pre baby wanderings

feels like a lifetime ago when it was just over a month but while waiting for baby i spent a lot of time being self-indulgent. sort of defensive me time because i wasn't counting on getting very much after baby. had a lovely dimsum lunch at minjiang, best dimsum in london and believe you me, i've more than eaten my (pregnancy) weight in dimsum. a close contender would be hutong. best value is mayfair garden (formerly princess garden mayfair) and royal china (queensway / baker street) would be great if could book but the queue usually puts me off. also, minjiang has the most gorgeous view overlooking the gardens.

bought a moses basket for £10 off gumtree and picked it up from holland park. love gumtree and the accidental community of mothers selling and buying. all the mothers i've bought stuff from have been really kind and encouraging, giving good advice and i'm more than happy to learn from those who've gone before.

back to kensington gardens for a walk in the park after gumtree pick up. enjoyed the early winter sunset.

had afternoon tea after the walk at cantrememberhotel but it was cute and along high street ken. occasionally get dubious recommendations and this was unforch one of them. wouldn't repeat but excellent service and they obliged with scones and clotted cream when i didn't want an entire cream tea after a massive dimsum lunch just an hour earlier. 

on another day, i'd ramen in town. new place, really salty. can't remember name again (sense a trend here?) wish it were better but i'd stick to kanada-ya at panton street with matcha soft serve after.

and on yet another day i was craving thai (probably a cold and wet day!) and made the most of rosa's set lunch. not quite cheap but always cheerful.

sakaguna

chanced upon this new place on instagram and wasn't disappointed. £25 lunch bento box? sign me up! and a cute bar with extensive collection too. the service was attentive and the food authentic. was feeling brave and hazarded central london at lunchtime but think would it be just a good at night, maybe more pricey and more crowded cos it was pretty empty when we went. maybe three other tables and the rest were journo types.

had seen the raindrop cake on social media and thought to try it but think this was different from what i'd in mind. it was basically agar agar. meh. but still tasty!

took advantage of already being in the city to meet N for drinks at mr fogg's!

petersham

petersham is a summer go-to and think was last there about 18months ago over third wedding anniversary. in fact, we ran from home and met my parents (who went by car!) there so we've fantastic photos of us looking fit in compression tights. or maybe that's just the endorphin high speaking. was much less energetic at 38 weeks pregnant but did still religiously walk my 10k steps / 7km in hope of walking the baby out. no such luck and prof later laughed at me because 'walking doesn't work'. oh well, that was reason enough for me to give up. 

there's a different charm to the place in winter. all lovely soft light and crisp blue skies. walking along the thames path towards kew after lunch was good fun, albeit cold. the restaurant wasn't too crowded and while it does cost a pretty penny to dine there it was a nice mid-week treat.

virtuousity

after the blow out meal at ikdea, i felt compelled to improve my eating habits, if only for one meal. hence the kale salad at daylesford. but my salad had plastic in it (!!!) which they kinda replaced with a brand new salad. so i'd two. then i'd fish pie before succumbing to the baked alaska christmas pud. which no doubt undid all the damage the kale had done ;) 

did a waitrose run to use up vouchers (although i'm quite sure i got conned into spending...) cos for every £40 spent, i got £8 off. if not for the vouchers, i wouldn't have spent the £40 to begin with? but bought a whole trolley of christmas goodies for the office.

then it was off to kanada-ya for pre-theatre ramen. you know all those pre-theatre menus? yeah, nonsense. but ramen is cheaper and faster! especially when it's round the corner from theatre royale.

caught love's labour lost (i think) but was pretty much in agony for most of it and must've annoyed the theatre critics conspicuously scribbling into their spiral notepads no end with my fidgeting. something about having to sit in a chair for 2+h just did my back and sides in. did think it might be premature labour but disaster averted, was just tired.

my local

not gonna lie - the first few days of maternity leave were hard! think i woke on the first day bereft of purpose and had a little wobble. overnight i'd gone from a doctor running the ward (we were thin on the ground the days leading up to my departure!) to a stay-at-home mum without a baby to care for (yet). so instead of being mature and organised and getting ready for baby (or finishing the papers i was meant to be writing...) i sorta wallowed in this newfound freedom and paid daily pilgrimage to my local pizzeria. so much so the staff recognised me and would produce my usual without me even having to order. said usual was the daily 'meat special' and it didn't disappoint. although i had a brief throwback to my time in stockholm as an undergrad where i'd a daily (fresh) pizza habit. no frozen nonsense for me! the downside of living with a history student / construction worker was that he'd kindly pick up a pizza for me too on his way home from work. unlike him, i wasn't burning thousands of calories on a work site and just got bigger with every passing pizza.

