The Red Velvet experiment

One of my friends recently mentioned that she was into baking cupcakes. Now, call me stupid or something, but it’d never occurred to me that you could do these things. Sure, I like cupcakes, but seldom buy them because they were so expensive. Those lovely little cups of cakes with icing on top, colourful and delicate. And so very expensive.

At about £3.50 per cupcake (my favourite being the Red Velvet from Hummingbird), it was one of those little luxuries which, once I bought one, meant I couldn’t have dinner that day (slight exaggeration).

When said friend mentioned that she could BAKE Red Velvets, I was astonished, mouth open with half chewed pizza (how uncouth, I know) as I quizzed her on how she achieved this unimaginable feat.

So, a week later, I decided that I too, shall try to do this crazy thing called baking. And so it was, the bf and I decided to bake some cupcakes to take along to a friend’s BBQ as we were tasked with bringing something sweet. Something sweet it was gonna be.

A bit of Googling, a bit of common sense, and alot of not so good cupcakes later (all lovingly eaten, of course), we had the final product.

Here is, ladies and gentlemen, the home-baked, not so stylish, somewhat pitiful looking, complete opposite of Hummingbird version of the Red Velvet.

We took it to a party the next day, in some containers, and someone actually said to us, ‘I thought you’d bought it from the store, and then put it in the container to pretend that you baked it.’

That was pretty much the best compliment anyone could have given, aside from the fact that the person who said it said it before actually eating the thing. She looked kinda worried after eating it, not sure what that says about our baking.

Could we have used incorrect measurements? Maybe. Could we have beat the mixture too much, resulting in too much / too little air? Possibly. Could we just be really bad at baking? Most probably.

Bar du Musee, Greenwich, London

Most museums have coffee houses attached to them, sort of like a revenue generator and a place for bored, non-cultural types to have a chat, a coffee and a nap. There is a Maritime museum in Greenwich, but this doesn’t quite explain why Bar du Musee is French.

The only thing French about Greenwich is the fries from McDonald’s (not sure if Cafe Rouge counts as French?).

If you’ve never been to Greenwich, I suggest you make a trip here. Obviously, if you’re not from around the same region, district, country, continent, ignore that suggestion. Some people describe it as a mini-Bath or a medium-York.

If you don’t know what Bath or York looks like, then, possibly the entire paragraph above was pretty much useless to you.

When it’s bright and warm in Greenwich, there are tourists about everywhere. Students from Europe come for school trips, chic types hang out at the chic type boutiques (all one-off chic non-mass produced type attire) and poodles come out in full force.

One sunny day, we decided to check this place out. Having had gone past it many times previously, peering in curiously wondering what on earth was in there, we decided that enough was enough. French or English, croissant or iced-buns, we’d try it out.

Inviting until you try to figure out which of the doors went to the cafe, the restaurant of the tea room.

The first thing you see when you are in the cafe is this chandelier. There are 3 of them in there, confirming the fact that you will be paying more for your tea here than you pay for an average meal elsewhere. Nevertheless, let’s not be biased before we’ve even looked below the chandelier.

Below the chandelier is the price board, confirming for a fact that you will be paying more for your tea here than for an average meal elsewhere (because I am a cheapskate and eat at cheap places).

Once in the restaurant, you look around at what the other tables are having, and immediately wonder why you just couldn’t be generous enough to fork out that little bit more for a nice meal here.

Instead, we just ordered a cup of tea and a lemonade, and because it looked so good, a piece of raspberry cheesecake. This just goes to show that standards are ever still so low, and the pocket strings are possible tighter than before (freebies?).

Look, wouldn’t we have had liked to enjoy a meal here? Indeed we would have. Instead, we sipped our tea and Coke slowly, savouring the lovely ambience.

I’m not sure if this was actually the raspberry cheesecake we ordered but it sure didn’t look like any cheesecake I’d had before. It sure smelled like raspberry, but texture-wise, it was more like a mousse-y spongey cake.

Would I come back to this restaurant? Well, considering the fact that we didn’t actually have a meal in here, I wouldn’t say I’d eaten here, but I’d sure like to try the restaurant out. Great ambience for sure.

