It's been a busy few days around here! Last Thursday was Tamara's birthday and so we ventured to Waterloo to check out Bangalore Express.
One of the main reasons I brought Mara here was because I thought the upstairs bunk seating was super cool! You had to climb up a little individual ladder to get to your booth!
...but it wasn't just aesthetically pleasing, the food was the best Indian I've ever had! Usually I always pass on poppadoms as I'm just not a fan of them but I devoured their poppadoms in no time!
Mara had a chicken and rice dish...
and we were particularly impressed with presentation, check out her tower of rice!
I got duck Korma, which I have just been loving recently and the peshwari naan was homemade, and filled with warm yummy coconutty goodness!
I was definitely enjoying my meal here!
Afterwards we headed to Preston Road to check out Flirtease - a dessert and cocktail bar. We were loving the decor of canvases showcasing the cheesecakes we make at our work, The English Cheesecake Company!
but since we eat cheesecake all week long we opted for a choc fudge cake and a trio of banana and coconut ice cream - two of the birthday girls favourite flavours!
They also had a rather extensive range of milkshakes but we were too full (for once!!) to try one.
and here's Mar with the birthday prezzie I got for her, some Melt chocolates. She rather generously shared some with me and they were the best chocolates ever!! Truffles filled with banana, passion fruit and coconut and peanut butter and jelly! and the salted caramel and raspberry, mint and white chocolate went down pretty well too! We got them a day late, after the courier failed to deliver them on time but one of the employees from the shop hand delivered them to us on Friday evening in the pouring rain! and after being given a complimentary slab we certainly weren't complaining!
On Saturday we got down to some serious present opening, once Mom and Dad arrived.
For the tennis fan...Mara got this amazing tennis ball, made out of chocolate!! It almost looks too good to eat, almost - it's filled with liquid salted caramel!
and we got tons of new baking tins to keep us busy and whipping up Bundt's and brownies for weeks to come!
I had a sneaky present opening session too even though technically it was a little early!
Even though we'd agreed that perhaps I didn't need any more cupcake stuff, it just wouldn't be a birthday without getting a few cupcake presents...I am cupcake crazy after all!
but the highlight of my present opening had to be this awesome Kings of Leon tee and being united with my tickets for their gig that I will be at when you read this!!
It's now a Gem tradition that on my birthday cupcakes must be consumed, so since it was our celebratory weekend we headed to Bake-A-Boo just down the road from where we live in West Hampstead. Raspberry and lemon cupcakes were the order of the day.
We headed to Knightsbridge to check out the Harrod's sale and I rediscovered my love of their food hall! Check out the singing pizza chef who sings opera while he makes the pizza dough!
and I couldn't resist snapping this pic: I carried a watermelon!!
Lately it's all been about Selfridge's for us but Harrod's food hall definitely is worth a mention! Check out the bunches of grapes hanging from those chandeliers...everything they do they do it in style that's for sure!
After that we headed to another of our favourite areas - The Kings Road. We got some delicious cookies and brownies courtesy of the Saturday food market outside Partridge's and then we pancaked it up at My Old Dutch.
Nothing beats an enormous pancake to fill you up after a tiring day of shopping!
and of course it has to be accompanied by a milkshake! That's just how our family rolls (I overheard this being said by a 5 year old girl on the bus this week!!!)
We discovered much to our surprise M&M world had opened in Leicester Square after seeing many of their famous yellow bags pass us by! so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to check it out!
4 levels of fun, I couldn't have said it better myself! There was a buzz of excitement in the shop, and my dad commented on how all the employees must have to be qualified dancers to work there since every one you passed seemed to be busting out some moves!
There were lovely little hints all over the shop that reminded you that you were in London! like this giant Union Jack sign.
and there was a giant m&m character with a busby on his head too!
Everyone wanted a piece of the m&m road zebra crossing action, there were queue's of people wanting to take their pictures posing! It was funny to see their imitation of the Abbey Rd shot because our flat is just down the road from Abbey Rd and everytime we drive past that Zebra crossing, no matter what time of day it is, there's always a group of tourists recreating the classic Beatles shot!
and now we move onto the sweets!! There were walls and walls filled with every m&m colour imaginable.
We opted for some purple and turquoise - as they're our fave colours and I'm sure they tasted better too!
We rounded off a lovely weekend by celebrating Father's Day, looking at Dad's smile in the above picture I'd say our present went down pretty well!
Here he is checking out just what a world class traveller he really is, I had marked on the map all the countries he's ever visited and it was pretty extensive!
Now I'm gearing up getting ready for round 2 of the birthday fun! Byron arrives in to London tonight and then my actual birthday will be filled with more cupcakes, Mexican and lots of rocking out to Kings of Leon...and hopefully no rain - fingers crossed!
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