Interior goals at Granary Square Brasserie

True story, but I've always wanted to eat at Granary Square Brasserie. One day I fancied going somewhere special for dinner, and special it most certainly was.

ATMOSPHERE

After a warm welcome where front-of-house staff wished us a happy anniversary, took our coats and presented us with a ticket for the cloakroom, we were led into the most awe inspiring of rooms. We were sat on plush sofa seating in a cosy corner away from other diners which was deliciously private and apt for the purpose of the visit. So huge brownie points right from the offset!

And I won't lie, as soon as I sat down I was literally mouth agape for the first 10-15 minutes. What a beautiful restaurant. Decorated in my kind of style with dark inky blue walls, exposed brick archways and metallic details with a Gatsby-esque bar, I swooned good and hard. With the glow of candles placed on each table and the glow of the bar, it was ambient and felt serene and welcoming.

FOOD

I'm really into fish at the moment, so I opted for a fishy starter and main course, paired with a refreshing white wine (the Chablis, La Chablisienne from Burgundy, France if you're asking).

I had the tuna carpaccio to start. I was a little surprised initially as it didn't look how I expected it to (I later learnt that the image I had seen on the website was in fact the seared tuna main course. But you live and you learn...) But all the same, it was a nice looking dish with intriguingly thin slithers of yellowfin tuna (how do they get it so thin?!) dressed with radish, very vibrantly coloured mayo and ponzu dressing. The menu details this as miso mayo, but due to the colouring and the slight kick of heat, I suspected it may have been wasabi mayo on the day that I visited.

My only slight criticism of the dish is that tuna is one of my favourites and I felt like the ponzu covered something that naturally tastes very beautiful. I couldn't taste the fact that it was tuna and to me, this could have been any fish (at times I suspected it was salmon). But that aside, it was a beautifully presented dish full of vibrant colours and wonderful Asian flavours.

For my main course I had swordfish with toasted fregola (a Sardinian pasta), red pepper, chimichurri and basil. I ordered a side of fries too which were crispy on the outside and wonderfully fluffy in the middle. However the grains on the plate (fregola) meant there was more than enough substance to the dish - so next time I probably wouldn't need the fries (although they were really good. so never say never!). The swordfish itself was melt-in-the-mouth and beautifully cooked and seasoned. The red pepper element of the dish was a creamy, smooth red pepper sauce which my mouth still waters about to this day. It was an extremely generous portion but no matter how full I got, I could easily have eaten more (that red pepper sauce though). Which is testament to how good a dish it really was.

Sadly I can't see the swordfish on the menu anymore, but I'm really hoping they bring this back for when I visit again in the future. However having said that, I'd be tempted to try their aromatic duck curry with lemongrass, roasted cashews and jasmine rice next time. Or their shrimp and avocado burger which sounds equally dreamy.

For dessert I ordered something that I have always wanted to try after watching Masterchef religiously for years. One of those chocolate spheres which melt away when you drizzle hot sauce tantalizingly over it. This iteration of a restaurant favourite was a melting chocolate bombe with vanilla ice cream, a honeycomb centre and hot salted caramel sauce. I really appreciated the extra attention to detail with the additional piece of chocolate wishing us a happy anniversary. It's personal little touches like these which mean a lot and encourage you to come back time and time again.

SUMMARY

To summarise, Granary Square Brasseries has a nice feel about it and feels upmarket without the snobbery. We were well looked after and have no complaints about the service we received (massive respect to the guy who let me take pictures of the melting chocolate bombe dessert whilst he was pouring the hot salted caramel over it!). I was initially disappointed by the starters as there wasn't a great deal of choice for me personally, and I didn't feel all that inspired. But I have noticed that since my last visit they have added scallops to the menu (always a winner!), so I would have those next time. The main course and dessert helped to redeem things and they are what would bring me back. As would the amazing decor and feel to the place. See you soon GSB

Granary Square Brasserie

1 - 3 Stable Street 

Kings Cross

London

N1C 4AB

Located on a map here
Latest menu here

Reservations in advance are advised and you can reserve a table here

And for those wondering... the whole meal was paid for by myself. 
I just really loved the restaurant and wanted to share the love!

