Bob Bob Ricard

HAPPY EASTER! This is one of my FAVOURITE holidays, because I love chocolate a lot. Last night I went for an Easter meal with my family, and I have to say - I have found my new favourite restaurant. That is quite a big thing for me because I am really spoiled for choice in London, there are so many with amazing quality (Hawksmoor, Patty and Bun, Sapori Sardi are some favourites) yet Wagmama's somehow continues to lure me in for its Chicken Katsu curry time and time again. 

Anyway. If the first thing you see when you sit down in a restaurant is this, you know it is going to be good. 

We were at Bob Bob Ricard - the place I had wanted to come to for a long time but lacked necessary funds. Luckily my dad was in town and was ready to make up for lost time! The ambiance as you walk in hits you straight away - the waiters are impeccably dressed in pink waistcoats and bow ties and the entire place looks like a 1920s French first class steam carriage!

We ordered some incredible warm, crusty bread to begin with as we pursued our menus.. I decided to opt out of my alcohol-ban for the Easter weekend and order a salted chocolate martini.

If you get one thing (ok drink) here make sure it is this. It was INCREDIBLE, like chocolate milk with a hint of alcohol and salty deliciousness. So, so worth breaking my chocolate/diet/alcohol ban for... but it started me on a slippery slope. 

This was my dad's rhubarb gin and tonic - amazing. 

The menu was full of amazing-sounding food, but in the end I opted for 'Brezhnev' Oysters - baked with parmesan and black truffle. They were without a doubt, the best oysters and are probably one of the best things I have ever eaten. 

I lasted a full five minutes before greedily pressing the champagne button, where upon a waiter immediately popped up and offered me PINK CHAMPAGNE which was amazing. 

my dad went for Crab Salad with Chilli Avocado Mayonnaise

For mains I opted for lobster mash (naturally), creamed spinach and salmon tartare (healthy.. sort of?)

The tartare was incredibly fresh and there was a strong presence of dill (as in all the dishes) which reminds me so much of Russia! I should probably mention that Bob Bob Ricard is a Russian/English restaurant, and my dad lives in Russia. Also my best friend and boyfriend are Russian - surrounded! Russian food is realllllly good. 

Not quite sure how Russian this lobster mash was but it was decadently amazing. 

My brother's chips came in this cute box! They were also AMAZING (told you the martini started me on a slippery slope.. coupled with the wine I completely forgot that I was on a diet ;) ) 

a brief 'person' picture to break up the FOOD AMAZINGNESS - me and my brother. 

Then it was dessert time. I have impressively managed to resist desserts for the past two months, but as I said, the excellent food, company and alcohol had got to my head. Plus, when there is such a thing as 'BBR Signature Chocolate Glory - Chocolate Jivara Mousse, chocolate brownie, merginue and passionfruit jelly - served with fresh raspberries and a hot chocolate sauce' would I really be able to say no? It would be plain rude. So naturally I got that and forced my dad to get chocolate fondant so we could share! 

The chocolate fondant (my favourite dessert!) which was incredible. My brother decided to get one after seeing mine. 

and now for the glory... 

A large gold sphere, questionably awaiting the hot chocolate sauce which is promptly poured over it, causing the sphere to MELT AWAY and revealing the chocolate innards. Probably the most incredible dessert I have ever eaten. (and I have eaten a lot!) 

(IT DESERVES THREE PICTURES) 

After this insane haze of luxurious food, we attempted to calm our stomachs with fresh mint tea.. and more chocolate (truffles). 

They had everything down to a T here. The service was impeccable - waiters hovered close by without being obvious, but so lovely and welcoming despite the very high prices and luxury-feel of the place - it wasn't really stuck up at all, only in a good way of 'we serve oysters, champagne and lobster and they are all FAB come try!'. The place also smelled amazing because of these giant flower arrangements everywhere. A definite new (luxury) favourite - for very special occasions only, as it is very pricey! I would say it is SO worth it though.

Happy Easter! Indulge freely - today is a day for chocolate, happiness and love! 

Beauty Essentials

I am SO lazy when it comes to beauty-ifying myself - my idea of wearing make up is the below. Moisturiser, concealer, mascara and bronzer. I think that most people generally look way better with less make up and also, I am just quite awful at applying it! But I have some bare essentials which I use religiously. 

I never used to moisturise my face (gasp) and I still don't clean it.. like as a separate process (very bad model!) but I have made a conscious effort to start moisturising since I moved to England with its freezing weather! This Bobbi Brown  one works perfectly on my skin, it's light and moisturises brilliantly at the same time. It has also lasted for ages! 

More essential for me than mascara, are eyelash curlers. I have really long but straight eyelashes so when I curl them I see a massive difference! They are used by every make up artist I have worked with, a definite must have. 

My mum gave me this Argan Oil and although I was pretty sceptical at first, it works wonders! Great for your skin to give it a massive moisture boost or your hair if you apply as a leave-in conditioner on the ends. 

