Tag: London

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Central London Cocktails Food London Eats and Drinks London Life

Amazonico Restaurant🐒🌿🍍

Amazonico in Mayfair

It was an amazing experience dining at Amazonico Restaurant in Mayfair. The food was fantastic and they are all BBQ style and you can taste the smokiness from the charcoal. It is a Latin America style restaurant. The atmosphere is lively with very good service and they have live music too. 🍾 🎉

Food is unique, we had frog legs and lots of seafood. It is quite expensive, but it is a nice restaurant to have a special celebration. I enjoyed the restaurant and I will definitely return. 🍾 🥥 🌴

My Besties!
Categories
Cocktails Food London Eats and Drinks London Life

Louie Restaurant 🦞 🦀 🍸

I heard so much about Louie Restaurant in Covent Garden since it opened not long ago. I decided to give it a go and see what the food and atmosphere is like.

The menu is mainly seafood with some meats and vegetarian options. The price is quite expensive: the starter is from £14-20 and the main is from £23-55 and the dessert is from £10 onwards

I took my friend there and we had a special king prawn starter, which was amazing. It has lots of flavours, crunchy texture on the topping but also spicy. The main course I chose Seafood Combo. There were king prawn, monfish and sausages with a very rich sauce. It was full of flavours and tasty. Loved it. We had a bottle of wine and 2 cocktails. They were all good 🍷 🍸.

We went to the third-floor bar and terrace for more drinks. We tried to take pictures but was told off not allowed. It apparently has lots of celebrities and Royal members here. It had DJ there to play music and the atmosphere was amazing. This is a perfect place for a date or something special you would like to treat your friends.

Louie Restaurant in Covent Garden
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Central London Family activities London Life Tour around London

May Half Term Activities 2021 🏊‍♀️🧗‍♀️🧒

I am so excited 🎉 to see that lots of museums, restaurants and events will be opened from 17th May. As we just slowly came out from lockdowns, make sure we wear masks, being safe and being certain distances are very important while we are out with our little one. They are used to “don’t touch it or more hand sanitiser please!” 😜

May half term is approaching, and I had done some research: where should we take our kids during half term? My daughter is 7 years old, and both of my husband are working full-time, but we will take turns to look after her. Be aware of my choices are simplily based on my personal favourite combined with my daughter’s favourite activities: more outdoor and arty places.

Outdoor activities – (if it is ☀️ 😎)

  1. Hyde Park (Diana Memorial Playground) one of my daughter’s favourite playgrounds in London. It has a pirate ship, lot of sand, (it used to have water plumb too – not sure Covid time now) lots of small wooden playgrounds – a fun day out with kids. Make sure take your picnic with you and kids don’t want to leave only for few hours. ⛲️🍦🏴‍☠️
  2. Go Apes – one of the most amazing outdoor places outside London. I even organised our team building at work to Go Apes in 2019 and it was lots of fun. My daughter and I love it! It will be a great day out with few mums and few kids.
  3. Boating Lake in Hyde Park and Regents Park. I worked for Boat House in Hyde Park before and it was certainly best way to spend a half day in the sun with little one. I had never been to the Regent’s Park boating lake, but I certainly will take my daughter this half term.
  4. Hampton Court Palace- Terrible History Theatre show: we saw it in Tower of London 2019, it was lots of fun for 45m- 1 hour show. (Maybe after a while, your butt might get numb a bit with little one sitting on you for 1 hour.) Definitely give it a try. We loved it – great production team.
  5. Emirates Dockland Cable car: We had been there once – it is certainly quite far away, but if it is a good ☀️ day, it might be a great idea for a family day out and also explore Greenwich Park?
  6. Regents Park Theatre: Open theatre will be hosting some children shows! Hooray!! As we live so close by and finally re-opened, we definitely will visit. A MUST for me. (Maybe save this one for July – August Summer holiday)
  7. Local parks / playground – It might not as excited now because we spent 1.5 years in our local parks 😆 but someday you don’t fancy to go anywhere, maybe local park with few close friends seem a good ideas too. One of my favourite one is Holland Park playground – it is just fab for 3-10 years old kids. We always make little friends to play alone.

