Ellie Loves....

Things I am loving this week:

Green and Blacks Hazelnut and Currant Dark Chocolate
This has been keeping me sane all week.

Currently on offer at Ocado

Pukka Green Tea with Mint
Always an obsession of mine, but stepped up a level this week to make sure I am not ill for my speaking exam on Thursday!

Available from Ocado

Travel-sized packaging
Packing for a weekend away, only taking hand luggage, has left me frantically buying all my beauty necessities in under 100ml bottles. A friend pointed out you can get these £1 empty containers to transfer products into. Would have saved me a lot of money....
Maybe I'm naive not knowing about this sooner, but I don't usually travel with just hand luggage. I'm definitely not a light packer.

Available from Superdrug

Three Floor Fashion
I have just discovered this brand and although some of their dresses are not to my taste or my style, some are absolutely gorgeous. I'm thinking one of these two numbers for my birthday dress. Very similar, but both gorgeous in their own ways. The dress on the left has a very sporty, Victoria Beckham Spring/Summer '13 feel to it, with the orange colour and the halter neck. The dress on the right is a much more elegant, classy and understated dress but with that hint of sass.
Both are great for different party occasions. I think I might just get both.

Candles
I love candles, I have one burning constantly and my new favourite one this week is the White Company's Fresh Thyme scent. I love fresh, citrus smells, even more so when the weather gets warmer. Perfect scent for Summer.

Available from The White Company

Ruby Woo Lipstick by MAC
I have been showing this lipstick some love for a few weeks now. I've been working on building up my confidence lately and what better way to do that than step outside with bright red lipstick?! She says. Work in progress.

Available from MAC

Pinterest
Yes, yes late to the party. And probably not the best time to become addicted to something but I am currently designing my dream house through pinterest boards. Just need the house in Notting Hill now.

Pistachio, raspberry and chocolate cheesecake tart

Yes. You read that correctly.

Whichever way you look at it, still mind-blowingly delicious.

Pig and Pastry, York

I AM STRESSED. Less than 2 weeks of my undergraduate degree to go and and I have about a million things to do before I finish. I have started to "stress shop", which is a phenomenon that has never happened to me before. Sure, I always shop but this is getting dangerous. It makes me feel better, more calm and relaxed, but my bank balance is hating me. I don't think I've ever been this broke in my life, but as that age old proverb says new clothes are good for the soul.

And obviously instead of working right now I decided to write a blog post. Priorities in the right place.

Anyway, I feel like I haven't left my room in about a month, but today I came out of my cave because a friend came to visit!! Nothing like friends and cake to make you feel better.

I can try to say that what I had in the Pig and Pastry was brunch, but I would just be kidding myself, for really it was my second breakfast of the day. I'm not ashamed. I can't get enough of breakfast.

Super cute, this is an undiscovered locals joint on Bishopsthorpe Road that is not overrun with students and tourists. I have discovered it and neglect to tell people about it because I love it too much. DON'T GO. It's already busy enough!

The staff are all welcoming and friendly and clearly love to work there with their cute Cath Kidston aprons. Probably because they get to eat the most amazing cake and food for free!! There is a man that works there that has the most incredible moustache. Go just to see this feat of nature itself. A proper gelled swirly one. 
No wait! I'm supposed to be deterring you! He's actually really scary.

Guy with amazing moustache outside!

Old school treats

The coffee is smooth and flavoursome, just lovely. But the real star here is the food. For just £6 (compared to about £12 in London, this is why I love the North) I ordered this incredible eggs royale.

Why yes, yes that is TWO perfectly cooked poached eggs on muffins you see before you.

How do I know they were perfectly cooked?

Nuff said.

J ordered Eggs Benedict, which was made with Yorkshire ham!! Always up for local produce, those Northerners. Another reason I love it there.

And this one was only £5.50. Ohmygod it was good.

Then it was time for cake. All this food may have been amazing but I'm not leaving my room for anything less than a slice of cake. All breads and cakes are homemade and I expect nothing less. Only problem is, once they're gone, they're gone!

What to choose what to choose.....

JUST GUESS WHICH WAS MINE.

Yeah, chocolate cake. No brainer, it was moist and delicious. But the cinnamon swirl was divine and the most gorgeous colour too. And look at that plate! I do appreciate nice cutlery...

I really regret not taking a slice of the caramel shortcake home though. I did try to get a piece to go, but a couple before me got the last one. Next time, hopefully.

So as you can see, really not that impressed with the Pig and Pastry and no one should go here. Ever. No point in even thinking about it.

But all in all, a wonderful catchup with a friend from home who I will be seeing lots more of over Summer in London. We were talking about going to this pop-up cinema, looks amazing for a summer evening:

http://thelexicinema.co.uk/special-events/nomad-roaming-pop-up-cinema/

But for now, I shall leave you with this:

Yes, I associate myself with this person. <3

Il Paradiso del Cibo: The Best Italian in York!

