bleecker street burger

have had a bit of a 'mare getting a national insurance number. let's see if i can summarise this without boring you with my #immigrantwoes. so every month 10% of my paltry salary goes into "national insurance" ie a common pot for NHS and benefits. this is non-negotiable, and separate from the 10% that would go into "nhs pension" if i hadn't opted out. however, the tier4 student visa i'm on, despite 1) not being a student 2) being in full-time employment 3) contributing NI every month clearly states that i've "no access to public funds". so in the event i'm in a position to need benefits, i'm ineligible for them. this is doubly unfair because being on a tier4 visa means i'd to pay a £450 (?) "NHS surcharge" when i applied for the visa in june in case i were to access the health services while i was in the UK. if i were a student and not contributing NI, this would be fair and fine. but if i'm already contributing to NI every month, why on earth am i having to pay the surcharge on top of it??? also, don't get me started on not being entitled to statutory maternity benefits despite being forced into NI payments every month. 

did not help that i met a nasty job centre officer who told me i was on the wrong visa and refused to believe there was an exception for foundation doctors to be on a tier4 student visa despite not being a student. she almost didn't want to help me apply for an NI number (which my employers had given me 3 months to get from the day i started work) but i'd to cajole her into submitting the application all the same and letting the powers that be decide if i should get an NI number or not. honestly whether i got one or not makes no difference to me, personally, and i'm just following employer's instructions to get one. because even without a NI number, 10% of my salary vanishes monthly and i'm not entitled to benefits so having a NI number does absolutely nothing for me. did send my employers an email asking if i was on the correct visa and received a reply telling me to inform the job centre manager that their employees are not in a position to offer immigration advice, much less the wrong advice. haha. you're telling me.

the only upside was that the job centre was near old spitalfields market and i finally got to try the burger. done rare, obvs. and sweet potato fries plus milkshake to drown my frustration.

cotswolds

after a failed attempt to go to the cotswolds after graduation, i was more determined than ever to visit. more sentimental than anything, really, having been as a child with family and brimming with happy memories of the idyllic time we'd. 

however it was different (older?) this time round and i found myself quickly bored of the beauty. felt spoilt and blase, like why do i not like this place anymore? why do i keep comparing it with the north east / scotland which i'm admittedly partial to... it also felt geriatric (sort of like the lake district!) and while i try not to be ageist about these things, there's a limit to the number of picturesque village i'll happily walk around, and number of tea rooms i will visit before losing my mind...

did stop at a cute little farm shop and stocked up for the week which was fun. bought carrots that looked like the sort bugs bunny ate (with the greens still on!) and other goodies which became dinner over the next few days. made a roast pepper soup for when we got back to london sunday night and it was so easy, fresh and flavourful that i kicked myself for not being more proactive about good produce and bothering to 'cook properly'.

also had the good fortune of a couple of great meals - the five alls being one of them.

and argh can't remember the name but this is the pub associated with barnsley house which also has rooms in case the hotel is too fancy.

i'd a discoball in my room, which was sorta funny cos at 7 months pregnant i'll literally what i can get. dancing days might be over for now but a disco ball that scatters light as i drift to sleep? why ever not :)

and what a view to wake to

the spa area was so simple yet well done, the landscapist made something outta nothing. suppose that's the skill, really, to make it look effortless and create value in the middle of nowhere.

and as a trip down memory lane, stopped for lunch at the swan hotel in bibury on the way back to london. was mildly disappointed as staying at swan hotel with the trout stream flowing in front of it was one of my favourite holiday memories growing up but it has been revamped and lost part of its charm.

pizza

without going into too much detail, work is hard. and there are days where i feel ill-equipped and inadequate. had one such day when i tried to convince the med reg to take a sick patient but alas, while helpful and supportive, he didn't want to take the patient. had to go to my consultant with tail between legs, and consultant (bless him!) rang and convinced the med reg to take the patient. patient was then in their care for 10 days. no joke. vindicated, much? when relating this sob story to one of my seniors on the ward, i got this meme in response and it was so true.

turning to food for comfort, you can thus imagine my delight to find the mess fridge stocked with pizza after drug reps had visited the day before.

hawksmoor

one of my oldest and dearest friends was in london after sitting PACES just outside birmingham and of course we'd to celebrate with steak. have heard lots about hawksmoor but never been. suppose there's just so much in london that i'm often spoilt for choice and have an ever-growing list of places to try but am often too lazy / stuck in comfort zone to get round to it. also have the bad habit of being reluctant to leave the 'hood so friends were nice to pick the hawksmoor in the 'hood. teehee :) perks of being pregnant. 

it was fun getting the two families together, 3/4 C siblings were there, with +1 and colleague who also sat PACES in tow, and my brother and i represented our fam. nostalgic how we've grown up together and spent many sunday lunch times together with our folks. it's almost like extended family, really, and there shared understanding and how well we know each others' quirks and foibles (plus embarrassing stories) is something that is very precious to me.

