London

Oh how i love London! It's definitely one of my favourite cities to visit, except that it's so expensive!

London was a quick weekend getaway with T, with plenty of eating and musicals, and also meeting T's friends who still study in London.

After a very eventful journey from Florence- Pisa- London stansted- London city centre, in which we nearly missed our flight, we have arrived in London!!! (:

T's friend was kind enough to host us at his apartment, so we didn't have to book accom in London (: 

DAY 1
- English Breakfast at Muriel's Kitchen
- Kitchen W8 Lunch
- Afternoon Tea at Beas of Bloomsbury
- Mamma Mia Musical
- Drinks at The Shard

Day 1 was definitely a day of eating good food. People say that London doesn't have good food, but i think we definitely ate very well haha

First,we had English Breakfast at Muriel's Kitchen, which was a really cosy place, and had a super yummy brekkie with bacon, sausages, beans, eggs, grilled tomatoes and toast

Lunch was at Kitchen W8, and this was my first time dining at a One Michelin Star restaurant, so needless to say, I was pretty excited!!! We had read that they had a reasonably priced set lunch/dinner menu, so we made sure to put in reservations for that even before we reached London hahah

 This was my veloute with parmesan dumplings and white asparagus. it was light and frothy but tasted like a rich soup. it was unlike anything i've ever had, but it was amazing of course!

 This was poached haddock with cauliflowers, brown shrimp and seaweed butter. It was perfect and flavourful. i feel hungry thinking about it

This was the chocolate pudding which actually tasted like molten lava cake, and the ice cream at the side was so good, i have no idea what flavour it is, but it was wonderful! 

I think we arrived pretty early at 12pm, so the restaurant was nice and quiet when we first came, but it filled up later on, so i'm glad we put in a reservation. it was definitely worth it for the quality of food

After walking around for a bit, we had afternoon tea at Beas of Bloomsbury, which was a lovely spread of mini sandwiches, cakes, meringues, cupcakes, scones with clotted cream and jam and pots of tea. I think it was a fun experience, but quality of food wise, it was average, especially for the price we paid (19 pounds per person). Nevertheless, english afternoon tea was something on our list of must-dos, so it was still nice. Also, we got a free cupcake to take home haha


then we went to catch our musical, Mamma Mia! A lighthearted and fun musical which featured plenty of my favourite ABBA songs. I felt that the sets were lacking, there weren't many prop changes, but we enjoyed it anyway (:

After this, we headed to a very posh rooftop bar to catch some of T's friends who were studying abroad in London. The view over the bay was awesome but I have no pics because it was dark and foggy. Also, the drinks were so heavy on alcohol I got tipsy after half a cosmo!!!

DAY 2

- Singapore Day
- Phantom of the Opera Musical
- Shoryu Ramen


Early next morning, we all went to Singapore day 2014 at Hyde Park in London (: Free food and goodies!!! We had carrot cake and hokkien mee which was so yummy. too bad queues were really long, and we had to leave for our musical so we didn't get to eat more ):

It was a nice warm day in London on Singapore day and my friend overhead a funny comment 'wah they also import the weather ah'. LOL

Phantom of the opera was a really extravagant musical, with amazing sets, costumes and a fantastic musical score. I really enjoyed it, especially the familiar songs.

After the musical, we had ramen!!! because i was craving it hahah. It was the most expensive ramen i've ever eaten (11 pounds) but it was also really good. haha, and we had tiramisu and raspberry chocolate mochi, which was a crazy 4.5 pounds each. it was really delicious, but goes to show that London is super expensive

DAY 3 

- Four Seasons Roast Duck
- Fish and Chips

One of my friends strongly recommended that we try Four Seasons Roast Duck in Bayswater, and so we made reservations as well (:

I loved it so much actually. I'm not usually big on roast duck or fatty meat, but this was so soft and bursting with flavour. We also had some really yummy other dishes like char siu and kang kong and goreng pisang!!!

 looks like an unglam dessert, but so good (:

after lunch we had to make our way to stansted to catch our flight, but of course, we couldn't leave london without fish and chips! so we had that as the last meal before we flew off hahah

London was absolutely perfect, except that it's incredibly expensive. and back to florence again for another perfect week in Italy!

Love,
Shermine