Dining Out: Aubaine

For my second and last birthday meal out Matt took me to a French restaurant named Aubaine and we went to the branch in Wimbledon. Although there are a few locations, we liked that it doesn't feel like a chain restaurant, rather more boutique. We had been wanting to go there for a while so it was really nice surprise :) Inside it is modern with a rustic French twist and the service was very friendly and quick. 

When we first sat down I was surprised with a bottle of wine awaiting us with a little note from Matt, which is kind of a tradition as he normally does this when we go out to eat for a special occasion. It definitely set off the evening in a lovely way!

While choosing what to eat we were given a variety of tasty bread in a cute little bucket, as you can see above. There were lots of options to choose from, all quite simple, but for starter Matt had the caprese salad which was amazing. In his words, if the chefs can make something simple taste exquisite then you know you've gone to a good restaurant! I went for the squid which was flavoured with chilli and coriander and served with a lime aioli. It was a great combination of flavours and I also thought the way the lime was cut was pretty (I'm easily pleased as you can tell). It was good to have light starters so we had lots of room for main and pudding!

I opted for sea bass with tomato compote and roquette which was so good - I loved that they had got the skin nice and crispy. The quality of the ingredients as with all the dishes was great which is a necessity when providing more simple dishes. I also ordered some broccoli as a side to share (gotta get those vitamins in!) and it was cooked just right so it still had some crunch was nice and buttery. Matt went for the mussels with chips which is always a winner and one of our favourites.

Dessert was most definitely a highlight of the meal. We were presented with a slate platter that had a selection of delicious patisseries - I wish we could have had all of them! Matt had a salted caramel and pecan cake and I had a giant vanilla macaroon because they are one of my favourite things.

Overall we had such a lovely experience, with great quality food and service. We will most definitely be going back!

Have you tried Aubaine before? Do you like French food? xxx

One For The Chocolate Lovers: Hotel Chocolat's Restaurant | Rabot 1745 |

As you can tell from my last post, I like chocolate a lot. Matt is also partial to the sweet stuff, so when we received a booking at Hotel Chocolat's restaurant, Rabot 1745, from his mum as a joint birthday present (his birthday is in December) it seemed like a perfect choice! Apologies for the following pictures, I was really excited to use my new camera...but I forgot to put the SD card in and had to use my iPhone instead!

Rabot 1745 is based in Borough, London and situated right next to the market. The basic concept of the restaurant is to present a 'cocoa-centric cuisine' where all dishes have an element of some form of the cocoa bean as a new spice. As soon as you walk in you are hit by a scent of chocolate, which isn't overpowering at all but warm and comforting. You first walk into the cafe which would be perfect in the day to pop in for a hot chocolate while perusing the markets. They have merchandise on offer too and even have the machine they use to grind the beans on display and tell you which beans are being ground at that time.

The small restaurant is situated upstairs and is a dimly lit and cosy affair influenced by their St Lucian estate, made complete with a well stocked bar. We chose two chocolate based cocktails to start although they have plenty of other cocktails and drinks to choose from - I had the chocolate soother and Matt and the hazlenut soother. Both were very alcoholic and we both preferred Matt's as mine had the consistency of a pudding it was so thick!

L-R: Chocolate Soother & Hazelnut Soother

Each person each gets 3 cocoa beans before you order, along with some information about how the restaurant uses the beans and the history behind them. This meant we got the opportunity to be hands on with them and try a pure cocoa bean which was surprisingly sweet and a little nutty. It was a really nice touch and something that made you more involved with the experience.

Before our starter arrived we got given a shot of butternut squash soup accompanied by bread with cacao nibs in which was a delicious indication of the quality of the food that would follow the rest of the night.

For starter I had the Pearl Barley Scotch Egg which was encrusted with cacao nibs and accompanied by a warm salad of  roasted root veg (although I wouldn't call it much of a salad), goat's cheese dressing and cacao oil emulsion. It was so tasty and the unusual combination of flavours were unlike anything else I've had before. I loved that the scotch eggs were warm and runny inside too. Matt had the Seared Plantation Pork Terrine which came with gribiche sauce, crisp sweetbread and cacao nib condiment and was equally as yummy.

