A 24 hr snapshot of London: Afternoon Tea's, Southbank Sightseeing and Nightime Cycling!

So last weekend my American friend Charity came to town! She was only going to be in London for less than 24 hours so I knew we had to pack in as much fun stuff as possible! Charity is the most fun and adventurous and enthusiastic person I know! If you don't believe me go check out her blog, her love of life is contagious! and so I knew we were going to have to make our time together count! and man alive (to steal an Eyre family phrase) did we have fun!

First stop was Portobello Rd, and I'm not too sure we paid that much attention to all the cute little stalls because we were SO busy being chatterboxes and catching up on what's been going on in our lives since we last saw each other 2 years ago! but we did have time to snap this pic in front of those lovely coloured buildings!

Next up we headed to Bea's of Bloomsbury at One New Change, St.Pauls.  Here is Charity being ever so English with her pot of blackcurrant tea! Can you believe she had never experienced an Afternoon Tea before so I wanted to introduce her to this British tradition!

There is nowhere else in England I'd rather have afternoon Tea than at Bea's...because the amount of goodies they bring you on your platter is ridunculous!! Typically an afternoon tea consists of sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream and cake.  Here is what we got with ours:

Mini baguettes with goats cheese and ham, and sundried tomatoes

Homemade Scones with lashings of jam and clotted cream

Treats: Carrot cake cupcake, valrhona brownie, belgian blondie, passionfruit meringue, mango marshmallow and my fave of the lot were some giant lime and coconut marshmallows (all homemade to perfection!)

After we were more than sufficiently stuffed, we headed down to the Southbank where we took in this lovely view from the viewing deck at the top of the Oxo tower.

We passed some cute little decorated beach huts along the fake beach front which we thought were rather cool...

and then we found this awesome ride which had to be one of the highlights! I have seen swing rides at fun fairs plenty of times before, but never one that lifts you high into the air and THEN swings you round!! It was really quite an experience!

Especially because of where it was situated!! We were swinging high above the Thames just loving all those sights we were taking in...like the London Eye, and Big Ben that you can see behind Charity in this pic! It even started to go backwards half way round, and let me tell you that was a whole experience in itself!!

We had to take the obligatory shots in front of all the tourist spots!

Luckily for us, the weather actually turned out pretty good and once some of the clouds cleared there was actually some blue sky under there! so that made a nice change from the Irish weather Charity had experienced in the days preceding London!

I loved this shot of all the signs to help the tourists find their way, with the London Eye just peeking into view!

As the sun was setting we wondered over to Buckingham Palace and snapped this pretty pink sky behind this statue just in front of the Palace.

Charity wanted to go check out Hyde Park..so what better way to do it then to hire some of Boris' (our mayor of London) Barclays bikes! It costs £1 to get one out and as long as you just use short journeys and return the bikes to other docks within 30 minute periods it's totally free!

So after cycling around the park for a while we decided to be brave and head down Oxford St!

It was surprisingly less scary than we expected it to be! The buses behaved, and it actually turned out to be alot of fun! Even at gone 9pm London was buzzing and it was so fun to be in the middle of all the hustle and bustle! The pic above is Charity at Oxford Circus.

We finished our bike ride at Picadilly Circus where a nice fellow tourist snapped this pic for us.

We headed to the M&M store to take a few more touristy pics!

Gotta love the M&M guy in his busby!

We returned to the Southbank to take some more shots of Big Ben...this time illuminated!

and here we are with the London Eye in the background, excuse the dodgy pic - I forgot to turn the flash on! Picture taking never runs as smoothly without Byron around!

For our final pic of the night before resting our weary feet, we found a phonebox!

The next morning Byron came and picked us up and we headed south of the river to Borough Market.

It was alot of fun checking out sooo many different food stalls! Charity had never seen such massive meringues before! I took tons more pics but I'm sure you're wondering when this post is going to end so I'll spare you!

We opted for the giant bratwurst, it was seriously delish!

So we bid farewell to Borough Market and to Charity as we dropped her at the station Basingstoke Bound ready for the rest of her U.K tour!

Hopefully next time we see each other it will be on her side of the Atlantic for some California fun!

Tex Mex Tuesday: A little taste of California in the middle of Notting Hill!

Right now, my two sisters and brother in law are roadtrippin' it up in Californi-a.  I am beyond jealous and it's something we're not going to dwell on! Swiftly moving on...so the night before they all left we had a night out in London town (but secretly I pretended I had joined them on the Cali trip!)

Mel, who currently lives in Yorkshire, is an avid follow of my blog and has been watching and drooling over our past few months of Mexican madness.  So when she arrived in London she wanted to be taken to the best Mexican we had eaten at so far.  Mara and I both decided it just had to be Santo on Portobello Road...if for no other reason to try some of their amazing chile nachos again!! and this time I got a better shot of them on my camera too!

