Food Lovers Tour - Barcelona

On Valentine's evening me and Dima did something pretty special. No, not what your thinking - we went on a food tour of Barcelona! This was easily my favourite night and such good fun. We found this tour on tripadvisor and it was so highly rated we booked it straight away. 

First of all we met our guide Eduardo outside a Gaudi house, where he told us a little about it. We met the other people in our tour - there were three people from Yorkshire, three from America and two from Sweden. Ages ranged from 30-80 so we were a bit intimidated to be doing such an 'adult' thing but it was so much fun!  After introductions it was on to the first restaurant for wine and seafood tapas - please excuse the picture quality, the more wine I had the worse they get!

La Bodegueta had brilliant seafood - I especially loved the octopus (above). Me and Dima got to know some brilliant people from the UK - they had such interesting and varied stories to tell about their lives. 

Here we had some home made alcohol (!) which tasted a lot like JD and coke. Along with some of the best food ever - I fell head over heels for the artichokes (as I did everywhere, as a major fan) and the meats and cheeses were brilliant. 

Then it was on to Bardot, for the main bit of the tour. We were all stuffed already, and extremely merry! By this point we had all properly mingled and we had some really amazing conversations with people from all over the world. Also, by now we had consumed a lot of alcohol - it just kept coming, like a magical refilling Harry Potter cup, along with the food!

Chocolate Omelette!

The tour was meant to finish at 11, but we all were out in another really cool bar, Bloody Mary, until 2! It was such an amazing evening and one of the most memorable I've had. It reinforced a special lesson I'd learned whilst in Barcelona - spanish food is awesome. Seriously, every single thing I ate whether it was from a bakery, market stall or restaurant was of such incredible quality! 

I fell completely in love with Barcelona on this trip and am so determined to go back and live there for a while in September!

xx

Foodie Celebrations in Shoreditch

I have some news: I got a job! The most perfect job for me right now, basically doing what I love (reading/writing/law), using my law degree, working from home & it will still let me do modeling! To celebrate, I collected a group of my favourite people and we ate. A lot. 

First stop was Hotbox, in Shoreditch which was insanely busy and cramped. The food was good, service not so much (they forgot my pancakes, which damaged my soul a little) and we had to wait for 45 minutes to eat. This is probably typical of any Shoreditch-hot-brunch place on the weekend though, although they only do brunch on Sundays. So maybe wait until they filter out to the rest of the weekdays - the effort isn't worth your mental breakdown as you see beautiful food delivered to those who came after you!

Chicken Waffle at Hotbox

To get over the disappointment of brunch, we walked on over to Dum Dum Doughnuts (Boxpark, Shoreditch) which never disappoint with their beautiful cronuts. I got one of the last ferrero rocher doughnuts, which was insane. 

To get over this minor cholesterol rush, we went for a stroll down Brick Lane. It is ridiculously busy on a Sunday, buzzing with people taking selfies, eating street food and checking out the local art offerings on the walls. 

Me & Lisa - check out her blog!

On a Sunday, you can find every kind of food you can think of on this street. 

But after much debate, we decided to go and check out Liverpool St Patty & Bun. The one in Soho is invariably packed out (with at least an hour queue of ravenous people outside!) but this recently opened branch seems to have escaped most of the buzz. Very surprisingly, we got in straight away and got a seat within minutes!

I might have mentioned Patty and Bun before. It is...

mind-boggingly awesome. 

The best celebration ever, we were all left in serious food comas for the rest of the day week.

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