TASTE OF LONDON REGENTS PARK

Taste of London is my idea of Heaven - a food festival in Regents Park with 40 of Londons best restaurants offering some of their most popular dishes. There are cookery demonstrations by some of Londons top chefs and also an abundance of stalls from artisan producers and premium brands.

It is also Pascals idea of hell - lots of people, eating standing up and queueing!!

However he very kindly offered to go with me this weekend and boy I had a feast. I started at Barbecoa with slow roasted pit beef with new york slaw, ketchup and beef dripping crumble. This was great - the meat was so tender and went perfectly with the slaw. I can imagine it would taste even better with the fantastic views the restaurant has of St Pauls cathedral.

We then had a kebab by Sabrina Ghayour for Action Against Hunger - it was an eastern spiced chicken and pomegranate shawarma with yogurt sauce, mint, tomatoes, pomegranate seeds and pomegranate molasses - this was good but a bit dry - not my favourite. It was a shame as Sabrina Ghayour is an absolutely phenomenal chef.

Next was asparagus, pea and goats cheese croquettes with wild garlic pesto from Ember Yard. These were so good I forgot to take a photo!! I definitely need to go to this restaurant.

I obviously needed to have a burger and my top choice was meat liquor and it didnt disappoint. I had the deep hippie burger which was a mustard fried beef patty, dead hippie sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and minced white onions. This was delicious - cooked pink with the right amount of cheese and sweet crisp pickles….very messy though!

After the burger, it was only right we had a hot dog from Bubbledogs - I had the BLT (bacon, lettuce and truffle mayonnaise) - I wasnt expecting anything amazing but I was very pleasantly surprised - it was really good. The sausage had a bit of a kick to it and I adored the truffle mayonnaise…even Pascal raved about it!

It was now time to move onto the sweet stuff. I started with a mini salted caramel cupcake and a mini mars bar crisp from the Primrose Bakery - 5 stars to both - I will definitely be trying to recreate these at home.

My favourite dish of the whole festival was the salted caramel soft whip with honeycomb from Tredwells. It was so good I have now added Tredwells to the top of my restaurant list. I could have eaten about 10 of these puddings!!

I finished off with the malted marshmallow peanut butter frozen custard with chocolate covered pretzels from Shake Shack. This was good but not a patch on the salted caramel soft serve!

I could have actually eaten more (oink oink) as there were so many good things to choose from however I didnt want to explode. Plus we had already spent a small fortune on entry tickets and all the food and Pascal was ready to sit down!

All in all a lovely day, I will definitely be making this a yearly occurrence!

Taste of London

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Hike at Carbon River in Mt Rainier National Park

This weekend was GORGEOUS!  We spent the majority of our Saturday hiking in Mt. Rainier National Park.  Did you know that Saturday started National Park Week?  We didnt either, but were able to park and hike for free this weekend.

For us, we had sunny weather in the upper 60s, lower 70s for most of the weekend.  Here are a few pictures from our great 11.5 mile hike.

The one-lane bridge we had to go over to get to the Carbon River Ranger Station. 

At the Carbon River Ranger Station before our hike.  This station is 2.5 miles from the parking area and trailhead.

Kevin at the Mt. Rainier sign near the trailheads.

A few miles into our hike, we just cant believe how big some of the trees are.  The entire hike is through old growth forests.

We hike 0.3 mile uphill hike from the main trail to check out an old mine.

Another hike 1 mile uphill and off the mail trail is Ranger Falls.  The picture really doesnt do it justice.  This thing was pretty tall!

Again, this picture makes it look not as grand as it was.  It looks like it is right behind us, but it is a good 50 yards away.

We continue along the trail that brought us to the Ranger Falls and along the way we cross a stream on this little bridge.

Along this path we also saw some old trees that had fallen over the years.  Im touching the root system of one and the root system alone was about 2.5 times my height.

At the end of our hike we make it to Green Lake.  Across the water is snow.  Actually, some of the only snow weve seen in person this year.  The lake indeed has a green tint to it, but from the furthest log we could climb to, you can see down over 60 feet deep.  We were the only ones at the time on the lake, so it felt pretty cool to have it all to ourselves.  Too bad it wasnt swimming weather!

Green Lake

A view into the lake.  So clear and green.  No fish to be seen or aquatic birds, but plenty of water bugs.

We were pretty tired the rest of our hike back.  With only fruit for breakfast that morning and a large apple each for lunch, we were in need of some serious fuel!  This was the cross-section of a fallen tree, which was my arm span (Im about 55").  Wish I could have stayed to count the rings!

After our hike we pass back through the small historic town of Wilkeson.  The old buildings on the main drag made it seem like an old western town.

After a stop for a beer at the local historic saloon, we were on our way to grab some food in town and go home... for an amazing nights sleep.

Health and Happiness,

Amy

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