One of the best things about York is that it is full of good independent restaurants and cafes. There is a little street called Walmgate, where this Italian is also located, that has about 7 other restaurants along it that I would also regularly eat in. Although York is very popular with tourists, the prices have stayed fairly low (damn cheap in comparison to London) which is great for us students as we can afford to support these local businesses.

My absolute favourite Italian in York is this very shabby chic-looking little restaurant. They have spruced it up a little recently by painting, adding a permanent sign at the front replacing the temporary plastic thing they had since it had opened about 10 years ago and adding plants. Honestly, if I had not been recommended it I would never have set foot inside, it looked awful! Though it is true, never judge a book by its cover.

Inside, however, little has changed with the tired linoleum flooring and rickety tables and chairs, but this just adds to the overall charm of the place. Besides it's all about the food anyway. A TV inside is constantly on an Italian channel, usually showing football. I love that the people who run the restaurant are so proud to be Italian.

The bar area....

Birthday Girl!!

The most expensive dish on the menu is a special at something like £14. They do an amazing deal between certain times that we all flock there for: a pizza/pasta and a glass of wine for £6.95. Their food is not expensive anyway, a pizza is roughly £7.

Usually I'm more of a pasta girl (their pasta specials are delicious with options like lobster and scallops in a saffron sauce) but this time I chose this bad boy:

Prawn and asparagus pizza.

All pizzas are presented on wooden boards, which is a great touch. I do like a wooden board. Wasn't too keen on the presentation of this one, but I don't really care because it tasted fantastic. Classic, thin pizzas with crispy crusts and smothered in mozzarella. My absolute favourite.

The other ladies all chose the same, the Cortadina, with peppers, aubergine and courgettes:

Delicious.

I have been to this restaurant so many times and never have I ordered their homemade tiramisu. Usually I am too full by the time dessert comes around. On this occasion, however, I was going to eat that damn tiramisu whether I wanted to or not. I just knew that this being an authentic Italian restaurant, their tiramisu was going to be amazing.

Luckily I really really really wanted to.

And just look at it:

One of the best tiramisu's of my life: It was creamy but still had flavour, which many lack, was moist and rich and ooooh so good.

I was the only one who ordered a dessert and yeah I felt like a greedy cow but I was in heaven. I needed to remember this moment:

If you happen to find yourself in York, get down here immediately! But book. Unfortunately word has spread amongst the locals and not-so-locals that this place is fabulous.

Cockatils with a View: Duck and Waffle

The same day that S came to visit, we checked out Spitalfields market, where there was also some kind of sewing/crafting exhibition going on. Any member of the public could sit down a sew a part of this giant tapestry they were making - pretty crafty. Then we did the usual: shopping and, most importantly, using the Good Coffee App to find a super cute café.

We were in Oxford St by this point and there are a million and one cute places to be found in Soho, so we went to the first one we came across, situated in Wardour St. It is the third branch of the cafés formerly known as Tapped and Packed, I believe it is now just called TAP coffee, though no one is exactly sure anymore. 
Oh those hipsters. They're just too cool. 

Lovely and inviting decor, it was difficult to find a table at first. But a bit of milling and we spotted the bench in the window of the café was free, leaving us to do one of my favourite pastimes, people watch.

I'm not sure what these are. I don't think I'm hipster enough to understand.

The lovely Samantha

The coffee was really fantastic. Tasted great and was presented beautifully with adorable individual teaspoons with so much character. I'm really hoping there is a story behind each one and they're not mass produced vintage-looking tea spoons.

S got a hot chocolate, which was lovely and rich and just the perfect amount. Any more would have been too sickly. 

Flat White

Hot chocolate. That spoon!!

We then headed back over to Liverpool St to get a couple of drinks and I wanted to take her to somewhere really special, somewhere with some real wow factor with great drinks. Luckily one of the first things you see after stepping out of the tube is The Heron Tower, which houses on the 39th and 40th floor, Sushi Samba and Duck and Waffle - which is by the way where I had the best meal of my life. Go like your life depends on it.

We were told by the lady manning the lifts that we had to go to Sushi Samba for drinks, Duck and Waffle was just for dining, but the two restaurants are connected by a large staircase inside, so it is very easy to mingle between the two places.

Cocktails were lovely, really fruity. And just look at the view:

<3

Here are some pictures of the view from our table on that bittersweet magical evening at Duck and Waffle:

A glowing St Paul's.

It is such a special place to go. The view is nothing like you will have ever seen before. Damn, London can really take your breath away.

The Breakfast Club, Spitalfields

An old uni friend came to visit back in April, who I literally hadn't seen for about a year, so I wanted to take her to some cool places in London, have great catch-ups and make some fun memories for us.

