Out and about

When good times go bad.... then very, very good again!

Last Saturday I had an excellent night out with my best friend Mandy and some of our other best friends to celebrate her 30^th birthday in Angel.

Me and the Birthday girl <3

It was a brilliant night in spite of a massive mix up and failure by Barrio North, who double booked the area we had reserved and caused a great deal of upset and let down for Mandy. It was very poorly managed indeed, but rather than focus on the negative you can read Mandy's review on the View London website and we'll be done with it! No seriously. Read it.

She may be cute but she doesn't put up with any crap!

Following a hasty exit from Barrio, we descended upon The Diner on Essex Road who provided us with a huge booth a last minute, perfect for our group and served us enthusiastically and tirelessly with lovely cocktails and food throughout the evening. They even saved the cake I’d made for Mandy (which I had to sneak out of the fridge at Barrio and sneak back into the Diner - a challenge!), and added on some candles for us!

Birthday Angel cake made by your truly! - See below for recipe

I'd highly recommend The Diner for a birthday evening; the food was great (I had a bowl of sweet potato fries to keep me going and they were yummy - crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, perfect!) and the staff are so friendly and helpful. They even got involved in some of our games!

Good company plus this excellent service meant that what happened at the beginning of the night was forgotten for a few hours and we went on to Club De Fromage to dance our socks off in high spirits! If you haven't ever been to Club De Fromage, where have you been?!

I have had so many good nights there - the cheesy music, fancy dress and cheesy hosts take me back to Uni days, but in a good way!

Mandy's boyfriends looks on with disapproval :)

Lots of dancing followed and I'm so glad that we were able to save Mandy's night. After swing dancing with Amanda for a few hours (I reckon I'm a pro in the making), I've even decided to look into going to Lindy Hop lessons, so I'll keep you posted on that!

Have you ever had your night sway a little too close to disaster for comfort just to be saved at the last minute? Would love to hear your bad turned good stories!

Until next time,

PS.

If you'd like to make an Angel Birthday cake like the one I made for Mandy, use this recipe - you just need to swap the rectangular tin for 3 round ones, and use pink food colouring instead of red. I found that red food colouring + baking soda + heat = GREY. But that's what test cakes are for ;)

xxxx

La Joie de Vivre, Shoreditch times and nachos!

What I love about this city is that there so much to see and enjoy without having to spend lots of money.

On Tuesday night my friend Nisha and I went to the private view of La Joie de Vivre, an art exhibition in East London, featuring an artist by the name of Skeleton Cardboard. Street art and art in general is of growing interest to me, and Nisha knows all about it being an artist herself, so when she asked me along I knew it'd be worth a look.

The exhibition was held at Silwex House, a warehouse space just off Commercial Street - the perfect place for a street art exhibition! The space was bright and airy, there was a saxophonist and a cellist to provide mood music and a selection of artesian foods for the hungry. We weren't though, we just went for beer.

The art was fantastic - very colourful, messy, with sprinkles of meaning - the way I like it. Some painted with think poster paints, bright colours with with faces, and then there was Skeleton Cardboard. Skeleton Cardboard is exactly what it sounds - skeletons, painted on cardboard big ones on massive sides of boxes, right through to tiny ones on train tickets, and they were dotted all around the gallery. Fun!

We got to speak to the artist himself who was very happy to tell us that there's no meaning behind the canvases he chooses, he just uses whatever cardboard is lying around. Why buy a canvas when you can make your own? Very good point. And sustainable!