and just like that, ice cream season is gone: the good, the bad & the too kool 4 skool

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Oddono's pistachio; Scoop's stracciatella; Freggo's toffee and raspberry

I meant to do this post ages ago. Like, back in June or something when it was actually warm. It was supposed to be a teeny tiny guide to the handful of places in London that sell this delectably frozen treat also known as ice cream (ok, not just ice cream, we’re talking gelato, sorbets and fro-yo as well), and my five cents worth about it all.

But we all know my cents are only worth half as much as what I sell them to be.

And now that this post is a ridiculous 3 months overdue, I think I owe you money for actually reading this crap.

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girls gone wild at uh…. Royal China?

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royalchina_01

I have been really really slack with my posting. I can’t help it, I get so excited about my recent baking adventures that they are like my favourite children, my fingers stumble over each other trying to post them straight away and every-thing else falls by the wayside.

Favouritism. It exists. Deal with it. 

Anyway, I’ve been pre-occupied with I-don’t-know-what, but I do know that I’ve been so pre-occupied with stuff that I totally forgot our Girls Gone Wild (keep dreamin’) In Alicante trip is this weekend. It’s been two months since the planning began, right along side those Harwood Arms scotched eggs, and while there’s been many a date night since to drill into the finer details of our trip (amongst them Buddha Bar, which was just dark and expensive and I didn’t love it anywhere near enough to post about it), my favourite girls-weekend-planning-lunch has been at Royal China on Baker Street.

Good ol’ dim sum.

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charming & endearing, oh and so is the restaurant: dinner at Donna Margherita

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the margherita pizza; Ischio Rosso 2006

We’ve already established that I’m really lazy when it comes to travelling around London. I stick to Zone 1 like an overgrown amoeba, but it’s not that I don’t want to travel outside of Zone 1, it’s just that I hate the tube. And I dislike the buses. So unless I can walk there, I ain’t going there.

Curiously, this dislike vaporises when it comes to food. Funny that, huh?

So when Donna Margherita‘s PR guy (Jamie Fox, and believe me I was beside myself when I thought Jamie Foxx was asking me out to dinner) contacted me offering a complimentary meal, I first recoiled at the idea of travelling out to SW11, but with all the fabulous reviews I’d read about the place, I soon found myself on the top deck of bus 87, careening precariously down the never ending road towards Lavender Hill.

And yes, I did just write a paragraph-long sentence.

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The Fat Duck. A Fat Post. A Very Fat Catty.

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Fat Duck cereal box; mock turtle soup; roast foie gras; tafferty tart

Monday July 6, 2009. The single most painful and least productive morning of my life. Don’t tell my boss. And get comfortable, this is a fat post (and I don’t mean phat).

10.00am. I pick up the phone and dial 01628-580-333. I’m trying to get a booking at The Fat Duck, the second best restaurant in the world. Engaged. End call. Re-dial. Engaged. End call. Re-dial. It’s ok, I’m gonna keep trying for a good 30 minutes. All good.

10.30am. Engaged. I need to do some work. I gotta stop, I mean who ever gets through anyway? But. What if I’m next, what if I hang up now and I miss my chance? I’ll do this for another 15 minutes. End call. Re-dial. Engaged. End call. Re-dial.

10.45am. Engaged. My neck hurts from cradling this awkwardly shaped Cisco IP Phone *ahem* in the nook between my shoulder and right ear. I’m getting RSI in my left wrist from repetitively pressing End Call and Re-dial. Ok 11am, I’ll go til 11am. End call. Re-dial. Engaged. End call. Re-dial.

11.00am. Engaged. The engaged tone is giving me a headache. But I can’t stop now. Surely, I’m close? Surely? Please? Can anyone hear me? End call. Re-dial. Engaged. End call. Re-dial.

Ok so you get the idea. If there is something I am, it’s s.t.u.b.b.o.r.n. I was born with it, and I have refined my stubbornness to within an inch of its life and by god, it is not something you want to mess with. I want to go to The Fat Duck. I want to go for my 30th birthday (ok so we went a day earlier). And I don’t want any-thing else. You see the shite my poor bf has to put up with? Thank goodness I’m endearing 🙂

11.45am. It’s wearing me down. My head hurts, my neck hurts, my wrist hurts, even my heart is starting to hurt a little. I’m giving up, I spill my resignation onto twitterverse “how stupid of me to think I could actually get through to The Fat Duck” and holy mother of Murphy’s Law! Literally the instant I am about to hang up for good, the phone rings! It rings!

And then I am on hold. But God I Love On Hold Music After Hearing The Engaged Tone For One Hour And 45 Minutes. I’m on hold, listening to a rendition of Alice in Wonderland for another 15 minutes and finally finally, someone picks up the phone. I want to curse and spit and dance with joy all at the same time. But I do nothing and give them my name. My date. My time. and hope to f**king god that after all my effort, they are not booked out.

And they are not. Friday September 4, 2009. 12.30pm. We are going to The Fat Duck!

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“spongy squidgy noodles”: Cafe East and my exemplary gastronomic vocabulary

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bun thit heo nuong cha gio (grilled pork & vermicelli noodle);

One: I went to Cafe East.

Two: I did not order pho.

Now get over the shock so we can move along with this post.

I have been searching for the best bun thit heo nuong cha gio forever. It’s ok, I didn’t know that off by heart either, I had to ask my Vietnamese friend, copy and paste it into the photo description and then hover my mouse over the photo while I copied it into the post. Why I didn’t just paste it into the post I don’t know. My brain is fried, it’s one day before I go to Fat Duck and I am sick. Sick. I’m not sure what I can taste at this point in time, but goddamn my taste buds better wrench themselves out of this misery and be in top condition tomorrow. Or else.

But anyway, I’ve been searching for the best of that long winded dish forever. Forever.

And we know how I don’t ever exagge-ma-rate.

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just me and my cluckiness… and a Hare and a Tortoise

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vegetarian duck rolls

My friend Khrystyne just had a baby. She had a baby! I mean, after the endless hours of contractions, anguish, pain and sweat, she made a baby, and they let her take it home. Little baby Emmerson, and OMG is it legal to be that cute? She gurgles and coos and gurgles some more, and forms that little ‘o’ shape with her mouth, as if she’s suckling on thin air, but probably searching for a nipple. Not mine though, bubba, you’d be left high and dry with that one.

I’ve just come home from meeting little Emmerson for the first time, and holy tabouleh my cluckiness has kicked into overdrive. I don’t even know what to do with myself. I already attend Freaks Anonymous for my uncontrollable staring at fat, dumpy babies on public transport ~ my eyes glaze over and I’m so completely mesmerised that it actually scares me a little. Now I just look like I want to gobble one up, right there on the spot. It’s definitely an urge not unlike hunger. Like I’m gonna go ape-shit insane if I don’t eat right now.

At least I can satiate my hunger with relative ease.

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