Lucky old Seven Dials, not only do they have the most fashionable steak and burger place in town in Hawksmoor, they now have another foodie magnet arriving in the shape of Kopapa, Peter Gordon’s newest restaurant, next Tuesday. Bloggers! Charge your camera batteries!
Road-testing Jamie’s 30 minute meals by Jamie Oliver
As the book that accompanies Jamie Oliver’s Channel Four series of the same title, Jamie’s 30 minute meals has received a lot of publicity. Lots of people have tried cooking along with the show, and failed. Qin Xie too has watched in awe as Oliver apparently peeled and chopped an entire tray of fruit in about two minutes, gawping at the impossibility of the task at hand. And yet here she is testing out the paper version.
Hard Rock Cafe 150 Old Park Lane, London W1K 1QZ
Before the burger became fashionable and big steaks become big draws, you only had one choice for a for a fix of American easy-eating. The Hard Rock Cafe. Joanna Biddolph fails to find her flared jeans to wear for the occasion but otherwise enjoys travelling back to the 70’s for a plateful of nostalgia.
Willie’s Chocolate Recipes
Recipes taken from Willie’s Chocolate Bible, published by Hodder & Stoughton (£25)
Willie’s Chocolate Bible by Willie Harcourt Cooze
When Willie Harcourt-Cooze first burst on to our TV screens in 2008, immersed in a bath of chocolate, it was the stuff of children’s books. This was a man so passionate about chocolate that at the start of his journey, he sold his home in London and moved to Venezuela where he bought a cacao farm – Hacienda El Tesoro. Qin Xie reviews his latest book.
Dining with Bisol Prosecco at Le Cafe Anglais
When Harrods officially opened the doors to the new Wine Shop on the 16th of November, Bisol threw a little celebratory dinner party to celebrate its new display in the champagne section. Qin Xie attended the celebrations and rather enjoyed the proseccos.
Marmite marketing drives one loyal user insane
The trouble with Marmite marketing started when they handed over the concept, and a large sum of money no doubt, to the Social Media marketers, the ones who sit around sockless in Hoxton, talk a lot of impenetrable jargon about Web 2 and attempt to grow beards before the hormones are ready to oblige.
Elena’s L’Etoile, 30 Charlotte Street, London, W1T 2NG
Elena’s L’Etoile, with its bistro charm, kicks out naughty frills and Frenchness like the can-can. Its eclectic and Art Deco decoration includes random brass wall inlays and two stained glass windows inserted in the ceiling. Pictures of actors and slebs – not all visitors – plaster the tobacco-coloured walls. Diners are respectable, good-humoured, full of bonhomie.
Hard Rock 150 Old Park Lane, London W1K 1QZ
If only I could get into my loft – piled high from the entrance to the back – to dig out diaries from my late teens and early 20s. Did I first go to the Hard Rock Café between school and travelling or after I got back from my not quite two year north American trip?
Manseng and Musketeers
Is it fair to compare an offspring’s prowess with their parents’? Amidst visits to artisan producers of maple syrup coloured, orange and prune scented, addictively supple Armagnac in the drink’s 700th year, I tipsily ventured to the respective restaurants of father and son, Éric and Pepito Sampietro, deep in France’s Gers.