Image Map

31 March 2016

Wahaca



As you know, I think that the availability of good Mexican food is a God given right. Sadly, Tex-mex is completely a foreign concept here (tee hee).
We have found a restaurant (several locations) here called Wahaca, that we like as a restaurant and I would call it a restaurant with a Mexican influence, but not a Mexican restaurant, per se.

They serve tapas sized portions, which is fun, so you can order several different things.
I started with a Chelada - and was served a salt-rimmed glass with about an inch and a half of fresh lime juice in it, and a Negro Modelo. In goes the beer, and it was delicious!
Chips and salsa and guacamole - the salsa is more of a pico de gallo, but tasty.
Smoky Chipotle chicken quesadillas - delicious - might be my favourite thing.
Pork tacos. I found this recipe online to make the pork like they do - must try it soon!
http://metro.co.uk/2012/06/26/wahaca-mexican-food-at-home-thomasina-miers-cookbook-review-480989/
Beef tacos with a strip of fried cheese on top - yep, cause everything in life could be made just a bit better by adding fried cheese.

Salmon sashimi tostada- see what I mean about loosely applying the term Mexican to this food? Really tasty though!
And last, was prawn taquitos.
Before you wonder how I ate all that food, I shared it with Georgia, and chris snaked a few bites too.
Sadly, the service was terrible. The waiter had to reorder Georgia's juice and a couple of our dishes because they never arrived. Service is not something that is commonly exceptional here, but it is a lot better than it used to be. Still, when we encounter particularly poor service, it is disappointing. The server was really nice, just didn't follow up and make sure our food arrived as ordered and whether we needed anything else.
Would I go back? Probably. The food is pretty good and their other locations have had good service.

29 March 2016

Easter Monday

Easter weekend is a bank holiday in England, and that means London is pretty quiet and many small stores and businesses were closed.
We decided to head down to Southbank Centre to the Wondercrump World of Roald Dahl exhibit. 
It is an interactive guided tour through recreations of the different periods of his life, from his boyhood schoolroom, to the desert where he crash landed his fighter plane, to the places in his imagination that gave rise to books like the BFG, Matilda, and more.
Sadly, no photography was allowed within the exhibit itself.

Before we went in, Sophia needed a snack

Easter Sunday

We had a quiet family Easter, just as the girls requested. We initially had discussed spending the whole weekend in the Cotswolds, but the girls didn't want to miss the Easter bunny footprints and Easter baskets being done at home.
The Easter bunny made a mess as usual, but left behind some awesome goodies!
After church, there were board games...
And naps...
And then... THE Boat Race
The girls made signs and cheered!
G and O were cheering for Oxford, and Sophia said "I'll root for whoever wins"
We debated going down and watching the race live, as we did two years ago, but the intermittent rain showers made us decide to stay home and watch it on telly.
First we watched the women's race and then the men's...
Which blue are you?

And Oxford won the women's race and Cambridge won the men's race.
After was Easter dinner. Sophia decided to dress formally!

26 March 2016

Day two in the Cotswolds

We stopped for petrol (gas for our fellow Americans) and filled up beside a '57 Chevy. Not something you frequently see in the US, much less the UK.
For dinner, we ate a terrific pub dinner at The Wheatsheaf in a cool little town called Northleach.

The girls posed in front of a Tudor door - I was taller than the doorframe!
The girls loved being out in the country where they could see a sky filled with stars, saying "Look! They actually have stars here!"
Olivia and Sophia loved the hotel robes and slippers!
Our hotel was nice and clean and had an awesome indoor pool!
One of the best traffic signs I have seen in awhile!
British Monopoly!
Yum!

Timehop

Have you discovered the app called Timehop?
It is my absolute favourite way to enjoy memories!
Some recent Timehop finds...

I love remembering through Timehop!

25 March 2016

A quick weekend jaunt to the Cotswolds

We decided, a week or so ago to pop out to the Cotswolds for a quick getaway Easter weekend. Finding lodging at such a late date was a bit of a challenge, but we were able to find something. We left London at about 9:30 on Good Friday morning - us and a few hundred thousand more people it seemed! Ugh, the traffic!
We thought we'd stop for a pub lunch in a cute town called Woodstock and then head to tour Blenhiem Palace. After a bottle of wine, we are thinking tomorrow might be better for a tour of the palace!