Life and Food Lately

Lately life has been quite busy, not that I'm complaining. Somehow I am still taking time out of my schedule to entertain myself and others and gorge on good food!

Asian food is definitely food for the soul. This is a place I come if I want something "authentically asian" but far enough off that I feel like I couldn't have it at home. Pompokos is somewhere I go where I fancy a katsu curry. They do two different types of chicken katsu here, different to anywhere I am used to. They do the breaded, which I almost always have, and the fried chicken katsu curry. Both, delicious. Pompokos is super cheap and super tasty, I return regularly and no doubt I will be back again soon. 

 The noodle bowl that all my friends seemed to get but me. I can't refuse anywhere that does katsu curry I'm afraid! The only place I will do this is Wagamama, I cannot stand that curry. It tastes completely different, it doesn't even taste like curry. (Sorry, not sorry, turning into a rant)

This made for an interesting picture, a graffitied wall in the cellar of my friend's house, which is actually quite creepy the more I think about it. And yet so cute! The journey down to the cellar was even more scary, the steepest wooden steps you could ever go down!

Party in the cellar? Sounds like a better idea than actually having one I'm afraid. The dark is too much for 3 girls and 1 guy to handle!

Girls night out in Brighton, as per usual we ended up in Pryzm, which seems to be the only place we are ever at nowadays! First off we started at Be At One, expensive cocktails, bit of an older crowd, music too loud, it just wasn't the dreamy bar I'd been thinking of. At least I have experienced it to know better now. 

 Here I am again at Viet Rest in Deptford, one of my favourite vietnamese restaurants. A chicken salad to begin. The flavours are so fresh and the vinegar makes everything a little tastier.

My main dish considered of the vietnamese style ham (dreamy), banh cuon the meat inside the rolls are just delicious. My favourite dish most definitely, piled on with vinegar. This dish over pho anyday, I'm sorry, controversial comment.

And again, I find myself in Foodilic on North Street in Brighton. For £6.99 buffet style you really can't hate it. The vegetables taste fresh enough, the seasoning and sauces that they place on them just make it even more yummy! This place secured my love for cous cous! For a vegan style restaurant they really know how to make their chicken and beef!

Brighton is fully of quirky little places and the people are even quirkier. Most people here are lovely though, and it's nice to see little graffiti like this around from time to time. In 2 years I had never driven up this road and I am so glad I did and manage to capture this.

 Selfie time, and James making new friends. Guess where? PRYZM again. 

Sundays Grocery

Sundays Grocery based in Kennedy Town is a newly opened sandwich shop. A sandwich shop with a little edge however. The inside of it is refurbished in a boutique type design. This sandwich shop sells more than just that, although the sandwiches are the bomb! BANH MI is just so delicious, and surprisingly filling despite it looking towards the smaller end of the scale. Think of it as your asian subway if you will. However, think of it as an asian subway that also sells alcohol, t shirts and freshly squeezed juices. As a westerner it is exactly what I want on those days where I want a fusion of western and asian food. BANH MI is the epitome of this. Located on Belcher Street it is an extremely convenient location (with Kennedy Town opening an MTR soon, it will be even easier to access) 

At around 80HKD a sandwich it is not the most purse friendly lunch, but I promise you will not regret it. 

The infamous Banh Mi

Saigon Greenwich

Saigon is located extremely conveniently and extremely easy to find. In the centre of Greenwich right next to Greenwich park, and opposite Greenwich market. The menu consists of both Vietnamese food and a few dishes which overlap into Chinese. With a private room allowing for large private parties, or open during normal open hours, it is the perfect place to bring a big group of friends or family, if you all want to be in one location. 

The mixed platter consisted of a mixture of fried seafood and fried spring rolls. On the plate next to it is summer rolls, which is definitely my weakness! (I was eating these summer rolls for 2 days after this meal) Anything with vinegar tastes like a little bit of heaven to me. If you're eating food with Asians, don't forget the soup!

Time for the good stuff, the lobster and the lobster noodles! Lobster noodles are delicious, and my family can't seem to get enough of it!

Asian style dessert = FRUIT. The fruit was nice and fresh, and the melon, I just wish you were there to try it with me! Lychee and melon makes for the best sweet snack/dessert/meal, whatever you want to make it!

To top it all off, just a little bit of ice cream. 

Viet Rest

This restaurant is based in Deptford in South East London. This is probably the 5th actual Vietnamese restaurant I've been too, and it wasn't the worse, nor the best. To be honest, I love vietnamese food so I am so biased when it comes to judging the food. To me anything doused in the vietnamese vinegar and has lettuce and meat in it is delicious according to my taste buds.

