Lantana

Myself & the boyfriend embarked on another day of fun this weekend & had the YUMMIEST breakfast at Lantana Cafe tucked down a little lane near Goodge Street in London. Greg came across it on one of the many restaurant/food apps he has on his phone & when we arrived & saw the queue snaking its way across the front of the building we knew it wasn't likely to dissapoint! 

After queuing for about 20 minutes in arctic conditions we eventually got seated inside the teeny cafe at a teeny table & ordered a big pot of tea to warm us up. We ordered pretty much straight away having spent the 20 minutes outside wisely perusing the menu, the menu which is full of amazingly yummy sounding food. It took me a while to decide what I was going to have & changed my mind about 10 times but eventually decided on the "BERT" - not sure why it's called Bert… but it's basically a posh bacon sandwich - Bacon, Egg, Rocket, tomato & aioli, & I added a cheeky side of Halloumi cheese just to make it that extra bit special... it was gooood. 

Greg had corn fritters with bacon, spinach, roasted tomatoes and avocado chilli lime salsa, the salsa was AMAZING & went really well with the corn fritters. But yea, go to Lantana, it's yummy, the service is really good & they sell wine & gin. What more could you want on a Saturday morning?! 

I'm going to have to go back to try the Cinnamon french toast with blueberry compote, honey ricotta and toasted almonds. The thought of that makes me happy inside. Or perhaps i'll try out their sister restaurant in East London, Salvation Jane.

Bills Restaurant - Brighton

I stumbled across Bills for the first time in Brighton a few weeks ago. A former bus depot it's massive wooden panelled exterior caught my eye & and after a peak through the door we were lured in by the floor to ceiling shelving stacked full of beautifully packaged produce & the brightly coloured sheets of raffia hanging from the ceiling.

Bill's started out as a small grocery shop & today is a restaurant come produce store with locations across the UK. The fact that it serves as a store as well as a restaurant gives it a really welcoming & relaxed atmosphere. After wandering around taking photos & generally nosing about we decided that we'd go back for lunch the next day, (it was Sunday & the place was rammed!)

I ordered the halloumi & hummus sesame seed roll & the bf had macaroni cheese, both were mega yummy! We also discovered that they'd set up a cool little system where you can place a grocery order whilst you eat & your waiter/waitress will run around/scale the shelves & collect it all for you ready for when you finish your meal - shopping whilst you eat without actually having to move... what could be more perfect?!

As well as selling food Bills stocks a few kitchenware items & it's very own cookbook, packed with a mix of Bill's classics & new recipes.

It's just super pretty & simple reasonably priced food! Well worth a visit. 

From across the sea's

As some of you may know I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to go and visit my lovely friend Lucy in Singapore earlier this year. She moved out there to work a year ago (lucky thing!) so me & a couple of friends went out to stay for a couple of weeks, with a cheeky trip to Thailand thrown in as a bonus. 

Whilst we were there we discovered something amazing... something which rivalled the view from the pool at the top of Marina Bay Sands, the gorgeous tree lined streets & the dim sum... and it came in the form of a very special sandwich. 

How I wish I didn't love food quite so much... ha! Anyway, I knew I wouldn't be able to do it justice, so as a very special treat today's blog comes all the way from Asia!

My weekend Ritual

It's the little things in life that can make our weekend that little bit more humble and warming. For me, it's a stroll to my local barista coffee house, 'Forty Hands'.

Located in the quaint, nostalgic residential district, Tiong Bahru. Forty Hands is Singapore's best kept secret. Now don't me wrong the coffee is wonderful, but it's not hard to find great coffee in Singapore.... It is in fact the sandwiches that make Forty Hands more than worth the visit.

And so I must tell you about the delight that is the Grilled Mediterranean Lamb Sandwich. Served in a large chunk of toasted freshly baked granary bread, the melted cheese, herby lamb, olives, sun dried tomatoes and onions create a to-die-for combination of delicious Mediterranean flavours. I can honestly say nothing beats the tastiness of this sandwich. It's the perfect hangover cure, pick me up or just general hunger filler!

Sitting on my balcony in the sunshine with one of these bad boys is surely the only way to start a wonderful weekend... There's just one thing missing, my bestest friend Carla to share the enjoyment with :)

Till next time...

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The Waffle House St Albans

For those in & around St Albans who like a yummy breakfast/lunch I'd strongly recommend The Waffle House. I've only been there for lunch myself, but the breakfast menu looks AMAZING - think Organic scrambled eggs, free-range back bacon, sautéed field mushrooms and griddled tomatoes, or Free-range back bacon, fried banana and griddled herby plum tomato on a wholemeal waffle, thats a dribble inducing breakfast if ever I heard one!

When I last went with the boyfriend we set ourselves the challenge of devouring both a savory main waffle as well as a sweet dessert waffle - I had Hummous & Avocado wholemeal waffle - Fresh hummous layered with wild rocket, sun-dried tomatoes and organic olives, drizzled with a sweet chilli and balsamic dressing and topped with an avocado fan (It was SO good) followed by a Hot Dutch Apple Waffle - Delicious bramley apples cooked with plump sultanas and mixed spices.

The boyfriend had Ham, Cheese Sauce & Mushroom Waffle - Free-range ham layered with our Lancashire cheddar cheese sauce and button mushrooms sautéed with Tamari followed by a Spiced Fruit Waffle - Mixed dried fruits coated with sweet spices then baked into the waffle with sliced bananas & cinamon sugar.

Hummous & Avocado

Hot Dutch Apple

I would only recommend attempting both if you haven't eaten for a couple of days, it was tough going & I had to give up half way through my Hot Dutch Apple Waffle, the boyfriend however, finished off not only BOTH of his but my left overs as well. His eating abilities never cease to amaze me!

Seriously though... go, its so good, the building is set in an old watermill & has out door seating if summer ever decides to grace Hertfordshire, it's super pretty & near the park so you can go for a nice stroll  to walk it off afterwards!

Breakfast Cups

Today was day one of my 3 week holiday, I could SO get used to not working. Before I jet off to Singapore and Thailand I am spending some quality time with the boyfriend, so today we spent the morning shopping, went for a run and then I finally got to make one of the brunch recipes i've had stashed away for when I finally had time to cook in the middle of the day!

We made, bacon and egg breakfast cups.

I originally found the recipe on one of my favourite foody blogs - www.spoonforkbacon.com which incidentally is the home to the majority of the brunch recipes i'm dying to make, including "Baked apple cinnamon french toast" which looks AMAZING.

But yes, the breakfast cups were the first I came across, although it appears to have disappeared off the blog now!

So these are basically bacon egg and toast in cute little cup form! 

To make 6 you'll need:

6 Slices of bread

6 Rashers of bacon

6 eggs

Salt & Pepper

Muffin Tin

Method:

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6 (400 degrees)

Grease 6 holes of your muffin tin

Flatten out your bread with a rolling pin and cut a circle out the middle using a cookie cutter, a glass or a knife... I went with knife, and press into the muffin tin to create a little bread cup.

Grill/fry your 6 rashers of bacon until almost crisp, place a rasher into each bread cup and crack an egg over each. 

Season with salt and pepper. 

Bake in the middle of the oven for 20-25 minutes until the whites are just about set, run a knife around the edge and pop out of the muffin tin using a spoon. 

There you have it... breakfast cups, such a cute way of serving bacon and egg, and super yummy! 

I love brunch.