Duck and Waffle

Last week, after becoming an official Law graduate, me and my family zoomed up to Duck and Waffle for arguably the best meal of our lives. 

Shooting up in the glass elevator to the 40th floor, it felt like we were ascending to heaven. And we were.

We sat for a few unique cocktails in the bar because we were early - make sure you book - they had no available extra tables at 2pm on a Monday!
The views were incredible. 



^ me and my truffle cocktail... I love truffle a LOT but drinking it was quite odd!

Then we were shown into the restaurant where we went crazy ordering all of the abstract sounding food...

Ox Cheek doughnut - meaty and sugary in one, me and Dima loved it but my parents not so much.

Fois Gras Creme Brulee - a literal creme brulee with lobster chunks on brioche toast. A bit rich for non-fois gras lovers.

And the money shot..

The famous duck and waffle. We ordered three for six people, and it was more than enough - at £17 each it should be! It was the most amazing thing I have ever eaten - a perfect waffle topped with a tender ducks leg, duck egg (which interestingly holds your entire cholesterol limit for the day) and honey mustard sauce. Heaven.


We also got from the 'big plates' the potato gratin (above) which was lovely but we were all too full to find room for it, and the home made gnocchi which was fabulous. I didn't manage to capture a good picture of it though because everyone was too busy digging in!
We also had incredible oysters, and the special of the day which was home made bread with goats cheese and honey. The bread was one of the best things I ate - definitely a must have!

Phew! Are you sick of all that food porn? Now it's time for... dessert!

I had the macaroon sandwich  - huge pistachio macaroons holding a chubby chocolate mousse - wonderfully decadent.

My dad had the Baked Alaska (conjure images of Ben & Jerrys..) which was incredible.

Dima went for tiramisu, his favourite which was beautiful

We then rolled back into the elevator, three hours later stuffed to the brim with rich, wonderful food. An amazing experience but maybe a once-a-year type thing, for the bank account and waist line! We pottered around for a couple of hours then went to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory musical which was absolutely amazing.

Amsterdam

The final year of university seems like it is going too fast yet too slow at the same time. We celebrated the ending of the winter term with a trip to Amsterdam! It's so scary to think that this could be the last Christmas holiday we get! 

we were blessed with the most beautiful sunrise ever on the plane..

and immediately found ourselves devouring gigantic pancakes 

Amsterdam is literally the most beautiful, peaceful city to just stroll in, so we didn't get a single tram the whole time we were there. We walked for hours every day, just taking in the surroundings and discovering new places along the way. 

We did start a free walking tour which was very interesting... but got distracted by the sparkly offerings at the flea market (Waterlooplein) 

 

Definitely worth checking out, everything is so cheap and unusual! Something I did learn on our short tour was that Amsterdam have their own banksy of sorts, a guy who is creating giant statutes and dropping them in the river... only the government know who he is and have been sworn to secrecy . 

This was in their City Hall, it had just been found in the canal! 

The coffeeshops are very fun in Amsterdam - they are basically just regular coffee shops with the addition of space cakes and joints! It must be why everyone is so chilled out and happy in Amsterdam :) 

December is a great time to go because all of the Christmas markets are on, especially if you go over a weekend as the usual weekend ones are on too! 

This Christmas market we found was much more of a FOOD market but we certainly did ourselves proud and ate something from every stall. Above are basically deep fried brioche balls, 1 euro each but the lady liked me and gave me 5 for a euro. Not really realising how bad they were, I devoured all six. Then the next day, after a feeeew more I sort of realised they are deep fried doughnuts. SO GOOD. 

The food in Amsterdam is generally amazing. We went for this really amazing dinner in Spui one night, at a dutch restaurant which was advised to us by our hotel (ask for non touristy areas!) and we all overestimated the size of our stomachs. 

Have a wonderful Christmas! xxx

Hayward Gallery Light Show

A couple of days ago I went with my boyfriend to the Light Show at Hayward Gallery. I wasn't expecting all that much, with museums etc I am not normally blown away but this did indeed blow me away! 

 the 'frozen water' room

There was a room with what looked like the projector light shining slowly moving lines onto a wall, and at first glance you are like meh but people were standing in the light and walking through it and the small dark room was quite captivating in a way where you are not sure why. We watched the sprials of smoke glitter in the light, and then walked through it and was truly amazed, the view was completely different!

Another of my favourite rooms was the picture above, a dark room with constant strobe lightening effects which made the flowing fountains of water look like they were frozen! (Though my boyfriend ruined it by shining his phone light onto it so you could see the water!)

We queued up for 15 mins for a room we had no idea about, but everyone seemed to be queuing so we did too (human nature..) When we went in the room we thought we were going to be given a show, and waited for ten minutes for the show! But apparently the show was the strange screen like lights infront of us, and after fifteen minutes they are supposed to change incredibly (but we are evidently not cultured enough for this as we didn't see much!)

me outside the gallery in a giant white chocolate drop (obviously)
wearing: - shoes: Asos
dress: Asos
scarf: Asos (I note a trend..)
coat: Erotokritos

me and my boyfriend, dima :)

 

 

 

 

new shoes of the day!

 

afterwards we stopped off at Ping Pong - their food and drinks are great but very pricey and tempting! I managed to restrain myself and just ordered this Goji berry juice and a chicken dumpling soup whereas Dima went for... the most calorific, fried set menu for one, extra dumplings and extra crackers (which i graciously helped him finish off)!