Back to the Real World

Summer's over, which means it's back to business as usual in London. Everyone's back from their August holidays, and the city feels like its usual self again - busy, hectic, and on-the-go.

Luckily for us, things didn't kick up to high gear straight away, so J and I had time to join a gym to try to undo some of the damage of being fat and happy. The pitfalls of a happy marriage is an ever expanding waistline and a preference for a cuddle on the sofa watching Sherlock over a workout at the gym. But we're working on it and going to the gym together has become our new weekend activity.

We may have undone all of our hard work when we went out to Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental in Kensington to celebrate J's birthday. But we agree, it was worth it! We went there last year, and it has firmly cemented itself as J's favourite restaurant. It's a good thing we go only once a year, as I don't think I would like to have more chins in addition to the one I've got.

I also made a cake to celebrate the occasion. J told me he just wanted something chocolatey, which isn't really much to go on. I ended up making a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and ganache with a salted caramel glaze and a toasted italian meringue topping. Whew. I dropped it by J's office, and I got a good workout just from carrying that cake around. It was ridiculously heavy, but everyone said it was yum so I guess it was worth having my arms just about fall off.

Autumn also means I'm back in school to finish up my last term at Le Cordon Bleu. I was originally planning on returning in January, but I got a bit anxious to get back and finish the damn thing so I decided to return at the last minute. My old classmates just graduated, so I'm joining a different group.

I'm really lucky as the new group turned out to be lots of fun, and it made the transition a lot easier. Most of them are fast-trackers, which means that they've been doing the same course as us regular folk but on a compressed schedule. Everything we've done in six months, they've done in three! But everyone has to go on the same schedule for the last bit, Superior term, so we're now all in the same boat. This term is a bit different from previous terms in that we no longer have demonstrations followed by practicals. Now, we go straight to the kitchen for a workshop, which consists of a short demo and lots more time with hands-on work.

We started our term with the sugar module, which is focused on creating centrepieces made with pulled/ poured/ blown sugar. It's really, really hot work. You're cooking sugar to really high temperatures and working under a heat lamp most of the time, which means I've been sweating buckets. I'm pretty sure my partner must be grossed out by the puddle of sweat at my feet at the end of every workshop. Oh well, some things just can't be helped.

My hands were really red and raw after the first day of pulling sugar, but things have improved with the addition of a few things - cotton gloves with multiple layers of latex gloves on top, with a set of rubber dishwashing gloves on top for when the sugar is really hot. I'm actually pretty happy with the pulled sugar rose that I've made, but I think there's still some room for improvement.

First attempt.

Second attempt.

Most recent attempt.

The poured sugar centrepiece was a complete fail the first time around. My thermometer was going bonkers, and I ended up overcooking the sugar, which meant it took on a ugly brownish tone. That wasn't so bad, and I managed to rescue it with some food colouring, but then the whole thing kind of slowly keeled over when I wasn't looking. I'm not sure if it was the humidity or if the sugar was too soft from overzealous blowtorching. Sigh. I'm looking forward to next week when we get to have another go at it, and I've got a brand new thermometer all ready to go.  Fingers crossed!

Here's what chef made to give us an idea of all the different techniques we can use in poured sugar.

I got to keep chef's centrepiece, so I took it to J's office so he could use it to decorate his shelves. People do tend to look at you funny when you're carrying a sugar sculpture through the city on the tube, just as a warning. 

Formentera aka Paradise

That's what everyone calls it in on the travel websites, and boy, they weren't joking. One of my Italian friends recommended that we check out Formentera, and I owe him a huge thank you for the recommendation.

Formentera is a little island that's a bit south of Ibiza, and we walked over to the port to hop on a ferry. We got quite the shock when we found out that it was 91 euro for two return tickets. Ouch.

We hopped on board, and J ended up getting a bit seasick from all the bobbing around. Luckily, the ride was only about 30 minutes, and he recovered as soon as we landed. He wasn't the only one - I looked  around to see several people clutching their seasickness bags.


