Bills Putney Restaurant Review

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

We had heard amazing things about Bills in Putney. Our neighbours recommended their breakfast, saying it was ‘first rate’. Of course this meant we went in with high expectations. Which always makes it harder for a restaurant to impress.

The restaurant was very busy, all of Putney seemed to be here. We had a look at the menu and it looked great. As did the decor, the shelves were filled with product from Bills.

We started off with the Bill’s Prawn And Avocado Cocktail with spicy salsa and cocktail sauce with deep fried tiger prawns, ciabatta crisps and lemon. It looks superb and is very unique. However, I misjudged quite how spicy it would be and I couldn’t eat all of it. There could also be more avocado.

My colleague had the Crispy Duck Salad: spring onions, apple, radish, red pepper, coriander and watercress with a soy and lemon dressing. The salad was okay but not hugely impressive. It was quite bland and needed more dressing. For mains we had Bill’s Fish Pie: queen scallops, smoked haddock, salmon, tiger prawns, peas and baby onions topped with an English mustard and cheddar mash. The pie is very good with a generous variety of ingredients.

My colleague had ‘Sugar and Spice’ Marinated Half Chicken served with a Curried Slaw and Sweet Potato Fries. This was also good, the sweet potato fries were amazing in particular. We were very impressed with the mains after our so-so starters. Everything at Bills seems quite unique and has a twist. They make brave choices which sometimes work and sometimes don’t, obviously depending on a persons taste. Bills is a good place for something unique and different however.

For our dessert we had amazing warm cinnamon mini doughnuts with strawberries and a chocolate sauce- they were amazing. My colleague had lemon meringue pie cheesecake in a glass, with yogurt ice cream, which was also good.

146-148 Putney High St, London SW15 1RR
020 8780 2818

Affordable And Amazing Wedding Cakes | The Wedding Diary

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

The craziness of the wedding industry really shows up in the price of wedding cakes. When my fiancé and I first started looking, we couldn’t find one for less than £350, and most of them weren’t even nice. If you take away the fact they have the word ‘wedding’ in front of them, would anyone actually pay thousands of pounds for a cake? I think not.

In saying that, there are a lot out there with the craftsmanship and design that makes the price worthwhile. If you want great design at a good price then I recommend going the supermarket route. My fiancé and I got our wedding cake from Waitrose.com. Marks And Spencers also do great, affordable wedding cakes.

Here are some beautiful wedding cakes from Waitrose.com

Fiona Cairns Ivory Rose Petal 3-tier Wedding Cake (mixed filling)

Fiona Cairn is the Royal wedding cake maker. So if she is good enough for Kate and William….

Fiona Cairns Vintage Fairytale 3-tier Wedding Cake (Sponge)

Chocolate Wedding Cake – Gold – 3 Tier

If chocolate is your thing and you don’t want a traditional cake.

And (drum roll) here is our wedding cake. It matches our wedding colours of pale pink, pale green and white. We love it and got it in a mixed filling of vanilla sponge and fruit cake.

When buying a wedding cake make sure you check how many people it serves. The website should tell you or ask your baker. Another thing to check is if decoration is included. Some cakes look amazing but the small print says that the decoration is not included. This is also an easier way to get a cheaper cake, if you decorate it yourself, it costs less. Although there is the added stress.

While researching wedding cakes I saw a lot of gorgeous wedding cake toppers on ebay and ribbon is very cheap to buy from a haberdashery. You could also make your own or get a relative to make one. Although I would not do this if you weren’t brilliant at baking. Waitrose.com also have some guides on decorating your wedding cake and the BBC also have a great blog on making your own wedding cake.

Good luck and let us know about your wedding cake choices.

Where will you get your wedding cake?

If you are planning your wedding then get your hands on The Wedding Survival Guide: How To Plan Your Big Day Without Losing Your Sanity. It has great advice on every aspect of wedding planning and lots of great advice on choosing the perfect wedding cake.

Wedding Shoes | The Wedding Diary

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

So I have bought my wedding shoes. It was pretty hard not to put that in capital letters, that’s how excited I am. Well, to be more precise, I have two pairs of wedding shoes. One high and the other (ahem) less high. I completely love the flat shoe trend and wear them all the time, just not on my wedding day. Especially as my husband-to-be is 6.3′. It would be nice to meet his eye on our wedding day.

When I first thought about buying my wedding shoes I was going to buy something quite traditional, a silver, gold or white high-heeled sandal or shoe. In the end I went for colour. A very bright pair of high heels, but comfortable high heels. Yes, there is such a thing. They are peep-toed and after the wedding I will post lots of pictures of them. In the meantime I will post pictures of my evening shoes. They are wedges with a little heel so should be good for dancing the night away. They are a cruise shoe from Hotter and are so comfortable. Far too comfortable for something so stylish. They have built-in underfoot cushioning, soft leather inners and a flexible sole.