there's loads on offer at hawksmoor but we were el cheapos and went for the sunday roast cos there were 17 (?) left and 8 (?) of us. generous portion and lovely sides but gimme the maze grill sunday roast any time.

hally's

i probably spend more time and money at hally's than i care to admit, especially because they're clever and constantly update the menu so my need for novelty is satisfied and there's often something new i want to try. have brought friends in town, friends from outta town, family etc there but also enjoy going on my own for some head space and time to decompress with a trashy magazine. would never buy grazia but am more than happy to read if it's in front of me teehee. and they've recently changed their matcha latte recipe to not have sugar so i'm an even happier camper. used to need to go to LPQ for my unsweetened matcha latte fix but now it's at hally's too!

on my most recent visit i'd the corn fritters which were delightfully light, with poached eggs, bacon and tomato jam. absolutely delish and i'm such a glut i wanted seconds but managed to restrain myself, just.

steamboat

have said before and will say it again - i'm a one trick pony when it comes to food and the weather's just about cold enough to have steamboat. in fact, i'm immensely proud of a friend who recently attempted their own steamboat after i cooked it last year! but this was steamboat for my brother who was being manja and came round one evening. have had the good fortune of finding an azn grocer (thai, in fact) near earl's court that stocked the stuff i needed, although some of the components did come from chinatown / amazon. it's just so pretty to look at, so easy to do, so satisfying to consume and leaves me with leftover for days.

do find the broth too salty for slurping so mainly use it to poach the steamboat components without actually drinking the soup at the end.

maze and bridget jones' baby

a dear family friend and neighbour was kind to invite me to dinner and a movie! she's always on the go and despite living a few streets away, isn't usually in london long enough to catch up. but she very sweetly wanted to hang when she'd a rare free night in london. she'd recommended cafe society but the timings didn't work out and we ended up watching bridget jones' baby. which i initially thought would require an epidural of its own to sit through but was proven wrong. and as a treat, she also very generously bought dinner at maze grill. now i'm an unabashed carnivore and maze has got to be my all-time favourite steak restaurant, despite being late to the game. it serves steak, and various sushi. how awesome is that? and while i shouldn't have bloody meat, who wants a well done bit of charcoal? sacrilege! the cow would've died in vain. sadly the nhs doesn't test for toxo in antenatal blood tests (they really should!) and hm i suppose it's all risk management, really. wine, too. another no-no but i don't get the whole self-sacrificial maternal instinct martyrdom. to each his (her?) own and i just feel that everything in moderation is a healthier approach than a flat out ban. not condoning risk taking behaviour in the least but hm, gotta live a little. in the alternative, self-deprivation and resenting the baby as a result is probably worse.

harwood arms

is without a doubt my go-to when friends in town want a modern british meal. had a house guest for a week who i casually abandoned over the weekend to venture north but that's the beauty of old friends, eh? low maintenance. also i'm too lazy / uninvested to promise week-long hosting, because, really, i'm only good in small doses. plus with an intense job that leaves me craving sofa / duvet time at the end of the day, the last thing i want is to have to show someone around london. hey, providing RBKC accommodation should more than suffice, no? sparkling wit and charm not included. but i jest. 

said house guest was kind enough to want to buy dinner as a thank you and i suggested harwood arms cos it's sorta in the 'hood and consistently good. don't go often enough to tire of the menu but happened to go twice in a couple of weeks cos my cousin and cousin-in-law also stayed in quick succession. revolving door B&B much! 

had the quail with black pudding scotch egg (above) and sea bream (i think) followed by raspberry souffle for pud. all good and defo worth trying.

st abb's

it's no secret that i've great difficulty leaving the north and jump at every opportunity to head back to the east lothian coastline. maintain it's one of the prettiest stretches of coast and just what i want (need?) after a long week at work. now if only it wasn't so far away! was tempted to escape london this weekend but it's been a packed week and after the cotswolds last weekend, sense got the better of me and i'd a hermetic time instead to get over the self-induced introvert hangover. and fb tells me that the train i would've been on had i needed to return to london this evening has been cancelled / delayed by >10h, with passengers needing to take a replacement train to manchester then change for london euston. cue my immense relief because that could very easily have been me and mega ouch for friends who were meant to travel on the (now) cancelled service.

so there. on to happier things! had an idyllic weekend north and went walking on the coast, which is always therapy. scampered on the scary cliff-y bits against my better judgment because i thought we weren't going off piste and was too lazy to wear walking boots, much good they did me from the car :p then we did go off piste and it was a little oopsy but lived to tell the tale.

stopped for usual chinatown chicken and salted fish fried rice (so bad but so good!) on the way to the station and had an uneventful journey back to london.

