There's more to England than London

The nice thing about being on assignment where I am is that I am actually not in London. Similarly, how most people refer to anything New York-related as NYC--without much acknowledgement to the rest of the 54,556 square miles of the state (fun fact: NYC only takes up 302.64 of those square miles). Many people correlate England with London and many times people assume that since I am in the UK, I am living and working in London. While I do love London very much, there's so much more to England and even more in the UK.

We spent this weekend exploring the lovely midlands of England. This is the area right smack in the middle of the country. It is so beautiful with the rolling hills, green lands and rich history. Let's not forget the sheep! Bahh!

Saturday and Sunday were lovely days. The weather was atypical of England and just absolutely amazing. We made the most of it and spent it outdoors.

Saturday morning was a lazy morning. This would be our only day to sleep in, so we decided to do exactly that. We had English-style afternoon tea at a local tea house called Mrs. Bridges Tea Room for brunch. It was a very cute place with good food and of course tea, aside from being handed a used tea spoon to spoon sugar into my tea. I was expecting a clean one, but it was obviously one that was just wiped off with a napkin or rag. Anyway, the tea here was phenomenal. I've never had such a deliciously smooth yet flavorful black tea. At first, I thought it was going to be weak since it was a reddish color in my cup. After added a couple spoons of sugar and some cream, it was just amazing. The dirty spoon wasn't so much of a big deal anymore. :P

We had some small finger sandwiches - smoked salmon on foccaccia bread and ham with cheese on a baguette. The sweets were so delicious, including an assortment of cake and pastries.

Next, we went to Warwick Castle. My husband likes the medieval-type stuff with Game of Thrones and all that good stuff so he was set on seeing a castle. Originally, we wanted to go to Edinburgh Scotland; but decided not to after learning that it would take us over 5 hours to get there. The original castle was built in 1068 and was owned by countless notable British and French royalty. A prime piece of real estate, it was highly sought after since it was located exactly in the middle of the country; making it easy to get to any part of the country. Remember, those were the days of horses - if you're lucky.

 

Even though the castle was once burned down, it was a bit eerie to know and see exactly how old everything was -- we're talking nearly 1000 years ago here! They had a lot of the furnishings, portraits, housewares, armor and weapons on display. There was a cannon demonstration at the end of the day, where they flung a huge fireball in the air. Crazy how they did that back in the day!

Birmingham Canals

After the castle, we headed off to Birmingham. It's one of the larger cities in central England. There are 4 Michelin-rated restaurants located here, so that's a pretty big deal. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a reservation at any of them. Instead, we ate at a slightly more casual but still good (and TripAdvisor top rated) restaurant called Ju Ju's Cafe. It was situated on one of its canals and more in the residential area of Birmingham (land of huge complexes of flats!).

The food was pretty good and the staff extremely nice. Below are just a couple of the dishes we ordered. The husband ordered a salmon which I though was beautifully plated. The highlight was the dessert, which is now my favorite English dessert... the Eaton Mess! This is layers of cream with meringue bits in it and fresh strawberries. I'm drooling thinking about it!

Eaton Mess

Bull Ring, Birmingham

We then explored the area a bit and found some neat architecture like the huge shopping area called the Bull Ring (to the left). It reminded me of the Olympic bird nest in China. There was also the Victoria Square area seen below. It was the evening and there were some young hooligans putting a lit-up bra on the statue fountain. I believe it is called The River or some refer to it as the Floozie in the Jacuzzi according to Wikipedia?

 

I know I need to shorten these posts a bit! It's probably easier both for the reader and myself as the blogger. These things take up so much time, but there's just so much to share!!!

More good stuff to come. :) Thank ya for reading!
Cheers.

D1 and D2 in Nottingham

D1 and D2 are terms that my brother-in-law developed. They stand for Dinner #1 and Dinner #2, and sometimes can continue more than that if the occasion is appropriate. Breakfasts, lunches and brunches work too (B1/B2, L1/L2). He and I share foodie blood and having multiple dinners in one evening is not uncommon for us. We're not fatties, we eat to appreciate!

Friday night was a D1 and D2 kind of night. We took an evening trip to Nottingham after work... back to Robin Hood's neck of the woods. Since TripAdvisor is our best friend, we tried to find nice eateries that were rated high and still had availabilities for a last minute booking.