Literally the only product I use on my hair, and buy repeatedly no matter what is John Frieda Frizz Ease - I apply it to wet, washed hair and before straightening. It makes a massive difference and really smoothes it down and makes it shiny :) 

I recently bought these Fish Oil Tablets in a vain attempt at tricking myself into thinking they would make me cleverer around exam time. My mum used to give me fish oil to stop me from walking in to things (like tables and doors!) when I was younger so it must be doing something?! I have been able to remember things pretty well this revision-period but it is probably due to a combination of eating healthy, exercising and intense studying! Regardless, Omega 3 is really important for the mind and being healthy overall so if you aren't into fish these could be a good idea.

My tangle teezer is my literal life saver after a shoot where my poor hair has been straightened, curled, backcombed, and frizzed to hell and back. It is the only brush I've found that manages seriously hair situations like those without ripping out all of my hair and a LOT of pain! If you have knotty hair this is a definite must have (also it is pink and travel-size <3) 

And finally for the body moisturisers. For our cheerleading competition we had to fake tan, and as I am not generally too good at beauty in general I foresaw disastrous consequences. My friend recommended the Dove Summer Glow range and they work amazingly! Whenever I am feeling a bit pale I'll pop some on and there is a really noticeable, without being too noticeable, difference! It gives you a healthy golden glow and is brilliant if you are looking for a cheap and safe way to bronze (and moisturise!) - also cheap as chips! 

The Vaseline Spray and Go moisturiser is a God send for lazy people like me, who can't be bothered with the effort of moisturising! It sprays on in a flash and instantly soaks into your skin, moisturising whilst leaving you smelling of cocoa :) 

That's it for my beauty recommendations! I really need to branch out a bit, so if you have any good ones let me know! 

A small bonus 'beauty' essential I have become obsessed with is avocado. This was my breakfast today, too cute not to share! The easiest recipe ever, scoop out the avocado pit and a little bit extra, pop an egg in there and put in the oven at 200 degrees for 15 minutes. Take out and tuck in! I added mango and nuts and it instantly filled me up - a perfect low carb breakfast. Avocados have endless benefits to your skin, hair, nails, eyesight... as well as tasting great!

Have a great Easter weekend! 

Aritchokes

Today I made a fabulous 'London Discovery' (aka when people ask you where to go in London, and you feel like you should know more secrets than the best burger bars) - it has only taken me three years! Strolling along Holborn in the sunshine, the massive fruit and vegetable stall caught my eye '4 Avocados - £1' 

It couldn't be true - could it? More likely 1 avocado for £1 - even that would be a bargain. 

Alas no, it was true and I got all of the above (4 avocados, 1 huge mango and 2 artichokes) for £3 - precisely the amount of cash I had on me (probably a good job I didn't have more or I would have cleared them out!). They had SO much fresh fruit and vegetables, and so ridiculously cheap so if you are around Holborn GO! I didn't manage to take a picture of the stall but it's on the main road towards Covent Garden, complete with the traditional 'y'alright darlin?' sellers. 

I haven't been able to find 'whole' artichokes anywhere, only the (delicious) canned hearts, but my friend Katherine is always going on about them so I decided to give them a try! 

I had no idea what an artichoke even looked like, so to cut it in half and find a punky purple hidden centre complete with furry bits(?) staring back at me was quite suspicious. Off I googled and found a recipe from here.

Here is a quick summary of the (arguably more torturous yet delicious) recipe above. 

ingredients

1 whole artichoke

1 cup of chicken stock 

1 lemon

Couple of garlic cloves 

butter 

a bit of cheese

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees, and set the stock to boil. 

2. Whilst you wait, chop your artichoke in half, snip off the top leaves, peel the stem and finally carve out the pesky hairs with a spoon! (don't try to eat them, they don't taste good :( ) 

3. When the stock is boiled, transfer to a baking tray with the garlic and lemon juice, and lay the artichoke halves on top. Sprinkle a dash of salt, pepper and olive oil and pop it in the oven for half an hour.

 4. After half an hour, flip them over on to the other side and re-season. Pop back in for another 15 minutes. 

5. After 15 mins, sprinkle some cheese on the artichokes 'centre' - I missed out this step due to healthiness obligations but I bet it tastes pretty great! Put them back in the oven for a final 15 minutes.

5. Take them out - the leaves should be peeling off easily. Put the stock into a small bowl and add in some butter (up to you how much, obviously the more butter the better but it is optional).

Your artichoke will look all pretty like this. Now for what you will not find on the recipe linked above - if you are like me, an artichoke newbie, you now face the problem of how to eat it. 

I just assumed you gobble up the whole thing as nothing in the recipe said otherwise, but apparently no. Spitting out the leaves which I had tried to chow down, I returned to google. 

here are some instructions for eating! 

1. Place the artichoke face down on your plate. Peel off each leaf separately and dip the bottom into your bowl of fabulousness. 

2. Bite the bottom of the leaf where it is fleshy and scrape off with your teeth (quite weird to instruct but so good!) 

3. Continue to do this until you reach the elusive 'heart' - I had no idea what it looked like but presumed this was it: 

Looks sort of like a baby cauliflower - tastes INCREDIBLE. 

