Too many fries? Naaaaaaah.

One of my favourite places to go to is The Lounge, which is in the heart of Melbourne's shopping precinct, on Swanston Street.  The Lounge is an excellent venue with super friendly staff. It's especially enjoyable when you have perfect, sunny weather as you can enjoy your day/night on their decent sized balcony.

My friend V and I spent our Sunday avo enjoying a jug (or two) of Sangria (my favourite cocktail) for $14, a bowl of chips for $8 and some mini hamburgers with a side of (moar!) fries for $13. I absolutely love this entire meal. Always satisfying!

The burgers are beyond super cute! And so good!

Raspberry Bakewell Pudding

On Sunday afternoons a favourite pastime is baking. It started off with cupcakes, always cupcakes, but every now and then it's always great to try something new. Lately, I have also found I've been leaning towards more savory foods than sweet. Two flavours that go remarkably well are almonds and raspberries. Granted raspberries are wonderful with almost anything (as far as cakes and pastries go of course), but with almond, it's quite interesting.

The recipe which was made today was the Raspberry Bakewell Pudding as seen on the cooking show 'The Hairy Bikers'. My father adores THB so we constantly see the episodes, much like how I constantly watch Nigella. The recipe below can be seen on their TV show 'The Hairy Biker's Food Tour of Great Britain' and in the shows book (also of the same name).

Ingredients:

1 packet of puff pastry
4-5 tbsp seedless raspberry jam
150g fresh raspberries
100g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
5 eggs
150g ground almonds
a few drops of almond essence
icing sugar and cream to serve (optional)

Preheat the oven 190 C/Gas 5. Roll out the pastry and line a loose-bottomed flan tin with a diameter of 25cm. Leave the excess pastry hanging over the sides and trim once the tart is assembled.

Carefully spread the raspberry jam on the pastry base. Take 3 or 4 spoonfuls of raspberries and crush them lightly, then place them evenly over the jam.


Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs one at a time, followed by a ground spoonful of the ground almonds. Repeat, alternating eggs and almonds until they have all been used up. Add a few drops of almond essence. Pour this mixture into the pastry case and gently spread the mixture evenly with a palette knife. You can trim off the excess pastry now or once it's cooked. It's easier if earlier though. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for approx. 35 minutes until golden brown.

To serve
Serve with remaining raspberries a some vanilla cream (whipped cream with vanilla essence).

Faffing about in London

This week has been pretty crazy. So many amazing things have happened and it has just reminded me why I love being here in London. I'm enjoying myself more this time around and it feels like I'm doing London 'properly' as I'm not spending it drinking and being hungover all the time. Having said that, I have gone out almost every night I've been here. But I'm on holiday, and my first proper one in years so I'm making the most of it!

This past Monday was the Bank Holiday. We went to Notting Hill Carnivale to watch the parade, outrageous costumes and dirty dancing brought to us by the local Afro-Caribbean communities. Each community drives down the street in a massive truck and they dance around it.

On Tuesday my lovely Australian friend Evan, Charmaine and I went out for dinner. We went to our old stomping ground, Borough High Street. Boy has that place changed! Some places are still there, but it felt very weird being there. (I used to stay at the St Christopher's hostel during my last stay in London.) We went to Katzen Jammers for some amazing food and drinks. We ordered a cheese & a meat platter, and I had an amazing Bratwurst sausage with fries. The food was amazing - there was so much of it! I also very much enjoyed the raspberry beer. It wasn't as sweet as I expected it to be which is great as I'm not a fan of alcoholic drinks being too sweet.

On Wednesday, an aquintance from Melbourne happened to be doing a mini tour England through England the same time I was traveling here. We were both very surprised. Camilla and I made the trek to Camden for his gig. On the way we became lost and had no idea how to get to the Dublin Castle. We met a lovely Italian man on the street who was promoting happy hour drinks at bar. Even though this would make us later than we already were, we traded him directions on the promise we would go. The bar turned out to be pretty cool, the drinks were fantastic and we both enjoyed the soul/old school r & b tracks being played.

When we arrived to Dublin Castle, the adorable Dan Webb had sadly finished his set. We were sad we missed it and we need to work on our time management skills fto ensure we make it for the next one. However, we stayed at the venue and enjoyed catching up with Dan and his band. Over the night we went on a mini pub crawl and met some interesting characters along the way. I was surprised I liked Camden, I didn't really venture that way last time.

Yesterday, Charmaine and I had another amazing day in the sunshine in London. Once again we went to Soho (which is proving to be my favourite place at the moment), and had a traditional High Tea. The tea room was hidden away upstairs above a pub amongst all the crazy that is Soho. We had some tea, scones, tiny sandwiches and cupcakes. I had a lemon one and a raspberry w/ white chocolate one. All were extremely yummy.

We then headed over to the Savoy Theatre to see what is possibly my fvourite musical; Legally Blonde. A lot of people turn their noses up whenever I bring this up which makes me really sad as they are missing out on a very clever, quirky, and cheeky musical. They follow along the movie quite well and they add in bits and pieces which actually makes it more enjoyable. I was lucky enough to catch this musical when it first toured New York and loved it so much I had to see it again. I am so happy I was able too as it was even better the second time around. I was also quite pleased Charmaine enjoyed it as much as I did as I now have someone to be a dork about it with. I am a self-confessed merchandise whore, so I purchased a super cute shirt with Bruiser on it and a fluffy pink pen. I shattered all the dreams from the other girls in the cue as I scored the last one. What can I say? I love pink!



The end of the day was drawing to a close and the night was ready to begin. We went to a bar in soho for a happy hour cocktail and headed to see a hilarious cabaret duo called The Bourgeois & Maurice Band. I'm a relatively new fan of them, so I didn't really know many of their songs, but I made sure to listen to them beforehand - they were really great on stage! They had brilliant costumes, they busted some moves and had some cheeky lyrics.