Bug Salad!

I love living in London. There are so many fun places to go and to eat! I recently rounded off the late night Jack the Ripper tour of Whitechapel with a meal at Archipelago Restaurant in West London.

Archepelago specialise in exotic dining and they certainly mean it. The menu includes crocodile, kangaroo, zebra, scorpion and many other fantastic and unusual dishes! It was a great experience to try something different.

For my starter I ate crocodile. It tasted like chicken but had the texture of fish. It was delicious and I would highly recommend it! Just don’t think about it being a crocodile! For my main I had a wilderbeast curry. That too was out of this world! It reminded me of lamb or game and didn’t seem too hardcore really as it was kind of similar to stuff we have here. It was cool to say I gave it a try though! My side salad of locusts and crickets marinated in chilli and garlic was the most daring I got! Though, I drew the line at chocolate covered scorpions for desert.

However the atmosphere, setting and delicious delicacies have made me want to go back soon. I tried Mr One Piece’s zebra main and think I may order that next time... possibly with scorpion for desert!

Check out their website at http://www.archipelago-restaurant.co.uk

Also, if you haven’t been on the Jack the Ripper tour that is worth looking into especially if you love history and a bit of a fright! My tour was conducted by a Beefeater from the Tower of London so he was full of stories, facts and jokes too!

Check out their website at: http://www.jack-the-ripper-tours.com

The photo of my salad was taken by my very good friend Rene Ehrhardt. Check out his photos at http://reneehrhardt.com/ and http://reneehrhardt.com/blog/

Much love,

One Piece xxx

GLOOMFEST

I have been having so many adventures of late that I nearly forgot to tell you about the day I manned a splat the teddy game, got my face painted as a psychedelic tiger and dressed up as a robot, or gloombot and played connect 4 with passers by!

All this took place at the wonderful Gloomfest, a night curated by my favourite party starters Cliff and Len from the Feeling Gloomy/Club De Fromage / Hairbrush Heroes / Down with Dating club nights.

The boys were asked to put together an area of fun and frolics in Brixton Village's indoor market which is just tucked behind the tube station. It was a little gem of a place with cool cafes and quirky restaurants as well as tasty markets and funky clothing stores. The atmosphere was great with punters embracing the fun of gorrilla twister, air guitar lessons, Morrissey poetry corner, cake stalls, Italian cooking classes, interactive theatre, teddy races, face painting and even a bit of live music.

As said the night is currated by Feeling Gloomy the world’s first club devoted to sad music. Luckily the boys this time were in happy mode so are threw together loads of interesting people in a fiesta of fun to open the very first of these late nights in Brixton. As promoter Mike Toller says, “It’s a great honour to kick this off. Its going to be a lot of fun and we are really pleased to be able to support Brixton market, which is still a real hub for the community in these days of chain shops. Though with only a few days to organize it there will be a touch of anarchy about the whole thing!”

Brixton Village is a superb example of 1930’s market which sadly had recently fallen in to decay with over a ¼ of its units empty. In the past 6 months Space Makers Agency has been working with the market's owners (London & Associated Properties), Lambeth council and local residents to bring life back to the deserted corners of the building. Empty shops were offered to temporary creative projects and new long-term businesses, attracting a range of new independent cafes, restaurants, fashion and design shops, as well as community-driven spaces. These initiatives have breathed new life in to the market so it will continue to be part of the beating heart of Brixton.

Check me out as the Gloombot for the night as well as other pics from the evening:

http://www.feelinggloomy.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=270&pos=15

Review of Nicole's (Nicole Farhi) Restaurant

Nicole’s in London is situated on New Bond St, in the basement of Nicole Farhi’s store (opposite Louis Vuitton’s New Store). It’s well decorated and neutral, the staff were friendly and pretty attentive. When we show up its about half one on a Tuesday and recession or not the venue is packed full of diners. In fact they’ve already sold out of a handful of dishes on their carefully crafted menu.
Looking at it from an ex restaurateurs eyes- It seems to be fresh and perhaps recreated daily (although I strongly doubt that). It seemed unusual that there were lots of heavy dishes on the menu such as Rack of Lamb and Moroccan Chicken with Cous Cous- no lunch time nibbles on this menu ladies (made us glad we forgot to eat breakfast in the morning rush). One of the really odd things about Nicole’s menu is that it lacked any vegetarian main dishes- although it was abundant with glorious fish dishes (which most of the party had).
Our table went for the Salmon served with Asparagus and a White Wine Sauce, Sea Bass served with Potato Chips and a Large Portion of the Pumpkin and Wild Mushroom Salad (intended to be a starter).
We didn’t wait long for our food, Portions were perfectly sized, Flavours fresh and considerate to all ingredients involved and the settings were very pleasant.
Would we recommend ? Definitely for an early dinner and drinks- this venue isn’t catered to those of us more partial to a light lunch.
Price Points: Very Fair considering the location, quality of food and service combined

Fancy a delicous Sunday pud?

We've been basking in the April sun today and found this delicious recipe for a yummy strawberry pud! We think it hits the spot!
It's from our new favourite foodie blogger Poires au Chocolat all credit for this recipe goes to her.

Strawberry Meringue Cake

(Adapted from Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer)

For the cake:

50g unsalted butter

50g golden caster sugar

2 egg yolks

62g plain flour

12g cornflour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp milk

To see the full recipe click here

Back from Barca!

Great weather, great hotel (with a massive shower room!), great tapas and great sites. Barcelona has some lovely architecture and sites! Mine and Mr One Piece's faves included Gaudi designed stuff (Unfinished Cathedral/ Park Guell etc), the aquarium and port, the Olympic Stadium and La Ramblas which we checked out on the tourist bus! While Mr One Piece loved the Maritime Museum because he is a bit of a geek who loves Hornblower.

We weren't too crazy about the Picasso museum though! We don't really get art and kept sniggering at things. Ah well!

We dined in Hard Rock one night and saw some cool Kiss, Van Halen, Madonna, Alice Cooper, Morrissey and Foo Fighters memorabilia! The saxaphone chandelier was pretty rad too!

I would definitely recommend checking it out if you love art as there's load of galleries, exhibitions and museums. The Modernista architecture is great too. If you're a foodie too, there are tasty places to dine everywhere you look and bars to match too! All in all it's a lovely city with lots to see and wonderful atmosphere.

Hope you enjoyed your bank holiday weekend whatever you got up to! Just purchased my Aerosmith tickets. Over a hundred quid - ouch! But going to be worth it! Dropkick Murphys and Face to Face gig next sunday! Yes!

Also worth an honourable mention is the Airbourne gig we went to the night before Barca! With 24 amps on the stage, those boys really rocked out bogan style! If you haven't heard of Airbourne before and like AC / DC, then they are worth having a listen to. The band live and breath rock and roll. They reminded me a little of Spinal Tap though! :)

The crazy lead singer also rocked out across the entire venue which was very nice for us in the balcony! He ran past our buddy Courtney at one point which was very very cool too! Check them out at www.airbournerock.com

Much love,

One Piece xxx

The Ultimate Diet Food

We'd never thought we'd find the solution to dieting at the launch of a Nokia phone. But there are suprises everywhere like this little gem. The Mini hamburger that has cravings succesfully curtailed and leaves you with a smile on your face as demonstrated by the lovely Charlotte Dutton.
Thanks again to the guys at Mission for another amazing event!
Oh and thanks to our lovely photographer George for taking plenty of fun images at the event.