty restaurant, which remained only half full till we left - so no idea why they couldn't add a couple of people to our booking. But anyway, we were sure the food would make up for it.

We started with Chicarron and guacamole (£4.50) and these were pretty good. Nicely fried, crispy and the guacomole was delicious....until I found what was the hairiest pork scratching i've ever seen - it almost put me off my dinner!

 

We also had a serving of the most delicious parmesan and paprika straws (£3.50)  - definitely recommend these. Melt in the mouth amazing.

 

 

In actual fact, what happened with Shrimpy's is as the meal moved on, the food got worse.... 

 

 

For our starters we had salt cod croquettes and calamari - again, pretty delicious.

But when the main meal arrived it was a complete disappointment - the soft shell crab burger was horrible. You couldn't taste any crab, just batter which was soft and oozing oil. Two bites and I was done - it was almost inedible. The Octopus was slightly better but just not right. Chewy and tasteless

 

But the chips were good....

 

Foodie pen pals #2

There is nothing better than receiving a parcel in the post, which is why i'm loving being a member of foodiepenpals.  Every month i receive a fab foodie package from another blogger/tweeter and in return I send one out to another lucky soul.

This month I received a fantastic parcel courtesy of Nina at  http://www.spencersarc.com/

Unfortunately I ate the jelly babies before I even photographed the package! My husband grabbed the Oddities and tucked in straight away too.

We made the Parmesan and sundried tomato bread last weekend and it was delicious.  Really easy to make and turned out fantastically. We ate it topped with Olive Tapenade which was really fantastic.

I've not had a chance to try the jam yet - but love jam, so that's all good.  Perfect for a Victoria sponge!

Can't wait till next month!

P.S I really need to work on my photography skills. I'm hoping i'll pick up some tips at the food blogger connect event in September http://www.foodbloggerconnect.com/

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Low calorie baking experiments

So, i'm trying to lose weight at the moment but have a big baking addiction, which really isn't helping. So this weekend I experimented with a few low calorie recipes....which weren't a huge success.

Experiment 1: The sugar free chocolate bundt cake
As you can see from the picture below, I tried a chunk of this...but that was it.  I replaced the sugar in the recipe with a Stevia powder.

Not recommended. Horrible bitter taste, cake didn't rise properly and left a funny after taste in my mouth

 

Think i need to spend some more time experimenting with these sugar replacements in baking to make sure the quantities i'm using are correct.



 

Experiment 2: Rosemary Conley Chocolate brownie recipe

 

This was a recipe i'd pulled from a magazine a while ago and decided now was the time to try it. This one wasn't such a failure - it looked like chocolate brownie and when kept in the fridge for a few hours it tasted like a brownie. It just had an unusual sticky consistency. You'd definitely have figured it was low calorie. (sorry for really bad picture - it actually looked pretty good in real life)

 



 

I don't think i'll be trying either of these again unfortunately.

 

So, please help me find some more alternative low calorie recipes!



Spor-tea at The Dorchester

You know those gorgeous looking little cakes you see in french patisseries and occasionally stumble across here in the UK? I've always wanted to try some.

They look amazing, but with a nut allergy they also look like danger. So i've always avoided...until my trip to The Dorchester for their Spor-tea themed afternoon tea the other week.

The amazing people behind the scenes made me a nut free afternoon tea and literally for the first time in my life I was able to try those amazing little cakes i'd always assumed would be out of my reach. 

I can honestly say that this was the best afternoon tea i've ever had.

It began with the glass of Laurent Perrier (always a good start to any meal in my opinion) and was followed by a selection of lovely sandwiches in speciality breads eg Chicken in basil bread.

We then moved on to a fruit salad in a cone for me and for everyone else not allergic to nuts, an amazing olympic torch pastry!

Then came my little slice of heaven....or a plate of them. Raspberry and chocolate, passionfruit and more. The flavours were fantastic! All the little pastries had an olympic theme.

                                           My plate of deliciousness

               Everyone else's plate of delicious sporty themed cakes

If you get a chance, go to The Dorchester for literally the best afternoon tea EVER.

It was all finished off with a drink at the bar which came in a fab teapot and my glass was a china teacup with a tall stem. Fantastic way to end the day.

http://www.thedorchester.com/afternoon-tea

My Foodie Penpals package

This month I was more excited than normal when the postman made his way to our house, as this was the first month i'd signed up for the foodiepenpals monthly parcel.

