We Need To Talk About London’s Food

July 18, 2016July 18, 2016 - Michael 4 Comments

On Tuesday night last week, Open Table kindly invited a number of London food enthusiasts, including myself, along to Grain Store in Kings Cross to partake in their Transatlantic Tables evening. At the same time they invited a selection of New York’s similarly inclined addicts to dinner across the pond, connecting us through our love for our city’s food. After an evening spent eating Chef Loubet’s specially prepared menu we were challenged to write an open letter to New York, and those who love its food, detailing why we love our own city’s food so damn much, all for a chance to win a trip over there to sample its own delights.

Alright New York,

Your food is pretty good; I’ve had the pleasure of trying a small handful of places when I visited your city back in November of 2013. I got to walk around the East Village eating Lobster Rolls from Luke’s Lobster, experience the secrecy and unique hotdogs of Please Don’t Tell and the burgers from Black Iron Burger. I filled my face with a salt beef reuben from Katz Deli and even found somewhere to give me a chicken waffle grilled cheese sandwich. Brooklyn gave me the delights of buying BBQ by the pound at Fette Sau, which remains some of the best BBQ food I’ve eaten, and a night sat in the Brooklyn Brewery followed by a trip to the Meatball Shop to hungrily (and drunkenly) devour a plate of meatballs. I’m not even going to touch on all those fancy Michelin Starred restaurants you’ve got, because that’s just not my cup of tea.

Travel Diaries: Recent Adventures

July 10, 2016 - Michael Leave a comment

As well as trips to Paris and Glasgow/The Isle of Mull I’ve had a couple of other small trips. Before I inundate the blog and my social feeds with photos of my recent trip to Budapest I thought I’d share a number of the photos from recent trips we’ve taken to both Devon and Edinburgh. These photos will be shared simply with a clarification of where they were taken.
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Travel Diaries: 36 Hours in Paris

June 13, 2016June 13, 2016 - Michael Leave a comment

It’s just past mid day on a Saturday and I find myself sat on a train emerging from a dark tunnel onto the shores of France, giddy with childlike excitement about what the next 24 hours is going to hold. I’ve already filled up on breakfast at Dishoom in Kings Cross (bacon & egg naan and more bottomless chai than any human should probably drink) and resigned myself to activating the roaming ‘deal’ (in the loosest sense) EE have offered me, which’ll allow me to use data and texts while abroad, in the knowledge that after so many reports of fan violence coming from the south of the country my family will want me to be in constant touch. We’re sat planning how we want to spend our fleeting visit to Paris, which a core focus on football. With the huge increase in security, partly due to the devastating bombings at the Stade De France last year, and now the disgusting scenes of hooliganism, we’re having to build in ‘getting through all that extra security’ time into all of our plans. Before all that though, we’ve got to check in at our AirBnB, actually see a bit of Paris and eat five million pastries.

Travel Diaries: Isle of Mull April 2016 Pt.2

June 1, 2016 - Michael 4 Comments

So a while back I started my photo diary posts of the last trip I took up to see my parents on the Isle of Mull. You can see those here. As alluded to in a previous post, I took some time away from the blog in April/May for personal reasons, but I wanted to complete the photo diary. So here’s the last photos of our trip, taken at Easter 2016 on the Isle of Mull. This entails a drive to Ulva, a waterfall, the Ulva Boathouse (where we had a particularly special meal) and then the trip back to the mainland on the ferry. We had some wonderful wildlife spots on this trip, which sadly didn’t get photographed. A good few of them were in the dark like an Albino Deer and Barn Owl, and others, like the White Tailed Eagles, are just too far away to capture without a decent zoom lens.

Travel Diaries: Isle of Mull April 2016 pt.1

April 11, 2016April 22, 2016 - Michael Leave a comment

At Easter of 2016 I took my girlfriend to meet my parents on the Isle of Mull. We’d spent a number of days in Glasgow and traveled up (incredibly early) on the Friday morning by train. We got the ferry across late that morning and I had my first chance to show the area off to Maddie. The weather was completely mixed for the whole trip, with it fluctuating from heavy rain to bright sunshine (the ferries later on the same day actually got cancelled and my sister had to stay in Oban for the night). This post shows images from our crossing and first couple of days on the island, including the ever changing and beautiful view from my parents house across to Ben More and a walk we did to Knockvologan and its beaches. Another thing to note was we paid a visit to the Isle of Mull Weavers at Ardalanish/Uisken and were talked through the whole process of weaving and design. If anything it made me want one of their pieces even more, and I’d recommend popping in if you’re ever on the island.

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