4. Eat the stem - it is almost good as the heart!

You will be left messy and flustered, but satisfied. Because artichokes are actually amazing, and you worked for your food! You will be left with an insane amount of leaves as such:

So that was my first delve into cooking/eating artichokes, but I was pretty impressed by the end of my trial/error period! They were worth all of the effort and at around 70 calories per GIANT artichoke, seriously low calorie and good for you as well as being an amazing tasting vegetable :) 

A couple of other random health foods I have discovered this week are :

Chia Pods

literally incredible, the most delicious chia pudding I've ever had!

and Coyo

Coyo is the creamiest yoghurt ever - yet it is vegan?  New love, if only it was a bit easier to find!

Hope you all have a great Easter! xx

Yoga Challenge = Completed!

I LOVE breakfast. After I finish eating my massive bowl of porridge with peanut butter/apple/banana/raisins/coconut flakes/maple syrup (delete where appropriate), I generally get really sad because it was so great and crave more delicious-ness.

When I started my 'health kick' I also started a 30 Day Yoga Challenge by DoYouYoga, not expecting to stick with it at all... but I HAVE FINISHED IT! 

There is the challenge, and it is seriously so ridiculously easy and yet challenging at the same time that doing it for 15 minutes a day feels like something to look forward to! For me personally, doing it straight after breakfast meant I soon forgot about any pesky cravings (mmm maple syrup..) and instead relaxed my body! 

Erin Motz (the instructor) is really relatable and lovely - she makes the exercises really accessible and easy to do no matter what your level, which was great for me. I did it (almost!) everyday with no yoga mat, and when I went to a class last week I was amazed at how much I have improved.

I've pretty much lost the weight I needed to now, unfortunately not from yoga alone, but a combination of seriously healthy eating and very regular exercise - a change in lifestyle, not diet. I've learned some pretty good tips along the way!

1. Do it for yourself 

This is the only way you will be able to motivate yourself to not eat that creme egg, or drag yourself to the gym in the rain. If you have good motivation (I definitely did!) then it becomes less of a chore and more of a way of achieving what you need to.

2.  Drink up!

I drink roughly 10-12 glasses of water a day, and about 5 cups of green tea (reusing the bag!) It becomes easier if you put slices of lemon, cucumber or apple in your water and have many glasses to hand at a time! 

3. Stay full

Don't starve yourself - you will end up gnawing madly on chocolate in a mad rush (guilty!). If I get snack cravings I try to have a satsuma to hand (35 calories) - it will usually kill my sugar cravings. But if it is only chocolate that will work, I'll eat a bit of dark chocolate. 

4. Stay happy! 

A way of making healthy eating/exercise a bit less awful is finding ways to make it fun! I have recently followed SO many healthy 'fitspo' blogs/instagrams and they all have such great ideas on how to get healthy and eat good food! :)

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! 

inbetween revision this week

Every day is slowly blending into one, in a similar fashion to summer but not quite. I can no longer tell what day it is or when I last showered - revision has taken over. 

However my family came to stay this week so I got to take a small break and catch up with them! 

We went to see the new musical 'I Can't Sing' - I don't often see shows (such a waste living in London!!) but this was seriously great. Not being a huge fan of traditional musicals, this perfectly balanced up humour with great music.. and just plain randomness. 

It was at the London Palladium, and basically a rip-off of the X Factor. It was one of the most creative things I've seen in a long time, especially an actor who was puppeteer-ing a dog, dressed in black complete with knee pads and a skateboard on one shin to skate around on in true dog style! 

I mentioned random.. (spoiler) this is a spaceship which floats down at the end to suck away Simon Cowell! God knows how they managed to engineer a spaceship in a theatre over 100 years old, but they did it! The sets were all incredible! 

Another break I have taken this week (pretty much the only other break!) has been to do a shoot for a German photographer. You never really know what kind of shoot you are going to get - it can be anything from a 40-outfit look book cutting off your face completely to a completely wacky shoot with blue hair (had my fair share of those!) 

I am very pleased to say, this one was not wacky, nor difficult, nor freezing cold. It was a lovely day getting made over - something I was in dire need of due to hobo-revision period - and playing around Mayfair and Knightsbridge in the sunshine! 

wearing make up for the first time in months - slightly surreal (wearing the most comfortable waffle jumper ever from Urban Outfitters)

We were very lucky that the sun decided to come out - shoots outside are generally NOT my favourite thing because England is freezing/raining 90% of the time! It was a lucky day overall - everyone on set was so lovely and interesting (they were all from Germany), and of course talented! I was just glad they were doing their 'commercial' shoot that day instead of the apparently wacky-japanese high fashion one the day before! First stop was Harrods and the surrounding area - so beautiful! 

Topshop jeans - everything else H&M 

We took lots of touristy pictures - all London cliches such as the pillar-red phone boxes, hopping out of a red bus, nipping in between black cabs and swinging around tube signs! 

H&M trench! May have to go buy myself one of these for Summer :) 

Its on days like this when I feel so lucky to be able to work as a model in London - I can't wait to start full time in a month when these exams are out of the way!