I opted for Enchiladas, as this is usually my fave Mexican dish, but I have to say I was left craving some burrito loving once the girls dishes arrived...

and that's saying something because I've made it clear before I am not a burrito fan but the burrito's at Santo are hands down amazing!

Mel was definitely impressed and being the veggie she is, she was pleased at their choice of veggie dishes too!

Afterwards we ended the evening with something sweet at Lucky 7.  We toasted to a great Cali trip with our milkshakes (again I was pretending I was in on it too!) Oh how I wish I was milkshaking it up with them right now! Last I heard they had rented bikes along Santa Monica boardwalk, eaten at an amazing Mexican restaurant and found a cupcakery with a frostinator machine where you could make your own cupcakes!!!if that doesn't scream perfect holiday I don't know what does!

I had a mint Oreo shake, while Mel grabbed a double thick chocolate malt and Mara had her old favourite of banana. 

It was a great night out, and whilst I'm missing them all loads I'm even more excited for their return because of all my favourite American goodies they have promised to bring me! Roll on A&W, mint Oreo's and maybe just maybe a few cupcakes!!

Tex Mex Tuesday: Crazy Homies & Lucky 7 Diner, Westbourne Grove

This week I deviated off my Top 20 list, but for good reason.  I stumbled upon Crazy Homies online and I instantly knew we needed to pay this place a visit, not only for the original and inventive flavour contributions on the menu, but because it was located right next to this place: 

Lucky 7 Diner...anyone who knows me well will know that, to me, this is a perfect combo!!  

Situated side by side on Westbourne Park Road, just off Portobello, you might miss these little Gems since the neighbourhood has so much else to offer but I would invite all of you to pay them a visit because they are awesome!!  

We decided since Crazy Homies only opened at 6pm and we came straight from work that we would try out a triple thick milkshake at Lucky 7 while we waited.  At £5.50 a shake, it doesn't come cheap but too often I am left disappointed by milkshakes that aren't thick enough for my liking and so it was a few extra pounds definitely well spent! I had tried to order the mint choc chip, yum, but was told they would only be able to make it medium thick (I presume they had run out of mint ice cream) but that wouldn't do, I had come to sample the triple thick! so I opted for a strawberry, you know it's going to be delish when it's so thick it won't even pour out of your extra refill! and it was! We had planned to both get shakes but as soon as we saw ROOT BEER FLOATS on the menu we just had to order one of those too so we shared! 

I totally didn't plan to be the walking A&W advert that day! I had just thrown on my brown converses and looked for a tee that matched, so we thought it made for a funny photo op! This has got to be one of the best Root Beer Floats we've had in the UK, perhaps second only to All Star Lanes.  We might have ordered a sneaky hot dog too, I didn't photograph it as I wasn't planning to share what fatties we truly are but it was too delicious not to mention.  So as the clock struck 6 we headed over to kick off our Tex Mex Tuesday...

and Crazy Homies has got to be the coolest Mexican we have tried so far.  With a name like that, how could it not be! It's tiny inside, I think with extra seating downstairs, but that adds to the appeal! It has a bench seat all the way around with cool little cushions that you can chill out on, and is very bright and colourful inside...

Check out that cute bunting and the crazy spider light! plus it's menu is called The Bible...and I think that's a testament to just how many different delicious offerings are available to you...

I, for one, have never heard of or even imagined Butternut squash and Chorizo Tostadas, but luckily for me Crazy Homies dreamt them up and they were amazing!! Butternut is one of my favourite foods ever and it complimented all the black beans underneath it perfectly, and the salsas were all incredibly fresh too.

It got more exotic too, Mara relived her Caribbean days with some Mahi Mahi Tostadas! which came with a pineapple relish! How they got Mahi Mahi here, I'm not quite sure.  It was a fish I had never come across until we lived in Turks and Caicos where it was one of the most common Caribbean fish offerings you would find at restaurants.  However they managed to get it here, we're glad they did because we both devoured our meals (yes after the shakes, floats and hot dog too..oops!) 

Unfortunately, just as it was going SO well for Crazy Homies, we had to go and order Churros - our fave Mexican dessert! and after raving about the ones we had last week at Lupita I knew they were going to have to be pretty spectacular to compare...

spectacular they were not, and actually cooked they were not.  Even from this picture I think you can see the glossy wet like sheen is not normal! When we bit into them they were still gooey inside, not gooey in a good way, gooey in a raw batter sort of way! I called the waiter over and asked him if this was how Churros were meant to be, he assured me it was, but obviously he didn't know my love for all things Mexican and how I know what a Churro should taste like!! We sent them back, he took them off the bill, we didn't want to chance ordering any more.

It was a sad end to the evening, dessert is usually my fave part! So my advice would be definitely go for some amazingly delicious Mexican at Crazy Homies but perhaps pop next door to Lucky 7 for some all American dessert or a milkshake to finish off the night with in the future!