Indoors activities – 🎬🎦🧗‍♀️🏊‍♀️

  1. VUE cinemas – or any cinemas really. Selfridges now has its own cinema but it is worth trying it out. VUE I saw this morning, it has a Studio Ghibli movie called “Earwig and the Witch” Don’t know whether it’s good or not, but I will take my daughter to try it.
  2. Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser exhibition in V&A Ticket is £20, it seems pricy, but I am sure it will be a fun day out, especially you have read Alice Wonderland storybook, or maybe not. It looks fun.
  3. Saatchi Gallery: Philip Colbert’s Lobsteropolis We went 2 years old with Philip’s old exhibition, as I love lobsters, I love to return to see the new show. I have booked it for this half-term holiday.
  4. Swiss Cottage Rock Climbing or Swimming: I know they are closed now, but hopefully re-opened in May half term. Swimming is easy to book, Rock climbing is harder to book. (It was hard to call them or emailed them for some reasons – I will update you guys soon if I can speak to them) My daughter loves their rock climbing – Tips: always go early morning – fewer children and more spaces.
  5. Van Gogh – The immersive experience: Not for the half-term or July August now – back to September tickets. Simplify too popular, also it is in E1. thinking 🤔 💭 Mm…., but I do love Van Gogh’s show.
  6. Tate Modern, Tate Britain, British Museum, Science and Natural museums! It is not that exciting I know, because we had been loads of time before. However, after our long lockdowns, re-visit them might be lot of fun.

I am sure there are more events coming soon, once all the places are fully opened. I will update you guys soon. Have fun in May half term and let me know whether you enjoy some of the activities.

Go Apes – Sani Resort 2019
Holland Park Playground
Rock Climbing – Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre
Go Apes – Alexandra Palace

Categories
Central London London Eats and Drinks London Life Tour around London

“Hello London” again since Lockdown🛍️

It was great to go back to Covent Garden again. We wore masks and took the tube. Silly to say: I do miss the tube and going back to town. I wish everyone enjoys shopping in town and eating lots of yummy food. 🦞🍾️🍴Home cooked is great, but eating out but It feels good that we can socialise with your friends and family. It is great to be back a bit normality. 😄

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Food Food Recipe

Easy Japanese Ramen日本拉面 🦐🍜

I found a brilliant Japanese ramen recipe from justonecookbook Chef Namiko and if you love Japanese food as much as I do. Please check her website, she is brilliant. Easy cook recipe and tasty authentic Japanese food. This ramen broth recipe is from her, but I got some twist to do my topping, is a vegetarian broth base, and you could top up any toppings as you wish. Namiko’s Kimchi Vegetarian Ramen is the base broth of this recipe.

Ingredients:

  • 500g large prawn or tiger prawn
  • 1 knob of butter
  • 3-4 cloves of garlics, chopping into fine pieces.
  • A bag of small baby spinach
  • 2 pieces of gingers
  • 500ml unsweetened Soy milk for 2 people
  • 1 tea spoon of Chilli bean paste
  • 2-3 tea spoons concentration dashi soup (I got it from Japan centre here)
  • 2 tea spoons of Miso
  • 2 tea spoons of soy

Methods followed by Namiko san here.

Topping:

I simply put a knob of butter, fried the chopped garlic, until it changed into golden colour, then put the clean – washed prawn into the frying pan and season with salt and pepper about 2-3 minutes, when all the prawn has changed into pink colour, not more grey colour. Then it is done. While the frying pan is still hot, put the spinach on the side, it will soak up all the prawn juice and only take 1-2 minutes, it will be done. Easy!

For the perfect ramen egg is here. Or quicker version I boiled the Clarence Court Burford Free range Eggs for 6 minutes, then put into ice bath for few minutes, then put all the eggs into a soy bath (soy, sugar, water) like Namiko did. It always works!

You need to do the eggs one night before, or at least 3-4 hours. The recipe is around 20-30 minutes maximum.

