{tasty morsels}

On Sunday I had brunch with my friend Suzy at Sketch's Parlour. Truly an experience!
Sketch is well known for its more famous Gallery restaurant (restaurant and art gallery in one), dressed in fluffy pink like some sort of dessert from the '60s, designed by India Mahdavi (read more here):

{think pink}

The Parlour, however, is a stark contrast to this pink cotton candy. It evokes a gentleman's club/library, but equally with some quirky features, combining old with new, antique with modern. The Parlour is a great place to come for a relaxing brunch.

{fantastic mix of old & new}

 We sat drinking cappuccinos out of mismatched tea cups in comfy chairs around a low table with a brass cover.

 The portions were not large, but the food was good--I had '9 conduit street' (the address of sketch)

The menu is equally cute, dressed with various types of hats...

{love that menu!}

{quirky details}

I'll certainly come back, and really want to try The Gallery, or their other restaurants...

Oh, and the bathroom is an experience not to be missed. It's too hard to describe, so you'll just have to discover it yourself!

xo

L

{à manger-beef stew}

This stew is a play on a number of stews...and very much  a bit of mixings of stuff I felt like eating! Because of that I don't have a handle really on proportions...but the idea is there & I'm sure you can follow if you are anything of an amateur cook!
It's really yummy comfort food and a perfect dish for autumn or winter.
Preheat oven to 180C
cooking time: roughly 1 hour

Ingredients
strips of beef
a large leek
about 8 small potatoes
a few mushrooms
a teaspoon of flour
a dash of wine
salt, pepper
rosemary
thyme
handful or 2 of parsley
teaspoon of vegetable or beef stock (the powder kind)


1. I like my potatoes nice and roasted so I do them separately and add them in at the last minute. So first step, boil potatoes (cut into roasting size or slightly smaller) for about 4 minutes. Drain them and keep the water. Place them on a roasting tray with oil & salt and place them in the oven.

2. cut up the leeks, the mushrooms and place in a casserole with parsley. Add some salt, pepper, fresh rosemary & thyme & stock. Add in the beef strips (I had about two handfuls worth). sprinkle with a bit of flour. Then stir, and then add in about 2 cups of the potato water... and add a dash of wine.

3. Place in oven and cook around 20 minutes without lid. Then stir, put on lid, and check on potatoes (rotate a bit to make sure all parts get nice and crispy).

4. After another 20 minutes, check to see how everything is doing. You might add in some more wine if things aren't looking too brown...or add about a quarter of a teaspoon of marmite to brown it up (& make it tasty). Place potatoes on top of the stew and remove lid; cook a little longer until everything looks well done (about 10-20 minutes).

5. ENJOY!

{garnish with fresh parsley and some freshly grated parmesan}

xo
L

{dark chocolate tart recipe}

I'm not a big fan of dessert, but I like really dark chocolate... The other weekend we celebrated my cousin Charley's belated birthday so I decided to make a dark chocolate tart.
I followed this recipe from the Dough Puncher, which in pics looks like this:

{dough puncher chocolate tart}

I couldn't get graham crackers in the Uk (well I ordered them-a whole box was going to cost me 6 quid-gulp, but then they were out anyway). So instead, I just used some butter tea biscuits. They were good, but I should've used an extra one or 2 as there wasn't enough of them to mix with the butter... I also used Lyle's golden syrup for the glaze--this also seemed to be a little stingy--not enough to really go around on the tart...

but all in all, if I must say, it was delicious! It's really rich though so you don't need very big pieces per person. I also added rock salt on top, which added a nice dimension to it.

{mixing the chocolate}

{I love my pink mixer!}

& voilà...I stencilled 'choo' with a top hat, moustache & bow tie on top:

& then we ate hearty!
xo
L

{tasty morsels-Grain Store}

{Grain Store}

I realise it's been a while since I wrote a post related to 'tasty morsels' but bad knees & Christmas got in the way...However, this morning we were ladies who brunched again, and it was divine! (for those of you unfamiliar with tasty morsels, I'm trying out a list of London restaurants and blogging about them-read more here).

This time, N. 4 on the list is the Grain Store, located in a new & developing area, behind Kings Cross.



 The brunch menu was simply delish--& hard to choose from!


We shared a couple of appetisers: the chorizo scotch egg & the wild mushroom croquettes:

{presentation was absolutely lovely, especially the croquettes on pine trimmings}

Sara and I both ordered the poached Clarence court egg served with pumpkin hummus, drained yogurt, dukkah & flat bread:

 & Suzy had the frittata: 

all very very good!

I absolutely loved the aesthetics of the place: old & new, traditional and modern, industrial and pantry, fused together...and the colours & materials: lots of whites, greys, steel, wood, and a splash of colour here & there....

I particularly loved the way they mismatched chairs, but painted them all in white...

{check out the variety of chairs}

{bar}

 

{ladies who brunch!}

& my favourite thing of all? a bar cart made out of a pram!

& finally...a very funky Loo:

are you hungry & decor-envy yet??? For more pics of the place, see the Grain Store website's gallery.
lovely way to spend a Sunday!
just a note: it's really difficult to get a table here for dinner--tables are apparently booked weeks & sometimes months in advance. Brunch, however, was do-able...I think Sara made a reso about a week in advance. It was fairly empty at about 11 when we arrived, but by the time we left, it was PACKED...& it's a very large space.
stay tuned for more,
L

{postcards from italy~Sapori di Napoli}

I am currently in London, where it's much cooler & the sun seems to shine a little less intensely & a little less brightly than Naples. Still, the memories are fresh & there's much more to tell, encore. For this blog entry, I'm calling it 'sapori di Napoli' or flavours of Naples. You'll get some delightful images of the tastes of the south...

{a daily staple}

{the markets where you can get fresh food-anything from fruits & veggies to seafood}

{shops selling the necessities of wine, pasta & bread}

{gelato anyone?}

{a very old little cioccolateria-technically a chocolate shoppe but serves as a sweet/pastry shop}

{detail of above}

{typical to Italy are these pastiglie-I merely love them for their packaging}

{these lovely almond goodies were for sale on Capri...}

{...& lemon ones}

{& other delicacies in the same shop}

{also a daily must--spritz! see my post here}

{or prosecco...spritz & prosecco usually fight for my attention at happy hour-it's hard to choose between them}

stay tuned for more...
ciao,
L