Hi everyone! I hope my readers are still somewhere out there, my sincere apologies for the long overdue post.. I have been pretty much caught up with life all the way from university coursework, applications, interviews, and right up to the short Christmas break that I'm currently enjoying before I head back to reality. However, before I go on, I would like to take you all back to when I've promised to upload the pictures and my short getaway approximately a month ago when I was in London with my younger siblings. So, here you go, I'll briefly talk about the food & places that we've visited in Manchester / London
...enjoy!
☟
Babysis' visit in Manchester at the end of October xx
A picture of the sister & I back in Manchester's Hilton Hotel on Deansgate for high tea.
p/s: It's one of the worst afternoon tea I've ever tasted. Trust me, I wasn't the only one who taught that way. In fact, my friends & I who were there that day agreed that it tasted so bad... Probably because they've totally changed their afternoon tea menu compared to the ones previously.
:p I know it looks pretty, but looks can be so damn deceiving sometimes. Haha.
I promise this is the last picture of the afternoon tea set that we had that day. It's just too pretty that I couldn't resist from taking pictures of it.
Seafood paella with chicken that we had later that night for dinner. This is the Spanish restaurant that I often visit and recommend my guests to go whenever they're down in Manchester. If you're interested, it's called La Vina. Definitely worth the visit and it's much better than the other Spanish restaurant that is called La Tasca ;)
After dinner, it was time for some desserts at Wasabi's Dessert Room on Chinatown! The picture above is the pandan waffles with chocolate ice-cream that I can never get sick of! Highly recommend this dessert in particular if you ever visit this place. It's also a one-of-a-kind dessert that most of my friends who come to visit usually crave after trying it once. *grins*
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Moving on to the weekend getaway in London with the younger siblings xx
Three-fie at London's Dinings restaurant. <3
The cute babysistah & I.
My OOTD back in London when the weather was still so warm then!!! :X
Two different types of miso soup. From the left: tofu, and lobster.
Fresh oysters on that night. Yummy.
Seabass carpaccio with white truffles. Always my favourite in this restaurant. (Y)
Some sort of wagyu dish. Definitely one of my favourites too!
The assorted nigiri sushi's that we ordered that night... everything was just perfect.
Mouth-watering foie gras with eel maki roll. This was just pure heaven...!
Grilled langoustines for that night. In my opinion, it was just okay.. Nothing that spectacular. However, this was a special dish on the menu for that night only.
Wage beef cooked in a sort of shabu shabu style. This wasn't too bad as well!
Sizzling scallops. OMG, just delicious. The scallops were so fresh and juicy!!
Behold... My favourite of all times.. Wagyu beef nigiri sushi topped with foie gras. How can you not love this?
Another special on that night. It was some sort of braised tuna dish topped with asparagus, beans and white truffles. Simply delicious! So juicy and tender that I've never thought that cooked tuna would taste equally good as those fresh sashimi ones. Hehe.
The final hot dish on that night was this sort of white fish tempura. Hmm, really something different as it was a dish on the special menu as well. Not too bad!
...Dessert time!
This was a chocolate mousse type of dessert with matcha ice-cream on top. Unfortunately, my truffle ice-cream was all sold out on that night :(
Chocolate ganache shuffle with vanilla ice-cream. Yummy~
Overall, I would never get tired of the food back at Dinings.. Although I may receive different feedbacks and views regarding the food & dining experience at this place from time to time among my friends, however, this restaurant will always remain as one of my top choices for unique, fresh and delicious Japanese fusion cuisine. So yeah, definitely wouldn't stop visiting this place whenever I'm down in London! Hehe. Therefore, I would certainly say that this restaurant is worth for the visit:p
Another OOTD in London when it was a sunny day!
The next day in London, we also had a chance to have lunch at Pollen Street Social.
Scallops as one of our appetisers.
Some sea bream appetiser dish.
I forgot what it was already.. But all I know is that the dish wasn't that spectacular after all :/
The egg white spaghetti with white truffles. Not too bad.
Some more white truffles dish. Forgot what the name was, but it was not too bad :p
This was my main for lunch that day. It was beef cheeks. Texture was very soft and tender, just nice to me!
Sister's pigeon or chicken. haha. According to her, it's not really good. Just okay~
The brother's "healthy" version of steak. Haha. It was alright, but a tad too salty.
