If there’s one trend in the restaurant industry that’s really come to the fore since the turn of the century it’s the rise of the second-career chef. Men and women who worked in all manner of highly successful, and often high-paying, careers – lawyers, doctors, engineers, corporate managers, computer programmers, management consultants, hedge fund gurus ... Read more »
Tombo, Japanese for dragonfly, is a small deli and cafe in South Kensington, just a minute’s walk from the tube station. It offers a small menu of modern Japanese food and quality tea. I’m a particular fan of it’s Japanese desserts, which often feature ingredients such as azuki (red bean paste), matcha and sesame. On ... Read more »
Yao Yao Cha means Shake Shake Tea in Chinese. The naming approach tickles me and certainly the little shop in London’s Seven Dials area has shaken up the local bubble tea market since it opened earlier this year. Yao Yao Cha’s founder and owner Susan Fang was born in Taiwan but has lived in New ... Read more »
Following a recent invitation to discover some of the food and drink highlights available at St Pancras International station, Pete and I had a lovely morning visiting Benugo’s Espresso Bar, Searcys Champagne Bar and Sourced Market. Unlike the downstairs branch of Benugo, the upstairs coffee bar (near the Martin Jennings sculpture of poet ... Read more »
Not much can beat a sunny day spent wandering from temple to temple in Kyoto’s beautiful Gion and Higashimaya districts. Although we’d recently paused to enjoy freshly made yuba, that didn’t reduce our enthusiasm to find Bunnosuke-jaya, an amazake specialist listed in Diane Durston’s Old Kyoto book. She explains that amazake is a sweet drink ... Read more »
A light industrial estate in Cirencester is probably not the first place you’d look for a high quality coffee shop, but that’s just where you’ll find Rave Coffee in Stirling Works, Love Lane. Suppliers of wholesale coffee, Rob and Vikki Hodge also sell coffee, tea and cakes to individual customers to drink in or takeaway, ... Read more »
Pete and I recently enjoyed a short break in Amsterdam. Eschewing all the normal tourist attractions, we spent all our waking hours eating and drinking our way around the city. I’ve already written about food specialities to look out for in Amsterdam. In this post, I’ll share places we stopped for coffee, cakes and snacks ... Read more »
After a wibbly, wobbly night on an air mattress on our friend Matt’s living room floor, we decided a good hearty breakfast was in order. By the time we’d slowly heaved and panted our way up the very steep hill from Hotwells to Clifton (ok all the heaving and panting was only on my part) ... Read more »
The Place of Onions, in old Lille. After last night’s rainstorm the intense sticky heat has broken and today is cool, breezy, fresh… I love it! A drop of… [more]
We went to Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire at The Void this morning, an amazing VR experience where we got to be Rebel Alliance members going undercover as… [more]