Date Day

I love day dates, especially in London. There's literally so much you can do - just get the tube to a random area and stroll around, discovering hidden shops, cute cafes and swanky restaurants. Last weekend the sun made a rare-ish January appearance so we wrapped up in lots of layers and headed out! 

I took Dima to Primrose Hill, this beautiful village-like area I had a shoot in a couple of weeks ago. This is yummy-mummy and posh dog territory - on every road there were at least 5 dogs happily bouncing along in the sunshine. We found the Ripe Kitchen, a cafe that generously let me change in their bathroom on the shoot day - they had 4 bowls of free cake samples so obviously I went back for more! 

Exceptional coffee and a vegan, gluten free cheesecake! 

Fuelled by coffee, we started our ascent up the hill..

Which was a lot tougher to walk up than it looks! 

But the views are worth it. And running down the hill of course! 

We just kept going straight, all the way through Regent's Park until we got to a tube station (which happened to be very very far away - we were walking for hours!)

I tried to take my polaroid camera out for a day trip, but it doesn't get on too well with the sunshine!

All that walking made us both extremely hungry - lucky that we found ourselves in Soho, surrounded by hundreds of restaurants. However generally eating out in London on the weekend looks a little something like this - 

A queue for the breakfast club at 2pm on a Saturday! It's good, but not that good! 

So it's a matter of searching out the just-opened-but-not-yet-on-timeout-london restaurants, the ones that stay secret for a couple of weeks before they either become fully booked for the next month or have a queue shivering in the cold outside all day, everyday. (Patty & Bun I'm looking at you and your amazing food hidden behind a constant hour long queue!)

First of all we tried out Bunnychow - a place I'd heard about quite a bit and thought they were based in Shoreditch's Box Park. They just opened a permanent restaurant in Soho! Bunnychow basically empty out reasonably sized loafs of bread and fill the innards with different delicious fillings - we went for meatballs. Other menu stand outs were the pulled pork, and the full english breakfast in a loaf. 

Highly recommended - their food was filling (more than enough to share one between two), reasonably priced (roughly £7 per loaf) and most importantly, perfect food for when it is freezing outside. The juices (above) were also some of the best I've had - particularly the plum and mint. Get the juice!

We purposefully shared one Bunnychow so we could find something else to try too - next up was Shoryu Ramen which was some of the best I've tried in London. 

The restaurant is teeny, hidden away in China Town and buzzing with the atmosphere of hot sizzling gyozas and steaming ramens being hurried around to hungry people. 

 

Try and get all of the above - from the fluffy bun stuffed with incredible pork, cooked to perfection gyozas and a filling ramen - it's a perfect meal.

Dima agrees! 

We finished off our mega-date at Pace Gallery, checking out some amazing photography before going home to play Crash Bandicoot all day - cultural! 

My Week in Instagram

I haven't done one of these posts before, but as I use instagram a lot (too much) it is probably worth showing you what I got upto! My username is @leannemaskell - follow me for a random collection of pictures showing my life (most of them are of food!)

Sunday 

A very true ASOS selfie to start the day..

After a month of giving up my 'healthy' diet (mulled wine calls my name... everyday) I have decided to get back into it. Dima cooks all his meals for the week in advance which is pretty snazzy as I usually can't be bothered to cook and go for something nutritious and quick, like lindt. This week I simply boiled up some potatoes, leeks, carrots, broccoli and onion, gave it a whizz and voila - the easiest, healthiest soup ever! It was really good too.

Today I plan on making another one as that did so well to sustain me throughout the week, so I'll post a recipe!

The healthy soup was mildly counteracted by a gigantic roast at Tommyfield, which was rather excellent and good value. It was Elena's birthday (next to me) and lovely to get everyone together again.

Monday

On Monday I officially started my work experience in the Advertising sector of Virgin Media. It was such a fun day (although I am 100% sure not everyday is like this) - the Discovery Channel put on an event for Virgin Media and showcased incredible things in different rooms relating to their channels. I heard from Ed Stafford, who walked the entire Amazon/has his own show called Marooned where he lives on deserted islands for 60 days; the British motorbike champion whose name I forget and an actress portraying an ID watcher. My favourite rooms were the TLC room, where I iced cakes with the bosses of Virgin which was quite surreal, and the Animal Planet room where I met loads of amazing animals - racoons, snakes, hedgehogs, lizards, chinchillas, meerkats, sloths. I'd quite like a job to just go to these events!

Tuesday

I was lucky enough to peek at the offices of advertising mega agency BBH - every floor has these amazing quotes and there is free breakfast for all. Had a really interesting day doing work experience :)

I don't know about you, but when it the wind is howling and rain is pouring outside the last thing in the world I want to do is layer up and go to the gym. All I really use at the gym is a treadmill, so when I spotted one online for £130 (reduced from £400!!) here I decided it would be worth giving it a shot and cancelling my gym membership. It is of the quality you'd expect for the price, not fast enough to do any serious sprinting but just the right speed for a crap  'steady' jogger like me. It is also super easy to store, folding up in the corner of my bedroom so I have started watching I'm A Celebrity whilst jogging on it. It works pretty well - I'd definitely recommend if you are looking for an alternative to the gym! (Although I'd better come back to you after a month's use!)

