A decadent afternoon in London

For my birthday this year, my dad and stepmum bought me a marvellous present: Chocoholics Champagne Afternoon Tea for Two in the Podium Restaurant at The Hilton, Park Lane! Wow. 

Cathy was the lucky recipient of the "Plus One"and we eagerly anticipated May 20th. As it was up in London, we decided to make a day of it and headed up on the first reasonably priced train, arriving about 11.30am. We'd spotted a couple of things we fancied doing and which also fell into the "2-For-1" Offer where, if you produce your train tickets to London, you get (unsurprisingly) two entries for the price of one. 

Our first port of call was the Old Operating Theatre in the Herb Garrett of a Baroque Church in St Thomas' Street. It looked fascinating even on the net and in reality it was even better. The entrance is a tiny door in the wall of the building (from where you can see the almost-finished Shard) and you are immediately faced with a very tight winding wooden spiral staircase. After creaking your way up the 36 steps, you reach another tiny door leading to the ticket office and rather incongruous gift shop. The 2-For-1 system worked perfectly, we paid the grand total of £6.75 between us to get in, and headed up the next flight of stairs.

We entered a relatively small, quite dark attic, absolutely crammed with artefacts. It was a real mixture of old surgical tools, operating tables, early stethoscopes etc and the Culpeper Herb Museum. Both areas were fascinating in slightly different ways - the tools and tables looked incredibly primitive and it was amazing to think that these were once the height of modern medicine! The herbal section was great too - especially given our interest in complementary/holistic health. Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654) was an amazing herbalist (amongst other things) and much of the information held in his "Complete Herbal" is still used today in herbal medicine. 

After the delights of the garrett, we moved into the actual operating theatre. This was where operations were carried out on patients from St Thomas' Hospital between 1822 and 1862 when it was partially dismantled and the entrances were bricked up. It was basically forgotten about until 1956 when a man investigating the history of St Thomas' Hospital found some records of it and decided to take a look. What a surprise he must have got once he'd negotiated the 15ft of ladder up to the trapdoor entrance that was now the only way in. Since then, it has been restored somewhat and filled with the paraphernalia held there today. 
Although the website recommends a 45-minute visit to the museum, we spent well over an hour there and consequently realised that we didn't have time to go to The London Film Museum and still get to The Hilton on time. 

It was a lovely day so we decided to walk right along the river from London Bridge to Westminster Bridge and then hop on the Tube to get to Park Lane. Our journey took us past Southwark Cathedral, Millenium Bridge, the Globe Theatre, the Tate Modern, Blackfriars Bridge, a replica of the Golden Hind, St Paul's Cathedral (on the other side of the river), the South Bank, Gabriel's Wharf, Waterloo Bridge, Jubilee Gardens, London Film Museum, London Aquarium, the London Eye, opposite the Houses of Parliament and finally to Westminster Bridge. 

On the way we stopped off for a drink at the very marvellous "Propstore" bar, a summer pop-up bar, filled with sets and scenery from National Theatre productions. 

And then it was time for the main event - 3pm had rolled around and we were heading into the Podium Restaurant at The Hilton. I'll be honest, once upon a time, "The Hilton" conjured up images of very posh, swanky hotels with chandeliers and marble floors. These days, many of them are, as someone put it the other day, slightly upmarket Travelodges! However, we weren't there to gawp at the surroundings, we were there for our Chocoholics Champagne Afternoon Tea. 

Having been shown to our table, we were handed the menu or, rather, the explanation! A flute of champagne was brought fairly swiftly, along with a small wooden box which contained six tiny glass screw-top containers, each containing a different tea. There were probably twenty different teas on the menu and these were just six interesting ones they thought we might like to sniff. Cathy opted for a white tea and I went for the Hilton Afternoon blend. The champagne was rather nice - Pommery - and went down far too easily. Once that had gone, we were brought our individual pots of tea and the first round of food - sandwiches. They were dainty open sandwiches but absolutely delicious. I had the vegetarian option (of course) - one egg and cress, one cream cheese and cucumber, one cheddar and grape, one mozzarella and tomato and one asparagus with parmesan shavings. 

Then it was time for cake. Cakes. Lots of them. A three-tier metal and glass cake stand arrived, laden down with cakey chocolatey goodness! 

Level One - Scones. Two chocolate chip scones, one fruit scone and a plain scone. A pot of strawberry jam. A pot of clotted cream. A pot of chocolate praline. Heaven.

