Friday 15 May 2015

16th Birthday| feat. Tom's Kitchen & Yautcha


Hai guyssss, 

TGIF am I right?! Exams are underway and it's all going on, I had my first written RE exam on Monday and well lets just say I'm glad that's out of the way...Iv'e never been good with those sort of subjects. At least I have had some fun trips to brake up the work and I do have more planned lover the next few months which is a good motivation for the exam months.

You might know it was my birthday a few weeks ago if you follow my instagram, I had a day trip out to London with my mum to London which to be honest is out typical go to place for when we want good food and to meet with friends. 
I picked out Tom's Kitchen for brunch because I read a review about the restaurant from Top with Cinnamon's blog and everything breakfasty foodie just calls to my heart. This restaurant is owned by Tom Aiken who is a common chef featured on Great British Menu so predictions for good food couldn't be far off ^^
They have a breakfast menu but it is only available until 11: 30am and since it takes us about an hour to get to London on the train, that would mean getting up too early for me to cope with- even if waffles are at stake. This particular Tom's Kitchen was in Canary Wharf too and we had never been there before, so we would need enough time to get our bearings before resorting to asking someone for directions in a desperation of hunger...
We met up with our friend (after getting directions and weaving in and out of buildings as predicted) at Tom's Kitchen and ate from the Brunch all day menu which is basically the best kind of menu in my opinion.
I had the Brioche French Toast with caramelised apples and cinnamon cream, and yes that did deserve an underline- literally a food party in my mouth. The portion size was VERY generous, it was a thick cut slice that was as big as my face (and I have a big face)... I couldn't quite manage it all!  When the plate arrived at the table, the cream was slightly melting and left a pool of cinnamon deliciousness that you could mop up with the french toast. It was topped with three pieces of apple that had just been caramelised since when i put my fork in them it left a hardened sticky caramel. I tried to discretely crunch it off but stopped before accidentally thrusting it into a waiter's eye...
Pair it with a cup of tea and you have a brunch of champions to set you up for the day.


Mum went with the savoury option and had Eggs Benedict, the egg yolks were ridiculously yellow which just showed the high quality. The restaurant emphasise the quality of ingredients they use and where their produce comes from: the eggs are stated to come from Clarence Court in Liskeard, Cornwall where their hens are grass fed and free to roam (you can read more about it on their website if your interested). They did look good, especially paired with a Bucks fix and freshly squeezed orange juice...this may just covert me to eating savoury in the morning. 




The interior was modern and cosy, I could totally imagine myself coming here with my laptop and just sitting for hours. I also am in love with that stone marble bar, having some kind of marble worktop in my house are major interior goals. 
The staff were friendly too which adds to the relaxed ambience of the place, I definitely need to come to this place for lunch or dinner. What's more this isn't a fancy or extravagant place either, it's not expensive or overpriced for the quality and portions of food you get so I would highly recommend a visit! 






This is our way of amusement- turning wrapping paper into origami, I hope the staff liked it

Arriving in Canary Wharf: this was my first time here and I have to say I immediately fell in love with place! It had a good vibe about it. It has so many restaurants and arcades full of shops which can all be enjoyed overlooking the docks (bonus if you are a wandering photographer). There is also a getaway from the shops such as the gardens dotted around canary wharf. We visited the new corral open roof garden which was having an opening event, they were handing out free glasses of champagne, free waffles and candy floss and had a live band of women playing the bongos and saxophone to pop music- yeah it was pretty snazzy. The design of the place was incredible and was full of plants and bench areas, they also had bamboo and I wanted to steal it all for our garden.

After some shopping (just to show that our day didn't just compose of eating) we made a reservation at our favourite place for afternoon tea- Yautcha. We took a miss for just cake this time the only time you will ever hear me say that sentence and went to try their dim sum. Apparently Yautcha is one of the few places in London that make their dim sum all from scratch which has earned it a high reputation. The time we came for my last birthday we were eyeing up other peoples food and thinking the little meat filled parcels looked incredible, so we obviously had to try them for ourselves.
We weren't sure if we had booked a table upstairs upstairs or downstairs,  the upstairs tables are more for the day and have more light coming through the windows whereas downstairs is more evening dining. Our table was booked for downstairs and it was a new experience for us, it felt really trendy and had candles lit in the walls with blue clouded screens where you could watch the silhouettes of the chefs preparing the freshly made dim sum. It was fancy, but not pretentious. The waiters were welcoming and definitely on their game- my mum had to say about three times she was not done with her bowl of soup because they kept trying to take it away thinking she was finished...

Being new to the dim sum scene, we had know idea how to order. Do you order plate by plate? all at once? ahh the dilemmas. And WHAT DO YOU ORDER?! There was an extensive list of about 5 to 6 pages full, 2 of which being just dim sum! So if in doubt just order everything that sounds good and looks good on everyone else table and all at once. 
Unlike being in any other restaurant where it takes a substantial amount of time for your meal to come... all of our plates came in about 15 minutes. If your having multiple little plates then I would recommend NOT to do what we did. In those 15 minutes though, we did enjoy some incred drinks, mum with the hardcore Umesh (japanese plum wine= strong and hella expensive for what you get) and me with a Tokyo Cooler (lemongrass, raspberry, elderflower, peach juice and guava juice mock tail) which I could drink all day everyday.

What we ordered:  Scallop shu mai, pork and prawn she mai, garden dumpling (my fave), wagyu beef puff and chicken sweetcorn soup. They served this with complimentary pickled cucumber and some delioucious tasting mystery spices sauces.  


Wagyu beef is really one of the only times I will eat beef, I couldn't stop eating the stuff when I went to Japan so you could imagine my excitement when i saw this on the menu. A puff pastry kind of texture with thick gravy wagyu beef pieces, I could eat it like popcorn.

(Pictured at back) the scallop shu mai, super soft with a hidden prawn underneath and topped with fish roe. (Pictured front) Garden dumpling- a chewy green dough filled with fresh mixed vegetables.



Of course dessert- They have an array of desserts on display at the entrance and I spent about 15 minutes awkwardly hovering and admiring the intricate patisserie. After much debate I fell back on chocolate because you can't go wrong with chocolate. I had the Chocolate Pebble which was a chocolate mousse with a crunchy chocolate crispy base and a molten chocolate centre. It was served with a chocolate decoration and crumb with a yoghurt ice cream to cut through all that CHOCOLATE.


Yautcha has now easily become one of my top places to dine and we took home a few more cakes for the weekend too ^0^

Have a lovely weekend yourselves guys, 
but just a quick train selfie ^.~



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