As soon as we landed, we noticed a row of shops renting out cars, motorcycles, mopeds and bicycles. I decided that it would be a great idea to ride bikes to the beach, Playa de Illetes, and we rented a pair for about 14 euro and put down another 16 as a deposit for the two bikes. We had a bit of trouble finding a bike for me since I'm pretty damn short, so I ended up with a child's mountain bike. J was pretty happy with his girl's city bike with metal basket.

Somewhere along the way, we took a wrong turn and ended up in the middle of Salinas Nature Reserve, which was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1995. Talk about a good wrong turn! We ended up biking along a very scenic dirt trail and tried to avoid running over the island's ubiquitous green lizards.


As soon as we found our way to the proper road heading to the beach, we immediately made another wrong turn into another dirt trail, which also turned out to be quite fortuitous because the trail dead-ended at a open-air restaurant run and patronized by locals.


I had been warned about the incredibly high prices I was sure to come across in Formentera's restaurants for really crap food, so we were overjoyed to find a place where we could get delicious hamburgers with chips and drinks for around 25 euro. I don't think the restaurant even had a name, but it was right by Playa Llevant and the owner's dogs ran around as we ate our lunch.


We headed back to the main road and finally got to our destination, Playa de Illetes. It's no longer the high season, so the beach wasn't crowded at all and a large German family with very blond children were the only ones splashing around in the water. The sand was white and soft, the water blue and clear. The sun wasn't too strong and the breeze just right. We just couldn't ask for a more perfect day.


We dropped off our stuff on two lounge chairs and popped open an umbrella so J could have some shade. Just like in Barcelona, a guy walked up to us shortly after to collect the rental fees - so nice and easy! It should've been about 18 euro, but he charged us only 12. Sweet!

Anyway, my butt was majorly hurting from the bike seat, so I was more than happy to just lay there on the lounge chair for a bit. Then I got bored so I headed into the water.


The water was really calm with zero waves and quite warm. I kept walking, but the water was shallow and it didn't get up to my waist until I had walked a good 10 meters in.


The water was cooler the farther I went out, so I headed back to shore after splashing around a bit. J also took a quick dip in the ocean, and then we both lounged about for a few hours.

Nude sunbathing isn't uncommon here so it didn't faze me much when I saw the topless women, but I did get a slight surprise when some people were running around in their birthday suits. Definitely wouldn't see that in LA, but it didn't seem as weird in Formentera for some reason.

Anyway, we hung out for a few hours before the sun looked like it was finished for the day, and we hopped back on our bikes to head back to the marina. It was a much shorter 2 mile ride back, but my butt was hurting the entire time.

Returning our bikes was super painless, and we hopped on the ferry to head back to Ibiza. The ferry this time was so big that we were sure that it was going to some other destination like Valencia so J and I went around asking people again and again to make sure that this was going to Ibiza. Paranoid much?

Thirty minutes later, we were back in Ibiza and we walked back to our hotel and showered before heading out to dinner at the Jackpot Restaurant, which is one of the restaurants on our hotel premises and is connected to the casino (hence the name).

We arrived right when it opened at 8:30pm, and the place was completely empty. We got our choice of tables, and since it was a bit cool outside, we sat in this entry type area that was between the outside and inside parts of the restaurant.

The Mediterranean menu had a heavy emphasis on seafood and was very reasonably priced for that kind of restaurant. And to our great surprise and delight, the portion sizes were epic! After snacking on the olives and bread and the cream of zucchini aperitif, I was pretty much done before my starter even arrived.  Luckily, I had a very helpful assistant in J.

 However, I think even he got a bit scared when the server showed up with the dessert tray. She had an array of different cakes, and J got a slice of almond cake while I decided to go native and ordered a local dessert called flao, which is similar to a cheesecake made with aniseed, lemon and fresh cheese. I think both our eyes nearly popped out of our heads when we saw the huge slices she was doling out. She proceeded to plate it in front of us with careful daubs and swirls of different fruit and chocolate sauces. It was pretty amazing to watch it done and almost too pretty to eat. But we did. All of it. Cause that's how we roll.

We finally staggered out of there 2 hours later, when the restaurant began to fill up. Apparently 10:30pm is a perfectly reasonable hour to have dinner.


As for J and I, it's bedtime and our stomachs can start a long night's work of digesting the enormous meal we just had.