Level Two - Pastries. Battenberg. Sacher Torte. Raspberry and Elderflower cupcake. Red velvet cupcake. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Level Three - Miniature Fancies. White chocolate and cherry cheesecake with red velvet and orange tuile. Milk chocolate cremeux. Pistachio macaroon with manjari chocolate filling. Iced shortbread butterfly on an orange and chocolate profiterole. Lemon and raspberry marshmallow lolly. Meringue lolly. Yummity yum. 

Oh, and the top level cakes were sitting on a gigantic, half-inch thick patterned plate made of solid chocolate. Everything was beautifully made and presented and, of course, absolutely delicious. We tried to finish it all, we really did but we were beaten by a couple of cakes and the chocolate plate. Needless to say, we were not the first people to ask for a box to take the rest away in. We asked our waitress if anyone had ever finished the whole lot. No. A few people managed all the cakes but no-one had ever actually eaten the plate on the premises! 

So after nearly three hours we headed back out into London with a couple of hours to kill before our train home. Cathy found an internet-based guided walking tour of Jack the Ripper's murder locations on the net so we headed off to Whitechapel and followed most of the grisly tour, ending at The Hoop and Grapes, one of the oldest pubs in London and the only timber-framed building to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666.

And then it was back to Victoria and home. It had been a lovely, interesting and decadent day! Thanks Dad and Ann! 

For all my photos of the day, click HERE. 

For the actual website and their own photos, click HERE. 

Birthday weekend 2010

I know it's nearly 2 weeks since my birthday but I've been, you know, busy!

It barely feels like a year since my last birthday, spent in the UK having a blast with my friends, but yet the next one rolled around and crept up on me, as they do.

On Thursday evening my ex-flatmate, Eve, arrived in town from Dublin so we met up and went to the mad, packed sidreria near Sol with Julie, Jorge, Louise, Susan, Philip, and Debbie. We quaffed sangria and beer, and were regularly disturbed by a big group of lads next to us who, depending on which one of them you talked to, were either from Asturias, Romania or various other global origins. Wherever it was, one of them decided that what we needed to experience was him projectile vomiting all over the floor of the bar, wiping his mouth and then grabbing the rest of his group to move on somewhere else. We weren't sorry to see them go but were sorry that the staff made no attempt to clean the floor before we left, carefully stepping round the offending puddle!

On Friday afternoon, Kim arrived from Alcoy and joined in the fun. We headed to Bar Ave Fenix where the regular Friday evening meetup happens, though we stayed in the upstairs bar and let the language practice happen downstairs without us (much to Julie's annoyance when she found us skiving!) Having hung around there for a while, a group of us headed off to yet another sidreria down the road for late night nosh. After rather too many beers, there's nothing like a table groaning with carbs - bread, patatas bravas, tortilla and some very good pimientos al padron. We unexpectedly made the last Metro, or at least some of us did, saving ourselves for the Saturday!

Saturday (my actual birthday) lunchtime saw 5 of us finally making it to the Retiro (Madrid's main park) to go boating on the lake. I'd been meaning to do it since I arrived but Eve was absolutely desperate, having failed to take the plunge (not literally, fortunately) despite living here nearly a year, and coming back for a visit. So 1pm, hangovers aside, found the 5 of us split over 2 boats, Debbie and I in one, and Eve, Kim and Louise in the other. Louise was entirely unsure of the wisdom of this, not being the biggest fan of water or boats (not sure which) but we basically bullied her into getting in. Debbie and I, if I say so myself, made a damn good show of rowing ourselves round the lake though the strong wind that picked up at the end threatened to spin us round in circles rather a lot. The other boat turned out to be a fantastic lesson in how to row backwards. I never quite worked out how they did it, but somehow Kim and Eve, with an oar each, kept the boat going with the flat end (yes, I'm sure it has a name) forwards, instead of the pointy end!

45 minutes later and we were back on dry ground, and heading off to find lunch. Nat came to join us at Cafe El Espéjo on Recoletos for some very good bocadillos. I was alarmed to find myself the only person who ordered an alcoholic drink - but it was my birthday, after all!

Then it was time to head back to the flat and prepare for the "get-together". Drinks and nibbles were laid out beautifully by Kim, things were shifted round a little so that people could actually sit down and then I waited for the doorbell to ring. I'd told people to come from 8, which seemed ridiculously early for the Spanish, yet by about 9.30 almost everyone had arrived. I may have slightly underestimated the number of people who would actually show up, and consequently was having a slight panic around 11pm when there appeared to be somewhere in the region of 21 people here! At least I did actually know them all. There were old faces and new (some older than others!) and everyone seemed to have fun chatting, catching up with unexpected friends, demolishing the crisps, bread, pizza, houmous etc and making serious inroads into the bottles. Richi had been making his famous Cosmopolitans which kept everyone going, then Jorge arrived clutching the ingredients for 10 litres of sangria, including a gigantic purple plastic tub to make it in! It was damn good sangria too, although certain people who shall remain nameless saw fit to spike it a bit later in the evening with rum and Cointreau!