It is our weekly menu when the weather is cold. Perfect for a bowl of ramen.🍜

Categories
Cocktails

Sea Blue 🍹🌊🥥🍍🍋

I found Sea Blue recipe from Liquor.com, however, I used my own measurements with a bit twist and adaption, as home-made, sometimes we don’t have all the ingredients at once.

  • 2 shots (50ml for 1 shot) of ocean vodka (or normal vodka)
  • 30ml of Malibu coconut rum
  • 50ml of blue curaçao
  • 10ml lemon juice🍋
  • 30ml fresh squeeze pineapple juice🍍 (or normal pineapple juice)
  • Coconut ice cubes 🥥 (prepare one night before) coconut water with a bit coconut cream, mixed them together and put into ice cube moulds overnight)

How to shake it:

  • Chilled the glass, wet the glass edge using the lemon slice, then dip some coconut flakes as a ring. I don’t have coconut flake today, so I used lemon salt instead
  • Put all the ingredients together with the coconut ice cubes and shake them until icy cold (blue meets yellow become ocean colour, great colour)
  • Put more coconut ice cube or normal ice cubes into the chilled glass and pour it into glass, garnish with pineapple wedge and the orchid flower (I used one that just fell off from our orchid pot) or you can get some edible flowers instead.

It tastes amazing – fruity, coconut and feel like you were on holiday! 🏄‍♀️⛱️🌞

Categories
Food Food Recipe

Easy and Quick Chicken Curry Katsu 日本咖喱鸡趴

Ingredients:

  1. 2 pieces of chicken breasts or legs (traditionally is better to use pork chop, but chicken is healthier)
  2. 60g-100g Japanese panko
  3. 1 egg
  4. 3 big spoons of flour
  5. Easy Katsu sauce or any Japanese Curry sauce cubes （I have all tasted them, and they are pretty good, easy and tasty)

咖喱鸡趴饭🍛：

  1. 2片鸡胸肉/去骨的鸡腿肉
  2. 日本的面包糠
  3. 1个鸡蛋🥚
  4. 3汤勺的面粉
  5. 超市容易买到的Katsu咖喱酱,或是日本牌子的咖喱酱

How to Cook:

  • First cut the chicken breast in half, I use knife quickly slice on the surface – just few slices and season salt and pepper on top each side. Two chicken breasts will become four thin chicken breasts. (It will cook easily too)
  • Do the coating: coat each chicken piece in the flour and shake off any excess flour, then dip into the beating egg mix and then coating with the Japanese panko, and make sure all the chicken surface all coating with panko.
  • Pour some sunflower oil into the frying pan – around 6 big spoons, in medium heat. Wait for 2 minutes when the oil is heated, then put all the coating chicken into the frying pan. Normally I can do 2-3 pieces at once time.
  • When they cook around 2-3 minutes then flip into another side for 2-3 minutes.
  • When the chicken is firm and panko looks brown, you know it cooked.
  • Heat up the Katsu sauce and some vegetable and serve with rice. Simple and easy. （if you are using the Japanese curry sauce, just use one cube, then put 300ml (1/2 cup) water into boil, then put the cube in and keep stirring until it is all dissolving into sauce; if you need to add more water, please do so. )

如何煎咖喱鸡趴：🍛

  • 先把1片鸡胸肉/鸡腿肉切成2小片，假如家里有锤子可以锤下鸡胸肉，这样容易煎也容易熟；没有锤子的话可以在鸡胸上面切几小刀，然后调味，下盐🧂下胡椒 -两边都要调味哦。
  • 鸡肉沾点面粉，不要太多，然后沾下鸡蛋汁，最后沾日本的面包糠，记得两面都沾均匀就可以啦。
  • 中火，下6汤勺的油，油下后等2分钟就可以煎啦。两面都煎2-3分钟，因为我们切小块，很容易熟的。面包糠变成金黄色就可以啦。
  • 最后把咖喱酱汁煮熟，煮点蔬菜🥬配饭，就可以啦。假如你是用日本咖喱酱汁的，倒300ml (1/2) 杯水煮开，然后把日本咖喱块 – 1块放入水中，搅拌煮成汁就可以啦。简单30分钟日本咖喱鸡饭就可以吃。