Tag: reviews

Gelato in Florence Italy

Eating Our Way Around Florence

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You have to believe me when I say that I didn’t originally plan our trip to Italy earlier this year purely for the food.  Honestly.  It just so happens that Italian food is, unquestionably, one of the best cuisines that we’ve ever have the pleasure of eating on our travels, and so our sightseeing trip very quickly turned into a foodie trip (with a little bit of sightseeing on the side of course).

I’ve always been a huge lover of pasta while Mr Ayla is a massive pizza fanatic, so Italy is the perfect place for us to travel together.  I’ve had a bit of a craving for some proper authentic Italian food recently which has had me thinking about our time in Italy and all our delicious foodie finds, so I thought it was about time I shared these with you.  We ate our way from the historic city of Florence to the gorgeous Cinque Terre and I’m pretty sure that if we hadn’t done so much hiking and walking around sightseeing we would have come back twice the size!

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Bob Bob Ricard

An Anniversary Celebration at Bob Bob Ricard

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It was our 8 year wedding anniversary last weekend (yes that does make me feel very old!) and we wanted to celebrate the occasion somewhere special.  I had the perfect place in mind – Bob Bob Ricard, a glamorous restaurant in Soho serving up a luxury English and Russian menu.  Okay, in all honesty I really wanted to go here for the famous “Press for Champagne” button that every table has, making it the restaurant that pours the most champagne in the whole of the UK.  But silly me had left it till the last minute and being a Saturday night meant there were only super early or ridiculously late times still available for dinner.  Thankfully, with lots of patience and perseverance, I managed to grab ourselves a cancellation at a reasonable time.

Bob Bob Ricard is a far cry from the little quirky independent restaurants we usually eat at.  Mr Ayla’s reaction to the sparkly gold exterior and well dressed doormen as we walked past a couple of months ago was something along the lines of “That’s somewhere we would NEVER go”.  Clearly he had underestimated how much I wanted to press that button.

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Windfalls Boutique Hotel

Pre-Holiday Luxury at Windfalls Boutique Hotel

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Staying at an airport hotel seems to have become my favourite way to start off a holiday, especially when we have to get up at a ridiculously early hour for our flight. Not only does it make the start of a trip so much less stressful but it also means we can technically start the trip a day early!

As soon as I came across Windfalls Boutique Hotel, a small luxury guest house just a short drive from Gatwick Airport, I knew this was where I wanted to stay the night before our trip to Gibraltar. Each of the five rooms looked like pure luxury decorated in calming colours with huge four poster beds. It looked like the perfect place to start off our relaxing break.

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Cocktails in the City

Delectable Cocktails, Fun and Games at Cocktails in the City

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If you noticed me going slightly bonkers over National Piña Colada Day a couple of weeks ago then you’ll know how strong my desire of a good cocktail is. Whether I’m sipping one on an exotic beach somewhere in the world or dressed up to the nines in a fancy London cocktail bar, you can pretty much guarantee that I’ll have a cocktail in my hand.  Or even both hands on some occasions.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was to win a pair of tickets to Cocktails in the City, a mini cocktail festival where a selection of London’s best bars serve up this season’s most delectable drinks along with some mouth-watering street food, funky music, and fun and games.

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48 hours in Dublin

48 Hours in Dublin

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After a flight from London that was so quick I hardly had time for a power nap, we arrived in Dublin, somewhere we have lived so close to our whole lives but were only just getting around to visiting.  Knowing we only had 48 hours in this small but fascinating city we headed straight out to the main strip of Temple Bar to see what all the fuss was about.

As it was late evening by the time we set out, crowds of people already lined the street, spilling out the doors of every pub and restaurant, drinking and chatting away, listening to the street music that was being played on each corner.  For fear of being crushed in the stampede of whiskey induced tourists, we headed to Bad Bobs which was slightly less packed but still had a lively atmosphere.  We just about managed to find a seat, ordered some drinks and a huge plate of spicy chicken wings, sang along to the entertaining live band and giggled at the drunken groups of friends (and a policeman who looked suspiciously like a stripper) enjoying the weekend.

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The Medieval Banquet review

An Evening of Festivities at the Medieval Banquet

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Feasting with Henry VIII and his royal subjects was not how I ever envisioned spending an evening. But a couple of weeks ago, in the historic area of St Katharine Docks , we did just that. A four course meal, unlimited red wine and ale, and entertainment fit for a king awaited us at the Medieval Banquet.

We were led underground, past coats of armour and a wall lined with swords, into the depths of the Banquet, where rows upon rows of long tables were waiting to be filled. We took our seats next to where all the action would be, hoping that the other people joining our table were in the mood for a fun evening.

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Trying Guinness in Dublin

My First Taste of Guinness at the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin

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Cocktails are always my drink of choice. A sweet and fruity concoction, filled with syrupy spirits and colourful juices. A classy daiquiri, an ice cold mojito, or a fun woo woo with umbrellas, straws and fruit perched on top.  But on our recent trip to Dublin cocktails were far from my mind.

Ireland is the home to Guinness but this dry stout, one of the world’s biggest beer brands, is nothing like the sugary cocktails I usually go for.  Unsurprisingly, a big part of the Irish culture is drinking and in every single pub we visited pints of Guinness were being sold like the city was about to run dry.  I had never tasted a single drop of the black stuff and, while I could easily have stuck to drinking Baileys all weekend, I just couldn’t visit Dublin without trying something that is such a huge part of the Irish culture.

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A Street Food Extravaganza at Deptford’s Job Centre

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An employment job centre isn’t usually somewhere I’d consider spending an evening, but Deptford’s Job Centre isn’t exactly what you’d expect. Having been turned into a quirky relaxed bar, it now attracts a whole host of people, not just those who are on benefits or looking for a job. Every Thursday to Saturday evenings, Kitchen Hijack takes over with a mouth-watering selection of street foods from some of London’s best pop-up vendors.

As soon as I heard about this place from Kasha I knew it was somewhere I just had to try out. Street food and cocktails in a quirky bar? It sounded like my perfect place to spend an evening!

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Duomo Florence

The Best of Florence with Walks of Italy

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The smaller and cuter version of me used to be a bit of a history and art buff, always eager to visit museums and learn as much as I could, devotedly listening to my nan’s history lessons whenever we explored anywhere new. Now, when I explore somewhere new, I prefer getting to know the place I’m in by trying the local food and meeting people, sitting and watching the city come to life and getting lost off the beaten track. Museums don’t interest me as much and there’s a limit to the amount of history, facts and figures my brain can take before my eyes start to droop with boredom.

But our trip to Florence threw us headfirst into a city bursting with a rich history, some of the world’s greatest art, more churches and cathedrals than we could possibly visit in 2 days, and all at the centre of the Italian Renaissance. Even though simply eating our way around Florence would have sufficed for the whole trip (seriously, the food is amazing), I didn’t want to leave without learning more about this beautiful city.

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Mojito La Bodeguita del Medio Havana Cuba

A Foodie’s Guide to Food and Drink in Havana

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Before we went jetting off to Cuba, I’d heard so much about how awful the food was, how bland and tasteless it would be, and that a foodie fanatic like myself would be hugely disappointed. I hung my head in sorrow before delving into tons of research on the food in Havana – what to eat, where to eat, which street food to try and the best cocktails in town (because of course cocktails had to be on the list when in the Caribbean).

I was so thrilled to find that the food in Cuba, especially Havana, is absolutely divine and anyone who tells you any different is a great big fibber.  Or maybe they just didn’t do their research.

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