She arrived pretty early on a Saturday, nice wake up call for me, into Liverpool Street and we decided to get brunch first thing for a good catch up (my fave). I love East London, there are so many independent, chic cafés, bars and restaurants to choose from. Astonishingly, I have never been to the Breakfast Club before and there is so much hype about this place, even though it's been around for a while now. I see queues outside the Soho branch at like 4pm sometimes. So we headed to Spitalfields!

Courtesy of The Breakfast Club's Google + page

Already a queue outside the door, we decided to just risk it and wait. The queue that was said to only last 20 mins, lasted instead over an hour....hmm reminds me of another time.....

A queue with a view. Jealous of everyone eating.
That neon heart sign says "Sex, Drugs and Bacon Rolls"

Once inside, at about midday, the queue was about twice the size it was when we had stood in it. GO EARLY!!

The setting was cute, booths for the larger numbers, some high tables and chairs and thick, rustic wooden tables scattering the room. It had a quirky industrial feel - you can see the metal scrap yard-esque chairs surrounding the tables. Quirky because there was a large Smeg fridge on one wall - which in fact turned out to be a door. Great touch.

Courtesy of The Breakfast Club's Google + page

Oh and I am sucker for a great bathroom. I should have a blog just dedicated to bathrooms, but I think other patrons might find it a bit weird to see me taking pictures of a cool bathroom, when they just want to wash their hands. I just really appreciate when effort has gone into making a really modern and chic or rustic and old-school bathroom. When it's not just run-of-the-mill.

Not the most snazzy I've ever been to, but the bathrooms here had some seriously cutesy wallpaper:

The My Little Pony Craze has spread to restaurant bathrooms....

I was feeling like I needed a bit of a health kick (we'll see how well that turned out....) so went for something savoury, even though their pancakes look incredible. We both went for the same thing (great minds) chorizo hash browns, but I added feta to mine.

Along with two smoothies, instead of coffee (shocking I know). I got a "Green is good" concoction - spinach, mint, mango and apple. Seriously - SO yummy. And S went for a "Blue Monday" - blueberry, strawberry and apple.

Fresh smoothies are amazing, their colour was just incredible:

They were so thick and filling they were a meal unto themselves.

Now the food...in hindsight, I was never really going to enjoy this dish because I hate fried eggs - and really greasy food in general. But it did taste great. The chorizo sausages were excellent, the potatoes and the peppers and mushrooms, all lovely. And the feta added an extra depth - although 7 cubes for a £1 more...not sure it was all that worth it. But I adore feta cheese so I would do it again!

But.....I hate greasy food. This plate had clearly been cooked in so much oil, it was swimming in grease. Understandably, as the whole plate was fried food, but did it really need that much oil?! The chorizo - although one of my favourite foods - came in giant, fat sausage form, which was unbelievably off-putting. Grease and fat poured out of them as you cut into it. I could only stomach eating one of them. I expected them to come as thin chorizo, or cut up pieces. I have never seen chorizo in British sausage form - maybe that's just me being naive though.

I'm not someone who counts calories - can you see how many burgers I eat?! - but I do like to eat healthily once in a while. The meals I cook for myself are pretty healthy, but I figure that allows me to have more chocolate! But here's the thing, I never like eating things that are worse for you just for the sake of it. For example, if a recipe asks for butter and olive oil in the pan I will usually just pick one or the other. Or I'll always choose a low-fat plain natural yoghurt, as it tastes exactly the same as full-fat but it's better for me. (That doesn't stand with Greek yoghurt though!!) I like to grill my sausages and bacon, instead of frying them in a pan because there's less fat and grease then. I am that person that cuts the fat off bacon, unless it has gone super crispy. Sue me.

So the meal was a bit of a backfire for my health kick then. It tasted great, don't get me wrong, but I hate grease and the dish just made me feel queasy. The taste of the chorizo and the grease just lingered in my mouth for the whole day. And that's not just my opinion, S said it had a really strong after taste too! But I don't think she was as bothered about the grease as I was. I guess on the plus side it filled us up for the entire day - we only needed a snack later on - but for me it was that heavy, lethargic, bloated, my-cholesterol-must-be-sky-high-right-now, I-feel-so-sorry-for-my-blood-sugar-levels, kind of feeling.

For some reason on the day I was feeling really indecisive. There was nothing on the menu that really grabbed me. I look at it now and I can pick out a good 4 different dishes that I want to gorge on right now! I don't know why I didn't go for one of them. Definitely should have gone for the cinnamon and apple french toast, or the breakfast burrito. Just nothing with fried eggs. Probably would have been healthier for me!!

Next time. There will be a next time because I want to rectify my memory of the Breakfast Club. I know the food in there is good, I kept lusting after plates I saw going to other people's tables. This dish was just not the one for me. And now I really can't stop thinking about that French toast.