Slow Roast Shoulder of Lamb was my choice for the main course which was basted with cacao balsamic, roast garlic mash and studded with seasonal veg. It was so tender it literally fell of the bone and melted in  your mouth and the rich sticky sauce and creamy mash worked really well together. I also liked that it was a big enough dish that meant we didn't have to order more sides so value for money was quite good. Matt had the  35 day aged cacao marinated rib eye steak that came with roast winter vegetables, white chocolate horseradish mash and a red wine cacao jus (which I also got). I don't think he could detect the white chocolate in the mash and he preferred the steak without too much of the jus. 

Lastly, we picked Chocolate Genesis for dessert, which is every bit as decadent as it sounds (how could we not?!) In hindsight we should have probably just shared one as we were pretty full by this point and nearly at the point of total chocolate consumption. It includes lots of bite size pieces which signify the story of the bean - from roasted beans and drinking chocolate to truffles, pralines and pure bars of the stuff. It also included a small shot of coconut water to cleanse your palette but even this addition didn't let me finish the whole thing. We ended up getting a doggy bag of what we couldn't finish. A happy birthday was written on both our plates too which was a lovely touch.

I'm so pleased that the inclusion of chocolate in every dish didn't turn out to be a gimick as it could have easily slipped into that territory. If anything it added a subtle rich flavour to the dishes and worked really well with the other ingredients - whoever planned the menu did a fantastic job! It is pretty pricey (around £20 for a main) but for a completely different dining experience for top quality food and service, I think it is well worth the money. The only negative is that the emphasis is mainly on dark chocolate and combined with the dark chocolate drinks, cacao nibs and pudding we really were chocolated out as it was so rich! We also received some dark chocolate buttons with the bill and some chocolate goodie bags to take home as it was our birthday celebration.

I would definitely recommend this restaurant if you are a chocolate lover or just fancy something different to try, and the laid back vibe of the establishment and quality of the food makes for a perfect pairing.

Would you try a dining experience like this? Do you like Hotel Chocolat? xxx

A Night in London: The Ice Bar and Byron Burger

For one of Matt's Christmas presents, I bought him a trip to the Ice bar in Mayfair. Our reservation was a few weeks ago, and we decided to make a night of it and visit Byron Burger afterwards for a meal, somewhere I had been longing to go for ages! It was a really great evening where we could spend quality time together and do something a bit different too. All the pictures are from an iPhone so sorry for the bad quality!

The Ice Bar was a lot smaller than I thought it would be compared to the pictures online but it was still really cool (no pun intended!) with various ice sculptures and seats. With your booking you received a complimentary cocktail to enjoy from a glass made of ice! It was a bit of a shame that the cocktails were pre-made but they still tasted really good (and quite strong!) and the novelty of drinking out of ice made up for it. Before you enter the bar you are given big 'designer' cloaks to help keep you warm that have mittens with them too. The session lasts around 40 minutes but we didn't last that long as I was already developing an illness and we were getting rather freezing so we decided to head to the warmer cocktail bar afterwards.

Our cold faces!

The bar serves food and drink, and by this point we were starving so ordered a sharing platter. This included a mix of crisps, two types of olives and goats cheese, and a mix of nuts and wasabi peas which I am obsessed with! We ordered two more cocktails from the extensive list which were really lovely although I can't remember the names of them - mine was quite fruity where as Matt's was very strong and bitter.

We then made the short walk to Byron Burger in Soho and had to wait in a queue outside. I couldn't believe how popular it was, but I suppose it was a Saturday night! Luckily we didn't have to wait long as we were a group of two and managed to get seated in around 5 minutes. The atmosphere of the restaurant was really good with lovely friendly staff and super quick service. I was thoroughly impressed with everything.

We ordered two chocolate milkshakes which were incredible - so thick and chocolately and probably a meal in itself! I decided on the Cheese burger with American cheese (you get a long list of which type you would like) without the tomato and Matt went with the Byron burger. I really liked that you could say how you wanted the burger cooked and we both got it medium-rare. We got sides of coleslaw and french fries which were lovely, and the table next to us had the Mac and Cheese which I am totally getting next time we visit! I'm also interested in the courgette fries too. The food was sooo good and much better than your average burger. We really wanted desert but after the bar snacks at the Ice Bar and the massive milkshake we were absolutely stuffed!

The Byron Burger

The Cheese Burger

Have you ever been to the Ice Bar or Byron Burger? Where to you like to visit in London? xxx

Simple Breakfast Muffins

This may not seem like a proper 'recipe' as such, but it is a delicious and simple combination of a few ingredients which make a great alternative to your average bowl of cereal. It looks like a simple breakfast bap but not many people have tasted the wonder of the English breakfast muffin combined with lovely gooey egg. Adding some rocket also adds a special something, to jazz up a normal bacon butty. This recipe serves 2 and you can add whatever your favourite sauce is.