The first place we went to for dinner was called Keyworth Village Cafe and Bistro. It was a small and quaint restaurant owned and employed by a husband and wife duo. This restaurant was pretty hard to find since it was located in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. The whole time driving, I thought we were lost because we saw nothing but sheep fields! I didn't get to take a photo, but my husband captured something with his GoPro (will post it soon).

We started the meal off with a Scottish Egg. I had no idea what it was, but my husband insisted that we get it. A Scottish egg is a hard-boiled egg wrapped in sausage, coated in breadcrumbs and baked. Basically, it's a giant meatball with an egg inside. 

I usually would not go for something like this, but it was actually pretty tasty. The crunchy exterior worked great with the egg.

He ordered the fish over potatoes and I ordered the duck over peas. Both of them were specials of the day. They were decent and fresh with the taste of homemade. It didn't blow our socks off, but was just food that was pretty good. The tough thing about eating really great fine dining is it pushes your view of food to an impossible standard.

We then drove on another 40 minutes through the dark village roads to Nottingham. The next place we went to was called Jam Cafe. It was a very laid-back cafe bar that plays live music and serves pretty good food following by homemade pies and cakes. I would call this a manly man's fine dining. It's not a burger and fries joint, but it has good hearty food with plenty of beer and music. The menu changes daily and is written on a board in chalk, the tables are lined with plaid. Nothing fancy about this place, just kick back and relax.

Cherry Beer and Ale

Goat Cheese Croutons

Wild mushrooms served over toast

Steak, wild mushrooms and asparagus

Grand finale - citrus pie

We then took a short stroll through Nottingham. There was a pretty big nightlife scene with a good number of young people out celebrating Halloween early in costumes at the bars and clubs.

Bellies stuffed and ready to go home. The weekend has just become and more adventures to come! Cheers. 

A week full of Gastroventures

I am way behind on these posts!!! The hubby and I have been having a good time faster than we have time to write about them. We will just have to consolidate and shorten our food experiences in the past week into 1 post. Here we go!

Monday: YO! Sushi 
This place is a chain restaurant for sushi on the conveyer belt. Mondays are £2.50 per plate days so the place was insanely packed! I would say it's more on the standard, not-so-special sushi but was a fair experience. If I were to rate it, it's more "average" than anything else.

Tuesday: Nando's Peri Peri Chicken

They called this place "Mexican", but I didn't really get a lot of Mexican from it. Peri Peri chicken seems to be very popular in the UK. Basically, they marinate the chicken in this specific kind of chili pepper native to parts of Africa and Portugal. The sauce also includes citrus peel, onion, garlic, pepper, salt, lemon juice, bay leaves, paprika, pimiento, basil, oregano, and tarragon. The chicken is then roasted, much like a rotisserie chicken. We ordered a whole chicken for the two of us and shared sides of mashed peas, mashed potatoes, corn and rice. It's another chain restaurant that was fair... didn't blow our socks off.

 

Wednesday: Wagamama's

This was my second trip to Wagamama's, not because I enjoyed it but because I really wanted it to be good. The restaurant itself looks nice and modern with an open floor plan and long tables and benches. It seemed like a hip contemporary Asian fusion place. Unfortunately, the food is horrible. The first time I went, I had the Wagamama Ramen bowl with a side of seaweed salad. The broth tasted like a powder in water, was extremely salt and had no other flavor besides just salt. The noodles were soggy and there wasn't much going on in terms of toppings. I came here again this week and tried the rice bowl. The hubby ordered a Tom Yum soup bowl with noodles. My dish was basically a fried rice and his noodles were once again soggy with a lack of any flavor besides salt for the Tom Yum. The only thing that's good about this place is the fresh fruit juices they make. They are fresh and delicious straight out of a juicer, but unfortunately is pricey (£4-6 per glass).

Tom Yum Noodle Soup

Rice Bowl

Strawberry Apple Orange Mint

Wagamama Ramen

Thursday: Hotel Maiyango

Attached to a small boutique hotel, this restaurant is considered one of the best in Leicester for fine dining. It's rated in the top 10 on Trip Advisor and boasts of a hot spot for Queen Elizabeth when she visited the city. We went big and ordered the 9-course prix fixe meal.