The restaurant is quite small, with only around 6 tables of seatings for 4, but it is open all day, so whether you want a late lunch or an early dinner, this is the place. However, as all asian people do, if you choose to go for an early dinner, the staff will probably be sat behind you eating dinner too. It is also relatively cheap for vietnamese food. In comparison to the chain vietnamese restaurant, which is literally mind blowing expensive, and it really doesn't have much choice. The good thing about these small little vietnamese restaurants is the choice. They really do offer authentic and varied vietnamese food. I warn you however if you do not like lettuce or noodle soup, stay far far away from these vietnamese restaurants.

I really enjoyed this place, the people weren't extra friendly, but I don't expect anywhere to be. They were courteous and offered quick service so that to me was good enough. Fast, yummy food and cheap enough prices, worth it I believe. It is easy enough to get to, with it being in Deptford town centre and with parking right outside (albeit, it is street parking and can be sparse).

Enjoyable experience and food, definitely good enough place to recommend to those who are in and around the area at any point, looking to have a light or heavy lunch or dinner.

Paris

It's not often my family make impromptu trips to Paris, in fact this being our first. Having never been to Paris (besides Disneyland Paris) this was a bit of an adventure for us. An adventure that took us a little while to get use to. Having to catch a 6am flight to Paris was difficult for a family that always appears to run late! Leaving the house at 3:20am in the morning we thought we had plenty of time to just sit around and have BURGER KING for breakfast. Yes, since when did Burger King do breakfast? At 5am in the morning it does not sound too appetising, but their sharing their double sausage sandwich with bacon with my sister seemed totally fine at the time. The hash browns however were delicious. Maybe that is my 5am brain talking, but it really is better than the beloved McDonalds larger versions. So there we are hanging about, eating breakfast casually and what happens? We end up running for the gate as the final call, calls.

Once we arrive in Paris my tired and clueless family decide the easiest option to the centre of Paris and Eiffel Tower is a taxi. This is not the cheapest option I must add. A 20MIN or so journey for $75 euros for 5 people. Once we arrive the queue for the lift up to the Eiffel Tower is ridiculous, it's 9am in the morning! Lazy and tired we decide to avoid the queues and head for the tourist boats instead! These are not extremely expensive, however for a 50min journey along the river for $14 per adult it is not the most purse friendly. The boat we chose did not even have excursions, there is another option where you can!

When in Paris be sure to make lots of pit stops! Touring Paris is extremely tiering especially if you spend the whole day on your feet! Our first pit stop was a restaurant right opposite the Eiffel Tower where the staff are extremely helpful and friendly! They even directed us to our dinner stop in the evening, their version of China Town! They pointed us to the clearest metro stops and even circled and gave us a map. They were definitely our saviours!

After this we made our way to the Metro and went to the famous Arc de Triumph, this was rather beautiful, especially as you come out there is an entertaining group of dancers! This mean't a lovely picture for me to post onto Instagram! What was more exciting for my sisters was the shopping avenue called Avenue De Champs-Elysees, where we came across Laudree. Well actually embarrassingly we asked another tourist who could not understand English, but he still manage to slightly direct us in the right direction. This was incredible building, and the cakes and macaroons even more incredible! The pictures below will show you just how beautiful they were. Despite it not being cheap there was a long queue, and we could not resist. Buying 80 macaroons probably was a little excessive along with two of their cute cakes! However what is one to do in Paris if not splurge on food.

The next stop was Lourve, and guess what lazy us decide to take a tuktuk. The guy driving this was extremely friendly and English excellent, well he was originally from Chelsea so he says. The Lourve looked lovely on this beautiful day, but the queues for these tourist stops are immense. Therefore.. we do we choose to do? Skip going inside.

By this point we had become quite well known with the metro, the system was easy to understand and if you are use to the London Underground System it was not much different! So from there we head off to De Italia where a few asian restaurants were and very close to the the Metro exit too! Our foodie brains should have directed us into an authentic French restaurant but having not had much food throughout the day we decided we wanted Vietnamese. And Oh my, were we starving we ordered 4 starters, and 6 mains between us, finishing most of it off! The pictures below will show you the presentation but unfortunately not the amazing taste it gave. Seriously one of the best places that serve vietnamese that I have tasted, almost competing with my favourite restaurant in Hong Kong.

After dinner and by this point it is 8pm and still light outside we decide to head back to our hotel, this was quite the journey having to make it back towards the airport and taking a bus transfer. Once we arrive we breathe a sigh of relief. Arriving at the Novatel Convention & Wellness Roissy CDG we just all want to get to our rooms and relax, and having saved our bag of macaroons till we return to the hotel we indulge in them. Oh my were they delicious, my favourite pistachio flavour did not disappoint either. As we nodded off to bed we missed exploring the hotel and the various games in the lobby and the spa, however bed was calling and we could not resist.

Here I leave you with a picture of me and my sister!