B&L

the perks of having a travelcard is unlimited  all-inclusive bus rides. it was one of those lazy saturdays when i was feeling especially antisocial and woke up craving lobster. fancy, i know! am partial to the harvey nics B&L cos there's a direct lift from street level to the food hall, there's often no queue if i go early enough and it's consistently good! so i hopped on the bus and got myself there before the lunch / christmas crowd descended. have absolutely no qualms about eating alone, in fact i sorta relish it, and hm looking like the hungry pregnant woman that i am meant i got a booth seat with comfy cushions instead of having to perch at the bar on an uncomfortable bar stool like the other singles ;)

cheeky wednesdays

whoops so this is a couple of weeks late but it's no secret that i live for wednesdays. at uni, wednesday afternoons were always free for 'sport' which in my case was more sofa time than actual athleticism. this didn't happen after third year though :( so you can imagine my sheer delight when i learnt that wednesday afternoons were protected teaching time in my first job. and when there was no teaching, because the duty doctor would be covering the ward anyway, my consultant would still chase me off the ward to "do whatever you want". small wins, i'll take what i can get! made multiple trips to atariya on wednesday afternoons and the nice waiter eventually knew me and my order because i'm boring that way. on what was the last free wednesday before changing jobs, i thought i'd shake it up a bit and have sashimi and tempura instead of my usual chirashi. living on the edge ;)

pub lunch monday

it was monday and i met the former SHO on my ward midway for lunch. this cute little coaster sent me back to northern ireland where we'd lunch at the bushmill pub. alas, pregnant plus working lunch = only diet coke for me :(

had the fish cake with poached egg, spinach and hollandaise while M had the sausage and mash swimming in gravy. think i should've ordered that instead and was sent into a tailspin of food envy.

and because M's a busy doctor with a long list of patients to see in clinic and i was mid-protest because the ward was mayhem, i lingered and pud on my own. pineapple crumble drowned in custard was just the fuel i needed before another afternoon in paradise.

paris day 2

after the 10pm seating at verjus, tasting menu no less so can't even remember what time i finally got to zz, i passed out till late morning then felt compelled to revisit best tofu for bean curd. stuck out like a sore thumb despite being chinese and chalked it down to a cultural experience. it's cramped, you're cheek to jowl with the next diner after using sharp elbows to get a seat. fast turnaround and snooze you lose! typically azn :P found a little farmers' market near best tofu and enjoyed looking at all the produce after breakfast.

had lunch reso at somewhere snooty but they'd the cheek to ring and cancel the night before because we'd failed to get in touch to confirm the reso 48h before. what nonsense. they should be the one reaching out to confirm, not the customer. but whatevs, don't need that sort of snobbery and clamato was a more than decent plan B. oysters, wine and carpaccio of all kinds. pregnant contraband but maintain that maternal diet is maternal choice and there are enough sanctimonious pregnant people out there without me adding to their numbers ;)

walked off lunch exploring bastille and couldn't resist crepe suzette with gran marnier before picking up some basics at uniqlo.

had another fashionably late dinner post defensive nap at frenchie bar au vin. no reservations so walked in about 2230, seated 2330 (stood with wine glasses in hand for over an hour!) and then ate till about 0100h. but all worth it for the incredible stilton from pasteurised milk. still dreaming of that blue. the yuzu mont blanc was also divine.

autumn

 

was walking home from a boozy brunch in the 'hood when i chanced upon this pretty sight. there's no real point to it, really, except to say that introverted as i can be, it's nice to be selectively social. hadn't seen this bunch since summer ball at the natural history museum, and that night at maddox, so we were long overdue for a catch up.

rosa's

it was one of those days where i was desperate for azn food and must've managed to slope off the ward a little earlier than anticipated. also think the waitress was new because she gave me the set lunch menu when it was clearly too late for lunch. so i was opportunistic and had tomyam soup wtih pineapple fried rice for £7 (?) which, while not cheap, is great for thai food in chelsea. however she gave me prawn tomyum which i ate before realising it was an extra £1 (compared to regular tomyam with just chicken!) oh well, can't win 'em all.

pad thai

patara is thai "fine dining" and i usually find it incredibly overpriced. however there is a good value set lunch and i did want something nicer than rosa's / suksan which are also local options. brother had the £14 2 course lunch and i'd the £18 taster menu, both excellent. then we were greedy and threw in an additional pad thai for good measure. rookie mistake. strangely enough i found the pad thai disappointing and lacklustre. it didn't have the flavour i've come to expect (rosa does a much better job!) which was a bit of a let down, really, because the set menus were so good. they also didn't have mango sticky rice for dessert, in retrospect not a bad thing because that would've set us back an additional £9. but, really, a thai resto without mango sticky rice??? thai iced tea was yummy though and when i asked if they did almond milk (my meal came with a latte) i was told quite sullenly "only full fat milk" which suits me fine, really. maybe they're in mourning and not allowed to smile but felt the service could've been friendlier.

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!

bookbinder's

back from the faroe islands friday night, 12h in london then off to the country! this city mouse is increasingly disenchanted by the pollution in london. stopped for a bacon butty before traversing london to paddington (ok not really that far) and hopped on a train to h&thames parkway. 

linked up with folks (they're not fans of london either and had gone straight from heathrow earlier in the day) and we found a cute little pub that served french food. fish soup and crepes? sign me up!

sweet crepes too :)