Go for the bread, stay for the ox cheek!

Last night I had a great dinner with some friends at The Clarendon in Notting Hill. Nice, relaxed atmosphere in a beautiful room with high ceilings. I didn't get a picture of the complimentary bread, but it's made in-house. The focaccia was so good, with a salty, buttery top. For my main course, I had the rib eye.

The garlic frites were delicious, and the rib eye was cooked to a perfect medium. But the best part was a little hidden treat underneath the steak--braised ox cheek! Wonderfully tender and so tasty. I could have had a whole plate of them!

To top it off we got two desserts on the house. The couple who ordered them had left so they offered them to us for free, rather than let them go to waste! Lemon tart and black forest gateau--the lemon tart was my favorite.

They stay open until midnight on weekdays so a nice place to catch up with friends over a long, relaxing meal.

Good eats at the Japan Festival

The rainy forecast wasn't enough to stop us from going to the Brighton Japan Festival today.  The chance of having some real Japanese food was more than enough motivation, and luckily we had just a few scattered showers.  We tried a little bit of everything from....

beef curry....

tempura prawns...

and the festival-est of all Japanese festival foods, takoyaki!

For those of you who are takoyaki newbies, they are "octopus balls"--batter cooked into balls with octopus inside, then covered with sauce, seaweed and mayo. Mmmmm!  The festival will still be going on tomorrow so if you're near Bartholomew Square you should stop by and sample the Japanese fare.

Speaking of takoyaki reminds me of okonomiyaki--similar to takoyaki but with different meats and cooked in the shape of a pancake.  If you're craving this Japanese specialty there are actually TWO okonomiyaki restaurants in London: Abeno in Holborn and Abeno Too near Leicester Square. You have the fun of okonomiyaki being cooked in front of you, and then you get to put on your own toppings.  You have to try it, but get there early because they don't take bookings and there's always a queue!

Itadakimasu!

Welcome to Smorishboard!

After many years of being extremely social media shy, I've decided to dip my toe in with a blog.  I'm a total blog newbie! I'm no food expert but I LOVE to eat so I've decided to use this blog to share my foodie adventures.

I hope you'll enjoy my first tentative steps!