The three musketeers again. Haha
Dessert time. This was their so-called signature dessert, which was the goat cheese rice pudding served with honey comb and milk ice-cream. To me, I didn't really like the taste of the goat cheese so this dessert was just okay~
Some chocolate dessert.. Nothing great about it.
In short, my dining experience at this two Michelin-starred restaurant (apparently) in London was just alright. I would give it a 6 out of 10 actually. The service was efficient and great in the beginning but towards the end, everything just sort of slowed down.. So I didn't really like the wait at all. Oh well, I'm not so sure about this place if you asked me whether it's worth visiting at all.. But to be honest, if you would want to know the truth, you've got to experience it yourself first. I'm sure after all, everyone would have a different view regarding this place. That's why, in my opinion, I believe that Pollen Street Social would be a great place to have lunch with friends or family in a small group because of their great lunch deal menu. Other than that, I wouldn't dare say much about their normal A la carte menu as the food from there didn't really leave much significant impression on my taste buds ><" Haha.
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After that, it was just walking around the city centre of London & doing some shopping. So here it is, another picture of us three. Haha.
Finally get to try the ice-cream parlour place at Harrods during my visit in London after so long! Honestly, I think it wasn't really anything great about their ice-creams :/ I don't know why, but in my opinion, it really is just some typical sort of ice-cream that you can easily get from outside... Even Amorino tastes better than this I think!
A pretty sight of the ice-cream sundae that we've ordered.. All in strawberry-flavoured. But again, nothing special at all :O
Later that night, I've made reservations at this newly-refurbished and reopened Italian restaurant that is located next to the Churchill Hyatt Regency Hotel, which is also apparently a one-start Michelin restaurant. Food was overall not too bad at this place but in my view, I thought that the portion of their pasta was a tad too small.. I secretly sort of hoped that their portion for the pastas had been bigger. :X
An egg dish topped with truffles again. Haha.. I wonder how much truffles we've ingested on that day itself.
Some ham dish. Haha, totally forgotten the name for this.. But this dish wasn't too bad, sadly, it was just not my cup of tea :o
Scallops again~ :p You can never go wrong with scallops!
Rocked salad with cheese. MMmhmm.
Rabbit meat! Tasted so much like normal chicken breast sort of meat, but somehow, it feels weird knowing that you're ingesting a rabbit meat. *guilty*
Risotto with white truffles. Again. HAHA. This was one of the best mains so far throughout our meal, definitely worth the try!
Tagliatelle lobster. (Y) Yummzzz. Somehow, if the portion of this dish were bigger, it would have been perfect! :D
Dessert time! Tried their chocolate molten cake, but you know what, it was just okay.. Somehow, I thought their desserts weren't up to the standard as I've expected based on the hot dishes and starters that they've served so far.. So yea :X If you're really keen on visiting this restaurant in particular, I would suggest that you just go for their meals but not their desserts at all because you might end up just getting disappointments.
The complimentary sweets that they've given after our meal, which I honestly thought that it tasted even better than their desserts :X
The final dessert from the restaurant that we've ordered that night, this banana-flavoured sort of dessert (totally forgotten the name). But yea, again, it didn't taste good at all. Haha, sorry but I'm really not trying to mean or whatsoever, just being honest that's all because if you know me, I'm definitely one heck of a sweet tooth.. Therefore, I wouldn't simply claim that a dessert tastes bad unless it really IS. *grins*
So, for this restaurant, I would rate it 8 out of 10 for its Italian cuisine but just a mere 5.5 out of 10 for dessert. Heh.
Anyway, all I can recall that it was a lovely short getaway in London with my siblings during the end of October and beginning of November. We had plenty of catchup with great conversations over yummy food.. What more can I ask for? :) Despite of not having the chance to celebrate or dress-up at all on Halloween day, I felt very contented with the way I spent my weekend in particular with my family/siblings during that time especially it was truly a getaway that I needed so much throughout my stressful period of time facing university workload and all my applications for postgraduate study.
I hope food adventure seekers out there like me have found this blog post particularly useful ;)
For now, have a great weekend guys and I'll be back again in no time to update some of my other long overdue posts, especially my trip to Paris and everywhere else! Hehe.
Till then,
KrystalH
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