Rudders at Home

Paul and I went out on Friday night to Baltic. In short, it’s a restaurant with an Eastern European menu, and also apparently does live music, which I didn’t know about until I looked at their website. We booked our table for 7pm, and were seated right away when we arrived a bit early. The place was already a bit busy, and our orders were taken quite quickly. I thought they might try to push us a long, but no, they didn’t. The bill came quickly when we asked for it, (which is a change for us) but they didn’t even try to move us to the bar after we had paid and were taking our time on some after dinner drinks.

The place had a really nice atmosphere, polite waitstaff, the lighting was good and the food was gorgeous as well. I had pierogi to start, followed by cabbage stuffed with pork and veal. Paul had blinis to start, with a selection of items to go with and for his main he had a delicious venison dish. It was so good it made me wonder why I don’t order venison more often when we’re out… Dessert was a chocolate torte followed by some after dinner drinks.

We had a really good night there, and would definitely go back – even just for drinks.

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Last night Paul and I went out in Clapham Junction. Clapham Junction is ages away from where we currently live. Well, not really ages, but it certainly seems like it when you’re out late, the Tube is closed and we require a night bus to get home. The transportation issue is the reason we normally stick around Central London. However, sometimes we have to make allowances, and this Thursday night had to be one of them. A friend of ours is leaving town. He’s headed back to the states after a measley two years in the country and we had to have one last fling. He recommended two places in Clapham, which we hadn’t been to before. Khan’s and Microbar.

Because we are always earlier to places than our friend is, Paul and I were also able to get in a second pub for a quick drink while we waited.

We headed up to Khan’s for a curry. It didn’t disappoint. I do love a good curry, and this was especially good. They advertise themselves as being low-fat and colorless. I, however, probably got the most fattening dish on the menu, made with cream and all sorts. But hey, what can I say? I don’t normally go out for a curry. Usually we’re so lazy that all we do is call for our local to deliver. So, I splurged. Big deal! And let me tell you, it was worth it. And I have to say, Kevin has good taste in food. Even if he was drunk when he was last there.

Then we headed off to Microbar. I should probably say rolled off. It was a filling meal. It wasn’t a bad pub and I can certainly see the appeal. While they seemed to have a nice selection of beer, I wouldn’t go back to Clapham just to go there. It was nice for a night, but the journey for us just doesn’t make it a possibility to go often! 

Overall, it was a pretty good night out. The ride home was eventful – bus back into town, and then another bus back out. We didn’t get to bed until nearly 2am! But we had fun, and the most important part was that we got to go out with a good friend who’ll be leaving us soon. I think we’ll miss him when he’s gone!

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So, Paul and I went out for an anniversary meal last week. It was five years to the day that he and I met in the middle of a street in London. We’re a bit sappy, yes.

Anyway, we pretty much always mark the occasion in some way – not with gifts, really – this isn’t a gifty anniversary, not a wedding anniversary. We only like to say, hey, we met and wasn’t it cool?

So, enough about our silly little traditions, the important thing is we usually have a nice meal to mark the day. This year, we went to a new Mexican restaurant called Wahaca.

We’d been passing by this restaurant even before it was a restaurant. Literally, we walk by it every day on our way to work, and had watched it morph from a dingy old place into something nice and clean. Once I found out it was Mexican, I decided we had to try it. I don’t get very much Mexican or Tex-Mex here in London, and well, frankly, I really wanted a margarita. Apparently my night at Cubana didn’t satisfy me.

So, we went in and were seated right away. The waiter was friendly and we ordered a selection platter to share. This meant we got two of a number of the “street foods” that were on the menu. Two steak tacos, two fish tacos, two different kinds of quesadillas, etc. The food itself was pretty good, even if there wasn’t much kick to it. I don’t really mind that, but Paul thought the salsas could use a bit of something.

The restaurant itself was all right. We’ll probably go back, in fact, I’m sure we will. It’s “local” for us – ie, on the way to the train station – and it satisfied a bit of that craving I get every now and then for Mexican-ish food. The margaritas weren’t bad, but next time I’ll probably opt for a beer. However, happy as we were with the place, we both decided that, just as we won’t wait in line for Wagamama’s, we woudn’t wait in line at Wahaca, either. There are plenty of other options and it just wasn’t special enough.

As a side note, I did see two people from UK television. Thomasina Miers, who won MasterChef in 2005, and I’m sure I saw Gregg Wallace – one of the judges from MasterChef. Thomasina Miers was in the kitchen cooking away (she owns or runs the place or something along those lines) and Gregg Wallace was speaking to her. That’s the great thing about London, is sometimes you just never know who you’re going to see!

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Last Friday I went to Cubana with a girlfriend. Not only was it a fabulous night out with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages, but it was a fabulous night for a margarita. And they do them well there. I was not disappointed. So happy with it all in fact, I’m already planning another visit. Maybe we’ll check out the food this time.

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So, this weekend we made a visit to Brick Lane. Brick Lane is found in the East End of London and is really famous for it’s wealth of Indian restaurants. I’ve been wanting to go to Brick Lane for some time now, mainly to check it out and see what it’s all about. I had no idea what to expect, and I wasn’t disappointed.

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