atariya

one of the perks of working near atariya is the odd cheeky lunch i get to sneak. sure beats tea and toast in the mess! raw fish isn't a categorical no no in pregnancy (don't get me started!) but i do avoid tuna, swordfish and shark because of their mercury levels. in fact, not had shark since i was 8 (?), before i learnt of the horrors of sharks' fin and haven't touched the stuff since. aside: proudest moment to date is substituting sharks' fin for a seafood soup when i organised prom at 16, and again at my wedding. so there :) chirashi done well is always a treat and i'm trying not to make a weekly habit of this. bi-weekly, maybe.

and because i'm greedy, after polishing off the chirashi i'd takopatchi too!

first pay cheque

oops so this is a little overdue but i got my first pay cheque towards the end of august and it was an insult. i hate to sound like an ingrate but four years of lawsch, bar exam and training contract, being called to the bar, five years of medical school and after all this i get <£10/h before tax. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? granted, law school and advocate&solicitor qualifications count for diddly squat but omg it was such an insult and i almost burst into tears. sorry, sorry, it's horribly gauche to talk about money and i get that. but my umbrage at being so underpaid has yet to die down, despite it being more than two months since said 'first pay cheque'. i can think of many other (respectable) jobs that pay >£10/h but let's not go there. 

i remember sitting in the mess, desperately trying to get my phone banking to work so i could check my bank balance and once i jumped through the myriad of online banking hoops, realised i needn't have been so eager. i'd heard pay was bad and having started work without a contract and with no idea of terms (salary, leave etc) i didn't really know what to expect. recognise that price and value are two separate things but have also seen the wanton waste that goes on within the system which makes me even angrier at how little i take home. if there was a silver lining to this, maybe i'd be better able to console myself by thinking about the long game, how the income curve is steep. but it isn't, and things don't look much better especially with the high taxes. yet it's a choice, isn't it. a choice to remain in the UK for my GMC registration, a choice to indulge my quarter-life crisis and retrain then switch career paths. could've remained a barrister and be earning easily 10x this by now. much as i'd like to be altruistic and say i'm not in this for the money, i also think there's something to be said about fair renumeration. for the work i do and daily risks i'm exposed to, i think that's definitely worth more than £10/h. #dangermoney, indeed.

ikeda

after being closed over summer for renovation, jumped at the chance to visit ikeda. the interiors have had a tasteful, subtle face lift and optical illusion or otherwise, the space looks brighter and roomier now. little surprise, seeing how ken-san and his wife strike me as having impeccable taste and there's no reason why their decorating skills would be any different from their attention to detail wrt to quality of food and service. ikeda is without a doubt pricey but i never feel oversold because the food is just so darn good, and what was comforting was how the menu prices didn't increase to pass the renovation bill on to the consumer. i keep meaning to go by at lunch time for their amazing value lunch sets but alas being a worker bee i don't have time for leisurely lunches in mayfair just yet ;)

tonkatsu - freshest of the fresh pork, lightly fried and never with that stodgy old-oil feeling sadly too common when it comes to breaded goodness.

their inaniwa udon is a must-have. don't get it at many other places and always such a slurpy, refreshing treat.

it is a little prohibitively priced and we don't go very often but every time we do it's a cause for celebration.

waterperry gardens and oxford

woke to blue skies and was grateful for my gorgeous room. father wanted to check out the gardens that we thought were nearby  (but weren't) so we went along after breakfast. obliging brother was cute and stood next to random things on command. aw :) did feel we lowered the average age by a good 20 years but the gardens had everything! i'm prob as picky about gardens / garden centres as i am about country hotels. a few favourite scottish spots are the berwick garden centre as well as the one in dunbar because of the cafe and gift shop. waterperry didn't disappoint and was tempted to soup and scones before a second lunch in oxford.

got lucky with parking (it can be such a faff) and didn't have far to walk to the city centre. christ church was pretty as ever but couldn't find the crepe man in the meadows. then again the last time i visited was a good three years prior.

was punted by a cute 16year old on her first day. respect!

then stopped for a late lunch at the vaults garden before driving back to london. yucky sunday evening traffic and a relatively stressful time trying to finish a 200 qn online exam before dinner. thank goodness my father and brother contributed (shh)

hartwell house

clever mama brought me mooncakes! and she'd frozen them upon purchase so they'd slowly defrost as she traveled 14h to get to me. they were delicious and i savoured them over the week, sending poor baby into hyperglycaemia every time i ate one.

hotel was adequate. bit unnecessarily posh but oh well, we went with our eyes open. much rather shabby chic / laid back charm. coworth park in ascot would be an example of that and i felt HH was overpriced. i get uncomfortable in overtly fancy places because i much carry my own bag and hm don't like being danced attendance on. 

dins was surprisingly good though! had expected it to be mediocre and overhyped / overrated but every dish was well done. had scallop two ways (oops, meant to avoid raw shellfish. shrugs...) and duck followed by mango souffle for pud. not pictured but my father's venison was also very good. not in the least bit gamey and so tender.