Hippodrome Casino restaurant

Hippodrome Casino, opened its doors just over a year ago. The big site not only offers the gambling casino aspects, but also has a restaurant, 6 bars and live entertainment. They've kept the most of the architecture inside, which is beautiful and reminds you of how grand this building was when it was first built.

The restaurant is located on a balcony so you can see the gaming floor below, mainly offering steaks. I went for the milk fed veal chop, with house fries. The veal chop was perfectly cooked (medium and pink). It was tender and juicy. The fries on the other day were disappointing, not crispy at all, they were a bit soggy.

The cocktail menu which was given was really small!! There's a much longer cocktail list online, for some reason I wasn't given this?!?

This 24 hour place is great for those that want 24 hour gambling or a 24 hour bar / lounge. Late night places in London serving alcohol is rare unless you they're clubs, which makes this place great if you're not into the clubbing scene.

Belgo Centraal

Belgo is a Belgian restaurant specializing in moules frites (mussels & chips). The waiters dress up like monks and its a great place for groups wanting different types of beer and sticks of schnapps.

During the week between 5pm and 6.30pm, they offer "Beat the Clock", for certain main courses you pay the time of ordering, however be aware that the moules are smaller than from the main menu.

To start: croquettes. I've had these before and always order these every time I go back. They are gruyere cheese croquettes served with Belgo beer relish. The creamy oozing cheese against the slightly sweet slightly sharp tangy relish is delicious. I always have to have these!!

The main: Beat the clock moules frite traditionelle. A 1/2 kilo of mussels that have been cooked in garlic, celery, onion and white wine. The mussels were plump and the clear broth was intense with flavour, but was still fresh tasting from the celery and onions. My only issue was that some of the mussels still had their beards on so you have to pick them off before eating. The fries were delicious, light and crisp!! I loved getting to the bottom of the bowl and eating all of those little random crispy bits of fries. That's the best part.

All in all Belgo's is a good place to go for mussels and I am rarely disappointed with the food. I have had a grievance in the past regarding service (a while ago), and had commented on their website but received no reply (but that hasn't deterred me from returning). This is a good place for groups looking for food, drinks and an atmosphere.

Patisserie Valerie

 I love Patisserie Valerie. Their shop windows always excite me. I could stare all day at cakes *drool*, it's like food porn. It's always so colourful with a wide variety of different cakes.



For a birthday, I bought the chocolate cake; they call it the double chocolate dream gateau... which I can see why, it is dreamy, the ultimate cake for chocolate lovers. It moved off the cake plate on transportation but didn't ruin the cake at all.

The cake sponge was light, with layers of chocolate cream, with chocolate curls on the outside and profiteroles filled with more chocolate cream. The chocolate cream was creamy and light. I would eat a plateful of these chocolate profiteroles.

I really fancy eating some cake right now after looking at these photos.

BiBimBap, Soho

Korean food is becoming more and more popular now. Which is well deserved. BiBimBap, named after their specialty Bibimbaps is in Soho. Me, D & M, ordered the beef bol-go-gi bibimbap, chilli chicken bibimbap, kimchi pancake, spicy rice cake and glass noodles (not pictured).

Bibimbap to me is a meal in one, it has rice, protein and veggies all in a hot stone pot. Here you can choose to have extra a raw egg or fried egg. We opted for a raw egg on the beef bibimbap. Both bibimbap were delicious. It's great that this place allows you to put as much chilli sauce as you want, depending on how spicy you like it. The thought of raw egg might put some people off, but because the stone pot is so hot, it cooks the egg as you mix everything together. Both beef and chicken were delicious in their own right, but eaten together with the rice and vegetables were great. Next time I think I'm going to order the fillet beef (raw strips of beef) and the mixed mushroom, both sounded great. I prefer raw beef in bibimbap as the stone pot cooked it just perfect without the beef being over cooked. 

The rice cake was spicy, chewy and yummy. The kimchi pancake was crisp on the outside with spicy kimchi on the outside. Only thing that let the meal down was the glass noodles. The glass noodles were a bit oily and not as flavoursome as the rest of the meal. As there was quite a bit of oil on the noodles, it was extremely hot!!  

Black & Blue, Borough Market

 Borough Market is great on a warm summers day at lunch. The sun was shining, the market is so colourful from the wide variety of fruit and vegetables. Within Borough Market is Black and Blue.

Black and Blue offers meat, meat and more meat. Mainly steaks and burgers. If you're a vegetarian don't even bother coming here.

The T-bone steak caught my eye. Finding T-bone steak in London can be quite rare. Steaks come with house salad, fries and a sauce, I chose peppercorn with a medium steak.



The T-bone steak is 400g on the menu. I don't have much comprehension as to weighs in reality, but it sounded fairly decent. When the steak arrived it looked meaty but a little thin. The steak was delicious and given its appearance was meaty, juicy, tender and flavoursome.  The peppercorn sauce on the side was delicious also, deep in pepper taste, with a kick from the peppers. The peppercorn sauce was a bit too small, I could have done with more!! The fries were crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside. The side salad had a creamy dressing with grated cheese and walnuts on top, which was ok. All in all it was delicious.

