The last morning in London was spent soaking up the Parisian atmosphere at the Ladurée cafe in Harrods. The layout of the cafe and shop was really pretty with glass counters filled with colourful decadent macarons, French cakes and pastries. It was really hard to decide what to have so thank goodness they had mini versions of many things allowing one to have a taste of their classic French pastries and macarons all at the same time without having to worry about having too many calories first thing in the morning!

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No trip to London is really quite complete until you have had some of London’s famous roast duck and lobster noodles. Ask any Singaporean or Asian student, be it past, present or future, and they will definitely provide you with the same sage sound advice they were given, and that is to make sure you reserve two meals to be enjoyed at Four Seasons and Mandarin Kitchen. The last time I dined at either restaurant is easily ten years ago, so I was really eager to head back and see if the duck and lobster noodles were really still as good as I remembered.

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I have been on the move again, but am finally back on solid home ground and eager to get all my London food experiences up here on eatgazelove. There should be three more posts I think, including this one, so sit tight for the mini avalanche of posts to round up the eating in London, starting with this one on London’s cafes.

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When a friend found out I was headed to London, she immediately said that I had to make it to Fifteen. Set up in 2002 by Jamie Oliver, ‘Fifteen’ is set up to give unemployed young people a chance for a better future through the magic of food. I would have loved to have dined at Fifteen but it was located a little further out from where I was at and the seventy odd hours in London made it a tad challenging for me to get to. In researching into Fifteen though, I did discover that Jamie has actually set up several kitchens around London and one was located in the brand new and very spanking Westfields, just ten minutes by bus from lovely Stamford Brook where I was crashing. So naturally, Jamie’s Italian Kitchen (and Westfields of course!) was number one on my things to do on day one in London. Read the rest of this entry »

Just a week after I got back from Sydney, I found myself packing my bags again and spending another night on board the three eighty, this time heading up north through London and Helsinki to Jvaskyla. It was in total a 30 hour flight and to be honest, not something I would really like to repeat anytime soon, so I was glad I broke the journey flying home by spending a couple of days re-exploring London. The first thing I did once I knew I was going to be in London was to get myself a seat at a Michelin star restaurant and being in the capital, it was quite clear that the place had to be a Gordon Ramsay joint. I did my research and figured lunch would be best so I made an online reservation for a table for one on Tuesday, May 10th, 12.15PM at the Maze.

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I’ve never really been a huge fan of this sweet confectionery. Made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, ground almond and usually filled with a jam, butter cream or ganache, the macaron sounds simple to make but it really does require some technique and a whole lot of patience. I guess that is why most peeps are willing to just spend the money and buy them from their local patisseries. I usually get them for friends as they make great gifts and would not buy them just to satisfy a craving, but that has recently changed with the introduction to macarons by Sydney’s most acclaimed patissier, Mr Adriano Zumbo.

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No trip to Sydney really is complete without a visit to one of Sydney’s many wine countries. We originally wanted to head further up to Orange County as I remember having a fab time there in 2006, but we decided to optimize the time we had and explore the closer Hunter Valley. Just two and half hours from Sydney, Hunter Valley turned out to be equally fabulous with many wineries to explore and extremely beautiful landscapes.

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Traveling has always been an excellent opportunity to explore a city and experience the food the city has to offer. As much as I do love experimenting and trying all sorts of cuisine, being on the road somehow always makes one crave that odd Asian meal once in a while. Being in Sydney, I knew that finding good Asian fare would not prove to be too difficult and it was more of the case where we were spoiled for choice! We ending up having two Asian lunches, one Japanese in Sydney’s Chinatown and one Vietnamese en route up to Hunter.

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There really is no better place to start when it comes to Sydney’s food then with the Sydney Fish Market. This market is the third largest fish market in the world and was literally our first stop from the airport after we landed. We got in early but not early enough to catch the buying and selling action at the warehouse, so we settled with a walkabout, inspecting the fresh catch of the various shops before finally settling on a dozen fresh Sydney rock oysters and some hamachi sashimi. I never would have imagined having oysters at nine in the morning (tummy was still on Singapore time!) but it was all good, as the tummy definitely did not complain after the creamy indulgence. In fact, we were so tempted to have another dozen!

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I know that the next post on eat.gaze.love was meant to be about Sydney’s food and wine culture, but being on Finnish time and having to manage sub 10 degrees weather, it has been a tad more challenging than I expected to try to punch up a post. The good news is that the work bit is over and I am going to try to get some posts punched out en route to London. In the meantime, I am happy to give everyone a glimpse of the capital of central Finland, Jyväskylä. Pronounced ‘u-vas-cu-la’, this city is really a quiet university town, blessed with many beautiful bodies of water. Despite being spring, temperatures are still very much in the sub 10 region but the ten o’ clock night skies truly make up for the brrr temperatures.

Be right back…and yes, there should be posts upcoming on this little place and big old London!

♥