The Evening Shoes For Dancing

Check out the floral lining!

With wedding shoes you want ‘wow’ and comfort. Something that makes a statement, that won’t cause a lot of pain and that also makes the dress perfect. It is possible that no one will see your shoes, but you will know you are wearing amazing shoes. You could also get some pictures of them taken by the photographer.

I have sourced some amazing wedding shoes in this article so take a look. And remember, you can wear any shoes to your wedding, you don’t need specific wedding shoes, in fact, you will probably save more money if you keep away from the ‘w’ word.

Let me know what you think.

The Wedding Diary: Invites

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

First, I have to apologise for not updating my Wedding Diary as often as I should. I assure you the wedding is being planned but I underestimated how hard it would be to run a magazine, publish a book while writing another one, be a freelance writer, act and go to auditions, finish two scripts and plan a wedding all at once. I am also sure I missed something out there. To top it all off: we are also moving a couple of days after our wedding. That won’t be stressful at all….

So for my first of many catch-up entries I am going to start with the invites. Now a lot of wedding invites are incredibly expensive. You are talking hundreds of pounds for a piece of cardboard. We were shocked at the prices. If you add in save the date cards and thank you cards, it would be easy to rack up a thousand pounds if you include postage. So what is a frugal girl to do? Ebay. Obviously.

We got beautiful, personalised invitations for a very reasonable price. I won’t show the exact ones at the moment because I haven’t sent them out yet and we don’t want to ruin the surprise of people getting them (or have stalkers turn up at our wedding. I have had a few bad experiences in the past). The invitations are beautiful, come with envelopes and are well made and high quality. Just put ‘wedding invitations’ into the search function of Ebay and you can get some amazing ones for under £50.

We didn’t send out save the date cards because of environmental reasons, and also cost. We emailed and called people instead. The wedding industry is a £10 billion industry in the UK so don’t buy something just because you feel you have to.

When it came to the design of our invitations, we wanted something that reflected us and who we are. Family members will probably try and pull you in a certain way, but we wanted ours to be fresh and fun. Our invites are white, with a multicoloured tree. We are in our twenties so we wanted something to reflect that: nothing stuffy. They also came in a very handy, protective plastic case.

If you want to spend more on your invitations then John Lewis do some beautiful ones, and so do Marks and Spencers and VistaPrint. If you are good at DIY you can also make your own.

What to put on your invites

Your names (we included our surnames as we weren’t sure people would know who we were!)

Date and time of the wedding

RSVP details. Include a non-email option for the older guests. Include a deadline for the RSVP. Needed for the catering and seating.

The venue address and the reception address too if it is different.

Your wedding gift list number. We went with John Lewis and Prezola.com

Other options

Parents details. We decided not to do this but you can include either parents or both. As in: ‘Mr and Mrs Smith invite *guest name* to the marriage of their daughter, Chloe, to Matt Fox.’

Dress code. We didn’t put one on as everyone knows weddings are formal. I would only include a dress code if it is anything other than formal. For instance: a themed wedding or black tie.

You can, of course, put whatever you want on your invitations. It is your wedding.

What will you put?

My wedding book is out now. If you are getting married then check out my book The Wedding Survival Guide: How To Plan Your Big Day Without Losing Your Sanity, it has everything you need to know about planning your dream wedding.

Busaba Eathai Restaurant review

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

It is quite shameful that we had never eaten at Busaba Eathai before, and, jeez, had we missed out. The food is amazing, the drinks are amazing and the entire place is first-rate. The manager was knowledgeable, friendly, generous and was known by a large amount of the diners. There were a lot of regulars.

We started off with the selection below. Yes, started. One of Busaba Eathai‘s most popular dishes is the Thai Calamari with ginger and peppercorn. It’s the one at the top of the pictures. It’s amazing. One of the best calamari dishes I have ever had. We also had fishcakes (yummy and with a great sauce), pandan leaf chicken which falls apart when you open the leaf and a great yellow bean dish which had a good kick to it.

Our mains were equally amazing, I had a curry that was specifically made milder for me. My colleague had glass noodles which were amazing and delicious. The dish was full of flavour and had a lot going on. For drinks we also had one of the best prosecco’s I have ever had, a good beer and an excellent non-alcoholic cocktails. I had an amazing Grapefruit mojito with vanilla, mint, lime and chilli.

Busaba Eathai is a brilliant restaurant and I will join their large following of regular customers. It is also possible to have a great meal without blowing your budget here. There are many branches in London so check out their website below.

We finished with tea and biscuits.

@busabaeathai

http://busaba.com/

Address: 22 Store St, London WC1E 7DF

Phone:020 7299 7900

The Most Perfect Songs Ever: Part One

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

While listening to ‘Memphis Tennessee’ by Chuck Berry something struck me: the song is perfect. It has everything: great lyrics, a great story, melody. It even has a twist. The same is true with Sam Cooke’s ‘A Change Gonna Come’ and ‘Love is a Losing Game’ by Amy Winehouse.