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La Porchetta, 33 Boswell Street, London WC1N 3BP

Hidden amongst hairdressing shops and flats, there is an Italian restaurant in Holborn which I consider to be one of the best Italian restaurants in London so far. This is of course if you have no hesitation eating in a place which has pictures of little porkers all over the place (pink pig clock, pink pig chef in full chef costume on wall, little piggy silhouettes in a row on the window).

I suggest you brave it anyhow, and try this place out. Before you continue, this is a VERY long post.

With about 8 tables on the ground floor, and probably similar numbers in the lower ground floor, this restaurant would fit about 50 people at a time.

My experience here was so fabulous, I almost wanted to ask the waitresses where they’d hidden the queue of customers. Not that you’d ask the waitresses anything. The 2 of them were quite scary in a whaddya-wanna-have and throw-the-menu way of scary. Like they’d had some training at the Chinatown School of Waitressing. And was top of the class.

Thing is, after a while, you almost want them to yell at you, because they’re so friendly and just so so loud.

This post consists of the food we ordered in 2 separate visits to the restaurant. To have ordered that much in one sitting would have required (almost) super-human effort. Where prices are not exact, it’s probably because I was too eager to eat and didn’t take note of what it was I was eating.

First time here:

Porchetta pizza £8.20 (Tomato, mozzarella, sausage, pork mince and ham pizza)
Thin, slightly soft (but nice) base, with lots and lots of mince, sausages and tomatoes. This was comparable to the pizzas in Italy, unless of course you’re comparing it to the pizzas in Pizza Hut in Italy, at which point this pizza would be much better than the pizzas in Italy.

Tagliatelle boscaiola £7.90 (Tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms and mince)
The fresh pasta absorbed most of the meaty sauce, and although this was slightly too salty, it was the first time I’d tasted an Italian dish like this. It wasn’t very Italian, if you know what I mean. Must have been the meat and mushroom combination which made it nice so nice.

Spaghetti al nero di seppia £7.90 (Squid ink spaghetti)

Where some places give you black coloured spaghetti pretending that was squid ink sauce, this place actually has squid ink in the sauce for the pasta. Fishy, very easy to eat, and wanted much more after it.

Linguine polpette £8.95 (Linguine with pork meatballs, chilli, parsley and parmesan)

This was the favourite of the meal. The pasta was perfectly al-dante as it was with all the dishes, the meatballs were very very meaty, almost like they were daring you to eat them (we took the dare). The sauce was tomato-ey without being too sour and despite being full about half way through the dish, I continued battling my way through the yummi-ness.

Chocolate ice cream £4.50 (this had some fancy name, volcano or something)

Like a chocolate fondant, with molten chocolate from the middle, probably why it was called something like volcano.

Second time here:

Special of the day – bruschetta with prawns and chorizo (probably £3.50 - £4.00)

My friends ordered this as a starter, and also ordered a main dish each as they were very hungry but when the dishes arrived, we realised that we might have made a mistake, considering the portion sizes. As they couldn’t finish their food, I volunteered to help them out. The prawns were jumbo and fresh, crunchy and sweet. The sausages were very salty but nicely balanced by the tomato sauce. We didn’t touch the toast but I’m sure that would have been fabulous.

Garlic pizza bread, about £3

Shaped like a funnel, there was generous amounts of garlic on this one, ordered by my bread-loving friend (who also had a pizza).

Calamari fritti, about £4

The squid was very fresh, like the prawns. Also like the prawns, they were ordered by friends who couldn’t finish them (yay) and so I had some (most). Chewy, crispy batter and very nice with just enough fishyness.

Seafood linguine, probably about £8 I’d reckon

As you can tell, the second time we were there, the excitement of eating the food completely took over, and the professionalism of food blogging went out the window.

Porcini pizza or some sort, probably about £7 (seems to be the average price there)

Hawaiian pizza, £7? Probably.

White chocolate fruits of the forest gateau £29.50 (from Patisserie Valerie in Covent Garden)

This is a very very pretty cake. It’s also very tasty, and when I brought it out of the cake box, the oohs and aahs (from myself) were evidence enough of that. The fruits at the top of the cake managed to stay put the entire time (it had been transported all over London town), and even stayed on the slices when we divided the cake up.

This was a sponge cake, with cream and fruit in each layer, and a while chocolate sliver surrounding the cake.

This is one place I definitely recommend for people who want to have authentic (as far as I can tell) and reasonably-priced Italian food. Recommended by a friend who knows her food, recommended by me who likes food.

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