#1 Starter: Goat Cheese Mousse

There were little bits of beets garnished around the plate to compliment the richness of the goat cheese and topped with some spring greens. 

#2 Starter: Crab Tien with Bloody Mary Sorbet

This had some fishiness to it and a savory sorbet was interesting... not sure if I really loved this one.

#3: Gressingham duck and toasted brioche
The greens on every dish have been the same so far. The plum chutney-like sauce with the plum was probably the best part of this dish.

#4: Halibut and Scallop
Both were slightly overcooked, but was alright.

#5: Basil and Lemon SmashThe small shot glass was a frozen lemon ice. It was extremely tart and worked alright with the more bitter smash in the glass. Both were lemony, just different aspects of both when it comes to tart and bitter.

#6 Beef Fillet with Mushrooms and Shallots

#7: Assorted Desserts
This was best course! We got to try a little bit of every dessert they offered.

From left to right:

dark chocolate fondant, salted caramel ice cream, berry compote // warm spiced pear and almond tart, cardamom ice cream white chocolate and lavender panna cotta, blueberry sorbet,pistachios // champagne jelly, citrus tuile, vanilla milk sorbet // tonka bean crème brûlée, berry sorbet, almond tuile

#8: Assorted Cheeses and Fruit

#9: Mocha Martini with Home made Petit Fours
Tasted a bit like Espresso water?

The meal lacked complexity in its flavors. It is really hard to compare much of anything these days after eating at Petrus. For Leicester though, it was a good effort.

So if you made it this far, major props to you. I'm about to pass out myself... we only just got to Thursday here. The weekend will have to wait for the next post. 

Next, we went to Nottingham, Warwick, Birmingham and Bradgate Park in Leicester. Yes, all of these places just on the weekend.

Here's a small previous of the gorgeous Bradgate Park

Until next time... Cheers!

*Knock Knock* Queen Elizabeth - are you home?

Finally reunited with the hubby in the great city of London, we took advantage of the awesome sites first starting with the London Eye. This was a solid recommendation from my cousins as a definitely must-visit attraction, and I would agree.  The giant ferris wheel rotated slowly over a span of 30 minutes allowing you to get a 360 degree glimpse of all of London. It's pretty neat how each car is a big pod that can fit up to 20 people in it. We got a pretty stellar view of the famous Big Ben and

Parliament House, along with the cathedral Will and Kate got married in- Westminster Abbey. On Sundays, they have actual services that happen in there that were open to the public to attend. We really wanted to attend but unfortunately, the service started before we arrived. It would have been pretty neat to see the inside of Westminster... I am sure it is even more beautiful in person.

Neat aerial shot from the London Eye

We then hired some bicycles, similar to New York's Citibike but sponsored by Barclays, and rode across the bridge over the see the sites up close. There really isn't too many words that can explain how beautiful and detailed these historical buildings were in terms of infrastructure and architecture. 

We met our cousins in Chinatown for some dim sum lunch, which was right near the Picadilly Circus (London's "Time Square"). It was pretty cool to see the historical buildings with the lighted screens and advertisements for shows/plays. Certainly a different kind of Time Square. No pictures of food here, my phone died so I couldn't take pics of the dim sum... but it was really delicious and fresh. I have to say it's even better than New York's dim sum! 

Picadilly Circus

Chinatown London

Last stop was Buckingham Palace. We saw the guards from behind the fence marching back and forth in front of the palace. Of course there were real guards wearing bullet proof vests and machine gun s posted on the side on the building. One of the guards looked like he was struggling from a hangover. He was swaying as he stood at his post and kept looking side to side. Either drunk or he was a rookie. I thought these guys aren't suppose to move!

Buckingham Palace

So that was most of our touristy time in London catching the main sites. We ended up missing our train back to Leicester, but thank God the people at the train were nice and let us on to the next one. Thanks to my cousin-in-law, I discovered an awesome app called uber that calls for car service from your phone to wherever the GPS on your phone says you are. You can track how far away he is before he picks you up and it links to your credit card so no need to pay him after his trip. You also get to know who your driver is - his name, picture and rating - before you get into the car.

Good times in London. Cheers!