Hello Ibiza, Goodbye Twenties

I never thought I'd see the day, but here I am on the eve of entering my thirties. I should've paid more attention to the clock because I can't figure out where the time went!

But I can figure out that the twenties ought to go out with a bang, rather than a whimper, so J and I planned a weekend away in Ibiza, Spain to celebrate.

I've heard of Ibiza before and its crazy party scene, but I was much more excited about the surf and sun since it's gotten downright freezing in London in the last week.

J and I woke up ridiculously early on Friday morning to catch a minicab to London City airport, where we boarded our 2 hour flight to Ibiza. In a few short hours, we were touching down on the island and I could see that it would be clear, blue skies and warm sun for the day. Hooray!

We hopped into a taxi and arrived at our hotel for the weekend. Since a girl doesn't turn 30 every day, we decided to splurge a bit on the Ibiza Gran Hotel, a five star hotel, which was close to both the airport and to Ibiza Town.

The hotel lobby was absolutely enormous in comparison to the hotels I've gotten used to in Europe, and I was just amazed by the design of the hotel. It's only four years old, and it's got a very modern and minimalist feel to it. A really clean scent was being pumped throughout the hotel, and the place smelled just like how I would imagine heaven to smell.

Which made sense because our hotel room was pretty heavenly. It was a deluxe suite, and some of the features included a jacuzzi on the terrace, a whirlpool tub, two plasma TVs and a view of both the pool area and the marina.

 

 

The hotel was so amazing and we were pretty tired from getting up so early that I made the executive decision that we would be lounging about the hotel all day and taking some time to enjoy the pool.

Although the entire hotel was fully booked, there were only a few people out in the pool area. J and I took advantage to splash around in the adult pool and generally cause a ruckus when we weren't napping on the giant daybed. It was great - it's been way too long since I've cannonballed.

All the horseplay made us pretty hungry, and we went in search of food, but to our surprise, none of the restaurants were open. Apparently, the onsite restaurant wouldn't open until 8:30pm, and we were way to hungry to wait 2 hours for dinner.

Have I mentioned that room service is a godsend? J and I always love ordering room service, and this trip was no exception. We had ordered room service for lunch, and we ordered it again for dinner. It looked like we were collecting trolleys or something in our suite.

We ended the night with J watching BBC World News, which was the only English speaking channel the hotel had, and I was re-reading Bill Bryson's At Home.

All in all, it was a really nice way of easing into a relaxing holiday.

Birthday at The Ledbury

Today is J's birthday, and he requested that we go to dinner at The Ledbury, a restaurant in Notting Hill. Sounds easy enough but for the fact that I had to make this reservation 2 1/2 months in advance! It's a two Michelin-starred French fusion place that known for good food and a service staff that chased off looters with rolling pins and kitchen knives during the London riots (true story).

Anyway, we were supposed to go last year for J's birthday, but work got in the way and we ended up cancelling. It was looking like J may have to cancel again, but he managed to escape for a few hours.

The restaurant is quite small and newly refurbished so it's cosy and modern. The staff was very attentive, but not invasively so while we enjoyed our three courses apiece. It's funny how these fancy places always have a three course menu or a tasting menu. In any case, it's never just three courses because they always bring out random things like an amuse bouche or a pre-dessert, not that I'm complaining or anything. =) They were also very generous with the bread - not only did a plate of warm, delicious bread arrive at our table, but a server walked around offering bacon and onion rolls or malted bread out of a basket. 

The food was quite interesting and there was stuff like foamed hay on my plate, and it tasted just like hay. Strange, but not bad. It was all interestingly great, nothing predictable at all. At the end of the meal, they brought out a little extra dessert for J since it was his birthday, and he was pretty happy when we got even more dessert in the form of petit fours. I'm not quite sure why they brought that out, but that brought the total number of desserts up to 4 for the two of us.

We were stuffed by the end of the night, and the hostess offered to ring up a cab to pick us up. What a nice little touch! In any case, we demolished the rest of the petit fours while we waited and complained about how tight our waistbands were feeling. Now we're home and in elasticized clothes so we're much, much happier.