20 hours & 4 restaurants: Inamo, Lantana, Sketch, Hummingbird

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marble beef from Inamo; friend haloumi breakfast from Lantana; tuna sashimi from Sketch; red velvet cake from Hummingbird

After surviving our food-binge weekend in Lille, my friend Ying escaped to travel through Spain, Italy and France (in relative gastronomous sanity) before stopping by London for another few days enroute back to Oz. She gave me a day, 20 hours to be precise, in which I could take her to my favourite eat-outs. I protested vehemently that 20 hours is merely a fraction of what I needed, but hey, I can improvise.

Our itinerary: dinner at Inamo, breakfast at Lantana, lunch at Sketch, and cake at Hummingbird*.

Yes, this is how we roll in the catty life.

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cupcakes with vanilla butter cream: my hug proxy

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cupcakes with vanilla butter cream

My boyfriend’s been away in Finland all week and I’ve been on my lonesome at home. You know what, I have to stop calling him “my boyfriend”. Much like you and I and that cute puppy I wanted to kidnap today, he has a name. His name is Panu. Equal emphasis on both syllables ~ Pah-noo, not P’noo, like so many people insist.

Panu and I, we are quite the opposites. He’s tall, I’m a midget. He’s… not really quiet, but I make a lot of noise. He likes rock, I like breaks. He’s a sci-fi fan (yuck), I like everything but. He loathes karaoke, and me… *coughmikehogcough*. And he’s healthy and well, I eat a lot.

But what keeps us together is that secretly, under his crazy health-nut exterior, Panu also loves to eat. Oh, and we also really like each other.

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swedish meatballs & finnish meatpies: nordic glutton heaven

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veal meatballs, cream sauce, crushed potato, lingonberries & pickled cucumber

Last weekend saw me pack my little red suitcase for what was to be a hectic weekend: flight out to Stockholm late Friday night, a day in Stockholm, cruise to Helsinki overnight on the Silja Line, and a day in Helsinki, then back in the London gloom. It was my first time in Stockholm, but I’d been to Helsinki before, because that’s my boyfriend’s home town. Well, kinda. He’s Finnish-Australian, like I’m Malaysian-Chinese-Australian, which is a bit of a mouthful but eeek, imagine if we had kids? Finnish-Malaysian-Chinese-Australian? Wait a minute, did I say kids? Phwoarr… what a brain fart! I totally hope that he doesn’t actually read this blog!

Anyhoos, diversion. Food. Though we only spent a day here and a day there (and half the meal potentials were wasted on the cruise buffet), I can solemnly say that on this trip, I had the best meatballs I’ve ever had. Ever. And this time, I’m really not exaggerating.

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yum cha at yum cha, it doesn’t get any simpler than that

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yum_cha_01

Tw-eat-ups! Twee-eat-ups. Tweet. Eat. Up. No matter how you spell it out, tw-eat-ups are paving way for friendships of the 21st century. Well, in my world anyway. Despite the glaring dangers of meeting up with near strangers for the sake of a decent meal, my primal necessity to seek out good food with gooder company triumphs time and time again, challenging me to take on risky rendezvous with fellow foodies from twitterverse.

And I never turn down a challenge.

All right, so Yum Cha is not exactly risky. But it was up Camden High Street.

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he loves me, he loves me not: my relationship with Mango Tree

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lychee & mango cocktail; lobster pad thai

He loves me, he loves me not. Don’t pretend you don’t know that game. Because everyone knows that game. You know, you pick a flower and remove its petals one by one and as you do, you think of a guy and meticulously chant “he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me…” and well, what you end up with after removing the last petal is as good as Fate Carved In Stone. So you better rig it and get it right. Trust me, I know. Cos I totally stuffed it up while I was thinking of Johnny Depp and look what happened. He went and got all happy and set up house with Vanessa whats-her-name.

Sigh.

Well, I have a new version of the game now, it’s called She loves you, she loves you not. And I only ever seem to play it with Mango Tree.

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quick, easy, warm, spicy: chorizo salad with sundried tomato & peppers

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chorizo salad with sundried tomato & peppers

I’ve just arrived home from the most hectic weekend imaginable ~ one full day in Stockholm, then 8 hours in Helsinki, with not much sleep in between ~ I’m sufficiently wiped out and could sleep for a week. But, and you should all know my tummy by now, I’m hungry. Scavenging around the refrigerator for whatever it was I managed to buy between dining out last week, I managed to find some essentials and yes! God bless chorizo, the meat that lasts forever and a lifetime!

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