I then asked my friends on Twitter and Facebook what their ‘perfect’ songs where. It’s a wide scope my friend, Monty, pointed out. ‘What makes something perfect?’ It was a good question. Truth is: perfection is hard to pinpoint. It is something that just ‘is’. A sigh-worthy song that you listen to for the rest of your life. You might not listen to it for a while, but it will always return.

I quickly found out that this was going to be harder than I thought so I have decided to do it in parts. So here is part one. Let me know what you think.

Chuck Berry ‘Memphis Tennessee’

Amy Winehouse ‘Love is a Losing Game’

The Temptations ‘I Wish It Would Rain’

Neil Young ‘My My, Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)’

Stevie Wonder ‘For Once In My Life’

Adele ‘Someone Like You’

This has 354,636,439 views on YouTube!

Sam Cooke ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’

John Legend ‘All of Me’

Elvis Costello ‘A Good Year For The Roses’

Ellie Goulding ‘How Long Will I Love You’

Judy Garland ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’

Sam Sparro ‘I Wish I Never Met You’

Lana Del Ray ‘Born To Die’

Jay Z ’99 Problems’

Pharrel ‘Happy’

Blue Swede ‘Hooked On A Feeling’

Sarah McLachlan ‘Angel’

Johnny Cash ‘Hurt’

Now that we have kicked off the list, what song would you add? Let us know via the comments or by emailing frostmagazine@gmail.com

A London Pub For Every Occasion Book Review

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

A London Pub For Every Occasion is an amazing book for a number of reasons:

One: It has a chapter on pubs with cats. PUBS WITH CATS!! This has made me very happy and from now on, if anyone ever wants to find me, I will be in one of the pubs that have a cat.

Two: It has maps. I love maps, especially fun, brilliantly illustrated maps.

Three: It whittles down the 7.000 pubs in London and makes them easier to navigate by separating them into occasion. This is obvious from the title but with someone else doing all of the legwork, this pocket book becomes very handy indeed. It is divided into 22 sections to suit every whim. It has 161 of the capital’s usual and unusual pubs to best suit the mood or occasion. It is beautifully illustrated in black and white.

There are pubs for cold days and for sunny ones; pubs with cats and pubs that welcome dogs; pubs for parties and pubs when you just want to be alone; pubs where you can have breakfast and some you’ll never want to leave. It is the ultimate pub guide.

The guide is weighted to the centre of London, the part of the city in which all Londoners have an equal share, where friends from the south and north of the river meet on common ground.

Herb Lester Associates, who made the book, say ‘The book’s selections are based on dogged research filtered through a genuine appreciation of the pub, the ale or the odd animal roaming around. The handy fold-out paper map makes sense of the confusing territories away from a familiar pub routine many of us fall into,’

Published in hardback by Ebury Press on 1st May at £9.99

A London Pub for Every Occasion: 161 tried-and-tested pubs in a pocket-sized guide that’s perfect for Londoners and travellers alike

Foxcroft & Ginger Cafe Review

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Catherine Balavage

Foxcroft & Ginger is a very trendy cafe and artisan bakery in East London, owned by couple Georgina and Quintin. It is full of people who are far cooler than me. The decor is eclectic, keeping the industrial-chic design ethos of the Soho branch.

This one, in Whitechapel, only opened on 3 April 2014. We went to review it, deciding on brunch. We started with Eggs Benedict and Smoked Salmon, Pickled Beetroot, Avocado, Tomato and Red Onion Salsa, Grilled Sourdough. I also order some avocado on the side. An English Breakfast Tea and a Hot Chocolate.

The Eggs Benedict is interesting. My colleague loved it. He thought the eggs were perfect, but the egg I had was a bit watery, and the sauce could have done with a little more punch. The salmon dish was perfect however, just an amazing selection of fresh ingredients that work amazingly well together. The avocado was great with just the right amount of salt, olive oil and lemon.

The hot chocolate was very good, it came with spice and the cinnamon really added something special. The tea was also great, coming in a very cute tea cup and saucer.

Starting brunch off with some excellent English Breakfast tea. pic.twitter.com/xEWpnpAxwj

— Frost Magazine (@frostmag) April 12, 2014

After our brunch we had some amazing cake. I had the chocolate orange cake and my colleague had the carrot cake. Both were absolutely amazing. Everything is made in-house and these cakes really were superb.

Foxcroft & Ginger also do amazing bread. Their coveted sourdough bread, which is already supplied to a number of top London restaurants, is available to purchase in store.

Foxcroft & Ginger

Whitechapel

69-89 Mile End Road

E1 4TT
www.foxcroft&ginger.co.uk
(The nearest Underground Station is Stepney Green or Whitechapel).

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