My only issues are; the food is served on a wooden plank, which does give a rustic look, however it really isn't for me. You can see that the plank has been well used before hand with previous cut marks on it. The thought of food served on wooden planks, especially food which needs to be cut on the board seems a little unhygienic to me. I don't really want to taste the old meat juices from the last steak served on the board. I'm sure the boards are washed thoroughly but still you can never tell what lurks within the cracks. Another issue was with the service. The staff were ok, however, wine glasses were not removed from the table even though we did not order any wine. So the table was cluttered with empty glasses. Maybe I'm being picky, but I like it when staff ask me how my meal is going and how it was, thank me for the visiting and say bye, but I didn't receive that here, even though we walked straight pass our waitress on the way out. The service hasn't put me off returning as the food was delicious, it's just restaurants now add an "optional" 12.5% service charge, however it's not really optional as they add it onto the bill so when you pay by credit card they add that amount onto the card machine before you can say anything, and you want to be polite so you continue to pay it. I just wish restaurants would allow you to select on the card machine whether you would like to pay the "optional" "service" charge at your discretion.    

M&S Eton Mess

 

This caught my eye as I perusing the aisles of M&S; dessert aisle of course! As part of their Great British Summer menu, they have made Eton Mess Dessert pots. It was the cute meringues that caught my eye. Too sweet to eat as it is, you definitely need to mix it up like an Eton mess. The creamy vanilla with the slightly tart raspberry, mixed with the crunchy slightly gooey meringues are great together. My only issue is that I don't personally like raspberry as they are seedy. The raspberry compote flavour wise is delicious but I would have preferred it if the compote had been sieved to remove the seeds, other than that delicious. Hopefully they bring out a strawberry version.

Tapas Revolution, Westfield White City

Right in the middle of Westfield White City is Tapas Revolution. They recommend 2-3 dishes per person. Me and M wanted a light lunch so we ordered their lunch special of paella, then added extra chorizo and octopus. The lunch special is a paella and a drink for £7.95, which sounds relatively reasonable. The paella was chicken and came with aioli. The paella was really salty, it needed the aioli and squeezes of lemon to counteract the salt, but it didn't really help. It made me feel thirsty for the rest of the day!!

The octopus came with potato and paprika sprinkled on top, and marinated in olive oil. You could taste the quality of the olive oil as it was really fruity. The octopus was soft and tasted nice.

The chorizo was the best part, meaty and spicy paprika.

Tapas Revolution does offer fast food tapas, which they appear to be providing by the looks of some sort of microwave(?!?) or some sort of contraption which heated the food quickly. The food preparation area can be seen from the seats at Westfield so you can see the staff scoop out paella from a tub and place it onto a plate for it to be reheated(?!?). I'm not sure if it was a microwave, however I do know that the paella is pre made and then reheated in a metal box. When I saw this, I found it quite disappointing as there are supermarkets and shops offering tapas for you to take home to reheat. As we were eating I sat there remembering the current Marks and Spencer advert of £6 for 3 deli items, wondering whether they had any tapas items on offer which may taste better than this

Princess Garden of Mayfair

Dim Sum for Sunday brunch is a tradition. Princess Garden of Mayfair is always busy Sunday brunch, which in Chinese saying is a good sign as it's popular and probably worth the wait. Dim Sum comes in little dishes so you end up ordering a couple which gives you a good variety. We had many different ones so here's my highlights from the whole meal, and pictures of the main items.

Pea shoot cooked in a broth. Pea shoot isn't widely available in Chinese restaurants, mainly because pea shoots can be hard to source and are quite expensive. The pea shoots were fresh and tasted clear which Chinese like as it helps with the chi.

It's hard to find tasty Shanghai dumplings in London. I've had many in China town and many usually have thick pastry on the outside and lacks the stock on the inside. Princess Garden has the addition of crab meat inside, the pastry was the right thickness and had stock running out once you bite it.

Shredded mooli pastries are also very rare for dim sum in this country, but its definitely worth trying. It's crisp on the outside with flaky pastry and soft on the inside filled with shredded mooli. I prefer this than the classic dim sum favourite of mooli cake. The pumpkin dim sum is an unique item to Princess Garden, I haven't seen this anywhere else in London. They look so cute like little pumpkins. They're sweet, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.

My favourite item has got to be their roast bbq pork bun (as pictured). Roast bbq pork buns can be bought in the bakeries in China town, however they're at least 3 times the size. The buns here are soft filled with meaty bbq pork which is slightly sweet and savory. I love this dish so much I order two portions.

If you're planning to try Princess Garden, especially on a Sunday for brunch/lunch make sure you book in advance as there's likely to be a long wait otherwise, the wait is worth it though, as it is one of my favourite Chinese places in London

J Sheekey Restaurant

From the outside J Sheekey looks like a secret, private, members only club. Once you step inside it feels like a different world. I had been to J Sheekey's before in the past and had always enjoyed the fresh seafood and the service.

Today I went for the dressed crab to start, shrimp and scallop burger for main and the chocolate mousse to finish.

The dressed crab arrived later than the rest of the starters on the table, everyone else had almost finished before I received mine. The crab was fresh and tasted sweet. It came with brown toast, but was missing that kick to bring it altogether, a little pepper helped. It was dressed crab however this crab looked a bit naked and a little lonely on the plate.












The main was shrimp and scallop burger. The burger was juicy and sweet from the shrimp and scallop. As shrimps and scallops are naturally sweet, I don't think this combination works 100%. The spiced mayonnaise gave a spicy savory note, however I'm not 100% sure on this. Perhaps if the burger had chilli inside or was either shrimp and scallop with fish to give it more a savory taste it may work better? The chips were yummy, crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside.










The chocolate mousse was delicious; light, creamy and intensely chocolatey, with slightly sweet, tangy cherries and thin light tuile. Also a very pretty picture.


I've been impressed with J Sheekey, however this time I was disappointed. The food wasn't amazing and usually the service is great, but they didn't even clean the table like they usually do, so we sat there with bread crumbs scattered across the table.Hopefully they were just busy that day and it was just a one off