I was entirely embarrassed by the number of presents people brought - thank you all! In no particular order I was lucky enough to receive: 7 bottles of very good red wine, cider, Ferrero Rocher, Swiss chocolate, hot chocolate mix (plus miniature whisk), an Irish art calendar, special bread from Jaen, an olive-wood belt, a beautiful mounted print, a photo frame, a beer cooler, a scarf, a top, a silver necklace, 3 CDs, more chocolate, handmade soap, a very amusing book, a bracelet, beer, and probably some things I have failed to list (apologies!). And 2 jars of Marmite - yay! My friends in the UK who sadly weren't able to come sent money with strict instructions to spend it on sangria and beer (not a problem!) and I received some more dosh that I have yet to spend!

Roz, a friend I met last summer, arrived at nearly 1am, having flown in from Cambridge late after work so it was lovely of her to come, albeit briefly. By around 1.30am there were about 9 people left so we retired to the living room, put on some background music and just chatted and laughed til the early hours.

I finally disappeared under the duvet at 6 but was back up at 10 tidying up and getting ready to go out and meet Kim again. She treated me to lunch at my favourite vegetarian restaurant, La Isla del Tesoro before we wandered around the shops in Fuencarral then she had to head to the airport. Eve came round in the evening for more chatting, reminiscing about her time living at the flat and plotting her return to Madrid!

Exhausted but very happy, my birthday weekend came to an end and life returned to some semblance of normality. But huge thanks to: Eve, Kim, Roz, Julie (& 3 friends!), Nat, Jorge, the other Jorge, Debbie, Louise, Pedro, Moira, Philip, Mariano, Richi, Richard, Nacho, Almu, Javi, Carmen, Rafa and Celia for making my first birthday in Madrid so memorable.

Random photos by me, and stolen from friends can be found here

Debbie's birthday decadence

September 27th not only saw the end of the reunion, but Debbie's birthday! Yay!

A small affair, due to various people being out of town - Debbie, Moira and I celebrated together. We met at Cafe Delic in Plaza de Paja, a plaza that I discovered was a total nightmare to actually find! Despite looking very easy on a map, I walked round and round (round what turned out to be the outside walls of the square!) for about half an hour, trying to find the way in. Finally, with the help of Moira on her mobile and her map which actually had street names marked (always helpful) I found them.

They were just reaching the end of a mojito each (which when the bill came and they turned out to be €9 each, I was glad I'd missed!). Being a birthday, cava was the order of the day. The waiter initially looked a little dubious as to whether they had any or not, but then came back with 3 very cute, individual bottles (much more reasonable at €3 each), 2 proper champagne flutes and a short, fat tumbler (no, not the acrobatic kind from the circus!). He apologised for not having 3 champagne glasses! As if that mattered. We were tempted to decadently swig it out of the bottle but propriety won out in the end.

Despite the desire for another cava, we decided to resist and walked all of 10 metres to Viva La Vida, a vegetarian food-sold-by-weight buffet restaurant we'd heard so much about but never been in. WOW! What a revelation! Like veggie heaven. First, the place itself is beautiful - all hippy and mad decor. But the food is just amazing. There must have been around 30 different dishes to choose from and that was just the savoury stuff. There were various croquetas, polenta cakes, pastas, fresh veg, salads, roasted vegetables, falafels, you name it, it was there. Loads of sauces, and pots of toppings (sesame seeds, pine kernels etc). Basically, you choose a size of plate, load up whatever you want and they weigh it. It's €2.10 per 100g. Now admittedly 100g isn't very much depending on the density of the food on your plate, but we threw caution to the wind! My plate cost €18 which is probably more than I'd spent on one plate of food since I got here. But to hell with it. It was absolutely delicious and it was more veggie food than I'd seen in 6 months. I may just move in there.

The desserts all looked good but I was so stuffed I could only manage a tiny little biscuit thing that cost me all of 67 centimos!

With that I took my leave of them, at a very civilised 10.30pm and headed home ready for my 6.30 am alarm call for the start of week 2 of teaching.

So - on here at least, happy birthday again Debbie, and no, I haven't forgotten I owe you a present. Forthcoming when the bank balance allows!