Ingredients

* 2 rashers of your bacon of choice

* 2 eggs

* 2 handfuls of rocket

* 2 English breakfast muffins

* A little oil for cooking

* Aromat to season

Method

* Heat the oil in the pan and fry the bacon until crispy. When done, take out the pan and rest on some kitchen roll to soak up any excess fat. 

* Cut the muffin in half and toast, then fry the eggs in the left over oil and bacon fat.

* Butter the muffin resist urge to quote mean girls and layer with the bacon first, then the egg, sprinkle with aromat, and then add the rocket.

* Spread the sauce of your choice on the other half of the muffin and place on top of the ensemble.

And that's it - I told you it was easy! I would suggest eating this in bed with a nice cup of tea :) Let me know what you think and tweet me a picture of yours! @LilMisLifestyle xxx

White Chocolate Valentine's Gateau

Hey guys,

Today I baked a cake for one of my best friend's leaving party to celebrate her going away to Australia to study abroad for a year :'( Because I knew this was a special occasion, I wanted to make something I hadn't baked before but also something that wasn't too difficult or time consuming, as I had less than a day to make it! I looked through a few of my recipe books and decided on a White Chocolate Valentine's Gateau from a  book I received in my Christmas stocking a few years ago called 1 Mix, 50 Cakes because its more special than a bog standard round vanilla sponge. Of course I had to decorate it with edible glitter as I'm glitter obsessed, which made it even more special! You can buy the book here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/50-Mix-Cakes-Love-Food/dp/1407564374/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339234095&sr=1-1

I made a few changes to the recipe by adding double the amount of white grated chocolate to the mixture to make it extra chocolatey, used stork margarine instead of unsalted butter and substituted the plain white flour and baking powder for the same amount of self-raising. A good tip is also to take your fridge ingredients out an hour or so before i.e. eggs, butter etc so they can warm up to room temperature.

Ingredients
* oil or butter for greasing
* 175g/6 oz plain white flour
* 1 tbsp baking powder
* 175g/ 6oz unsalted butter, softened
* 175g/ 6oz caster sugar
* 3 eggs, beaten
* 1 tsp vanilla extract
* 55g/2 oz white chocolate, grated
* 2 tbsp white rum (optional) I used:

Frosting
* 200g/7 oz white chocolate, broken into pieces
* 2 tbsp milk
* 200ml/7 fl oz double cream

Method
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees/325 Fahrenheit/Gas Mark 3. I would recommend using the fan setting on the oven to circulate the warm air and ensure the cake is cooked evenly.

The book says to sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl (or just the self-raising) and add the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract. Beat until smooth, then stir in the grated chocolate. I did this in a different order as my method for this differs. First I cream the margerine (butter) and sugar together until pale.

Then I beat the eggs in one at a time.

Lastly, I stir in the flour a bit at a time with the vanilla extract. This way you will make sure all the ingredients are well combined and have a light, fluffy cake.

The little lumps are pieces of chocolate :)

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the surface with a palette knife or back of your spoon. I used a silicone mold from John Lewis, which you can buy here.

Bake in the preheated oven for 45-55 mins, or until risen, firm and golden brown. Mine was done in 45 mins, so make sure you check through the oven door (don't open the door too many times as the cake will deflate). You can also put a skewer through the middle - if it comes out clean the cake is ready and it should feel springy to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin for around 10 mins so that it doesn't lose it's shape and break, then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. You can take this time to lick your utensils before washing them up like I did :p

Meanwhile for the frosting, melt the chocolate with the milk in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Remove from the heat and stir until smooth, then leave for 10 minutes.

Whip the cream until it holds soft peaks, then fold into the cooled chocolate mixture. It is essential that you let the chocolate cool enough otherwise it will become sloppy and maybe curdle. If your mixture isn't the texture you would like, try adding more whipped cream or leaving it to chill in the fridge to stiffen up.

Sprinkle the cake with the rum, if using then spread the frosting over the top and sides of the cake with a palette knife. Leave plain or decorate as you wish.

I got some really good feedback and everyone had seconds - success!!

Me at the party with my (partly squished) cake!

Loving her cake!

Let me know what you think of the recipe and how your cake turns out! xxx

P.S. my friend has just set up her very own fashion website - check it out! www.prettylittlewardrobe.com