A great idea, you send a parcel of foodie finds to someone and receive one from another.

This month NoshwithNikki was my foodie penpal and she sent me some amazing goodies.

The parcel included:

• Bath Pig Chorizo www.thebathpig.com/
• Wiltshire Chilli Farm Chipotle Chilli salt www.justchillies.co.uk/
• Peppersmith mints www.peppersmith.co.uk/
• Happy Kitchen Chocolate Orange Brownie www.happykitchen.org.uk/

The brownie was interesting - very strong flavouring and a slightly odd texture made for an interesting eat.  The Bath Pig Chorizo snack bags are already a favourite and were quickly wolfed down.

I'm a big chilli fan, so am looking forward to using the Wiltshire Chilli Farm Chipotle Chilli salt and the peppersmith mints are a fab ending to a meal.

A great parcel. I just wish i'd remembered to take a snap of the one I sent my penpal!

If you want to join the foodiepenpals team, you can register here: http://thisisrocksalt.com/foodie-penpals/

Le Grand 8

A few weeks ago I decided to take a Eurostar trip to Paris with my friend, Rhi.  We decided a girly weekend of much food and drink was in order. My highlight of the trip was definitely the restaurant we fell upon one evening.

We actually ended up stumbling into the most fantastic restaurant near Sacre Coeur. With amazing views across the city, friendly staff and the most amazing food, we felt right at home.

As the restaurant, Le grand 8 was really busy, we were seated with a couple on a table for 4 and this turned out to be the best thing. The couple were incredibly friendly and let us taste their wines, chatted to us and generally made us feel at home.

It turned out that the restaurant was renowned (and is in the UK too) but we didn't know it. Known for it's food and it's wide variety of natural wines, people travel far and wide to go there.

I started the meal with a dandelion, lardon and egg salad. Bitter tasting but the egg took the bitterness away the lardons complimented them perfectly. My friend opted for the Foie gras.

For my main meal I chose an octopus risotto and really wish I'd taken a photo! I was served a good portion of deliciously creamy risotto which was then accompanied with a tentacle of octopus. An absolutely amazing, melt in the mouth dish.

Our friendly neighbours let us try some of their wine too - no idea what it was but it was called L'Insolent and was deliciously fresh and fruity.

What made this restaurant so fantastic is not just the friendly atmosphere that you don't always get to experience in Paris, but also the amazing seasonality of the food. The menu was presented to us on a blackboard.

Fantastic value at just 15Euros for a two course meal and a fantastic and affordable selection of wine, this was the best meal i've had in a very long time. Superb!

I'm not the only one who thinks this place is fantastic. Since visiting i've seen this blog, where the blogger, Wendy also thinks this is an amazing place to visit:
http://www.thepariskitchen.com/2011/02/le-grand-8/

Visit the restaurant's website for more info:http://legrand8.fr

Jamie's Italian - St Albans

I'm pretty lucky really. I work in Soho and live in St Albans which means i'm surrounded by good independent restaurants to pop into.  But every now and then I also enjoy a trip to one of the bigger chains such as Pizza Express or even Pizza hut on occasion (I know, I know, but when you are a child of the 80s, it was the best we had on offer!)

So, I was looking forward to trying out Jamie's Italian, now it has finally reached St Albans.  It was our 2nd wedding anniversary and we decided to save a bit of money and just pop out somewhere local.

We started the meal with a chacuterie platter between the two of us, which was pleasant enough, but ended up costing a ridiculous amount as you are charged per person and not allowed to share!

My other half had the fritto misto as a main, which was presented fantastically. See the image below and had a good mixture of fried fish.  However, it was a little bit 'too much' and would have been nicer if it had come with some salad or something to break up the 'friedness'!

I chose the squid ink spaghetti with scallops. (See image below) Again, presented really well but was incredibly disappointing. The Spaghetti was chewy and plastic like and the scallops were watery and unpleasant.

All in all, really not a wonderful experience i'm afraid to say, which is a shame. Although maybe we just chose the wrong dishes?

I don't think we'll be going back again to be honest, when there are plenty of other fantastic restaurants in the area and it isn't cheap.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/italian/