Wednesday

A day at glamorous Everything5Pounds - this day they had a new make up artist who did a really good job (my caption was 'wish I could do my make up like this' - I am hideous at make up and tend to stick with concealer/mascara).

And another ASOS pic as they uploaded the new pictures this day - I can usually be found here.

Thursday

A beautiful breakfast by Lisa  - often known as the queen of breakfast. They are always beautifully presented and healthy, filled with random Wholefoods bits like bee pollen and cocoa nibs. Check out her blog for her post on my next picture..

Bodos Schloss! Definitely one of my favourite clubs, especially at this time of year when it is decorated so Christmassy and the schniztel, strudel and drinks-in-giant-dogs are flowing. Thursday is an amazing night where they play old, amazing music. We made friends with X Factor's Stereokicks this night, who were all a very nice group of guys.

Friday

This is the BEST THING I HAVE EVER EATEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. I am a major fan of chocolate souffle, and the magicians at Lindt have found a way to incorporate it into their fab chocolate. If you see this, do whatever you have to do to get it. (I got mine from Waitrose).

And here are some beautiful new Chelsea Boots bought from ASOS (ASOS feature way too heavily on my instagram/life), for £40. They are my Christmas present from my mum (which I chose and paid for... so technically my present to myself), fit perfectly but are a little more green than I realised, especially in the light! I still looove them very much indeed :)

A Korean feast at Tohbang, and Sketch's amazing bathrooms (see my last posts)

Saturday 

A random hand transfer tattoo from Unique Freak Tattoos - I really love these! I put this on before my driving lesson to hope for good luck (kind of worked), as my test is on Monday. I am truly terrified.

And here is a cute snap of me and Dima at the Southbank yesterday. We went and filled our stomachs with incredible food, and checked out the Christmas market. It is all lit up and beautiful, I can't wait for Christmas!

Hope you enjoyed my mega insta-post, what are your instagrams??

xx

Shoreditch Saturday

 Although I often moan about living in East London, it can actually be a pretty good place to live when you find the right things to do! Today me and Dima went for a long stroll around Bethnal Green/Shoreditch and had lots of fun :) 

Starting off with a walk around the beautiful park in Bethnal Green, practically outside my flat! It even has a tennis court *imagines self playing tennis in a fabulous tennis-skirt/matching racquets* except I can't play to save my life :( 

Cherry blossom trees - love these so much! 

Early morning frolick faces 

Our next stop was the Beigel Shop on Brick Lane. If you know about East London, you should know about this beigel shop. 

And... the one next to it. There are two 24-hour, cheap-as-chips bagel shops sitting next to eachother on the shoreditch-side of Brick Lane which conveniently, do incredible bagels!! (irrelevant matter: how strange does 'bagel/beigel' look written down?) 

 

Dima got the salt-beef one, which is around £3.50 but the others (pretty much every kind of bagel filling imaginable) are between £2-3. But salt-beef is best (with gherkins and mustard!). I satisfied myself with stealing bites of Dima's amazing food in a pathetic attempt of being healthy. The shops also sell a huge variety of pies, cakes and pastries so we also picked up a croissant and a red velvet cupcake - amazing! 

We also came across a shop on Bethnal Green road called Ekol Food Centre - and they had all my favourite healthy foods at super cheap prices!!! I was SO HAPPY to find the sweet coconut and vanilla propercorn flavour - I've been looking for it everywhere since they sent some to my agency and it. it. amazing. if you see it - get it! Only 109 calories per bag! 

Brick Lane is an amazing place to stroll, there is so much art everywhere! On Sundays its especially amazing, with vibrant market stalls filling the streets with every kind of food imaginable. 

Our final destination was BoxPark, next to Shoreditch High Street. I remembered about Dum Dum Doughnuts and crossed my fingers that they hadn't sold out... we were in luck! The owner was there and he told us about his mission to create 'the best doughnut ever' - I think he has definitely achieved this.

Their doughnuts are baked instead of fried so they are much healthier for you and use much less oil than other doughnuts! 

We went for a 'Zebra' - a crodoughnut, layers of croissant and doughnut pastry slotted perfectly together, with a chocolate buttercream on top...

and a Raspberry fondant one - both were absolutely incredible! After not eating anything 'bad' for so long, this was literally heaven :') 

as you can see by my face... 

also, random but BoxPark is actually a pretty great place just to sit and eat! They had a fairy-light room with beanbags... and a Caribbean room. As well as lots of London themed poems up on the walls to make you feel intelligent as you cram your (rather excellent) doughnut into your mouth! 

We went back and congratulated the owner of Dum Dum on achieving his mission to create the best doughnut - they were really reasonably priced as well (£3.50 for crodough and coffee) - a definite must do if you find yourself in the area!