Trying Polish food for the first time with Polish Village Bread

I must admit, but despite being a foodie, I haven't tried a whole lot of different cuisines. I'm as fond of an Italian, Chinese or Indian as the next person, but embarrassingly I haven't tried much else. I had my first taste of Columbian food last year but other than that, I haven't had much exposure to other types of food.

When Polish Village Bread got in touch inviting me to try Polish food for the first time, I was really excited to try something new. Because I genuinely had no idea what a typical Polish dish was or the sorts of things eaten.

A lovely member of the team came to my door and hand delivered a bulging tote bag of goodies. I am still over-whelmed with the team's generosity and the amount of food they provided. All of the savoury items they provided were already cooked and didn't take long to heat through by means of shallow frying, microwaving or booshing in the oven. Read on for my first experience of Polish cuisine!

Breaded chicken topped with mushrooms and cheese

Piers k Kurczaka w Pierzynce

This was very much like a pizza except with breaded chicken instead of a traditional dough. The crunch of the chicken contrasted really well with the texture of the vegetables and the melted cheese. It was super tasty and so easy to prepare after a long day at work - something I could easily eat every day!

PANCAKES

But not pancakes as you know them! These were more like croquettes with their crunchy exterior and a fluffy filled interior. I tried three different flavours which included:

Croquettes with spinach and cheese

Krokiety z Serem Typu Greckiego i Szpinakiem

These were my favourite of the three! The cheese in these ones tasted slightly different like they contained a garlic and herb soft cheese rather than a plain soft cheese. The middles were deliciously creamy and smooth to contrast against the crunch of the shell of the croquette.

Croquettes with mushrooms and cheese

Krokiety z Grzybami i Serem

Again, good flavours, generously filled and a good amount of crunch. To contrast, this was more of a saltier dish. I like things seasoned well so this didn't bother me one bit. The mushrooms tasted like they had been cooked in soy sauce - but don't quote me on this!

Spicy chicken and mixed veg pancake

Krokiety Mek Sykanskie

These were spiced, but not spicy (perfect for my palette as I can't tolerate spice!) These were the most generously filled krokiety and contained veg and pulses like kidney beans and sweetcorn. That combined with the spices, meant that it had a slight Mexican feel to it and were very colourful inside.

DUMPLINGS

My new favourite Polish word: pierogi. Before now I never knew what pierogi actually meant, I just liked saying it! Pierogi turns out to be plump pillowy little dumplings, beautifully crimped into little sun / flower shapes. I tried three flavours:

Dumplings with pork and onions

Pierogi z Miesem

I preferred this pork filling to the pork in the stuffed cabbage parcels (below). These were very well seasoned and tasty as.

Potato and cheese dumplings

Pierogi Ruskie

Not the easiest of things to photograph due to its samey colouring, but otherwise very smooth, soft and creamy which made for a very nice combination. One of my favourite pierogi. 

Sauerkraut and mushroom dumplings

Pierogi z Kapusta i Grzybami

As with the other dumplings, a good and very tasty dough, which was generously filled. This was my least favourite flavour of dumplings (but that's because I'm not a massive fan of sauerkraut!).

Cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and pork

Golabki

These had a very crumbly texture in the middle with the rice and pork mince mixture. The cabbage was my favourite part of this dish as it hadn't lost its crunch completely. My only critique of this one was that I cooked as per the instructions on the pack but it didn't get very hot. So my advice is that you would need to heat this one longer to get to perfect eating temperature.  

Fruit cake

I also received a cake which I was very excited about as I do love a good dessert! I only know "fruit cake" in the British sense of fruit cake and that's a cake I really do not like. The Polish take on fruit cake was much more up my street with none of the dried fruit nonsense. Instead it was more of a fluffy sponge with fruit on top. It felt massively guilt free because as well as having lots of lovely berries on top, it was also very light and low in sugar. I took the cake with me to work and everyone in the office said it was one of the loveliest cakes they have ever had!

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So now you can see what I mean when I said it was a very generous food parcel!
I was also sent a capacious tote bag, wooden spoon and jigsaw puzzle.

I would just like to say a massive Polish dziękuję (thank you is pronounced jen-KOO-yeh!) to the team for their generosity and for giving a chance to sample food that I haven't tried before. You can find a full list of the Polish Village Meals range here.

OUTFIT // Sparkly as

My wardrobe lately has been a magpie's dream. I wore this gold polka dot sparkly number of a dress on Christmas Day and since then the mermaid vibes have been strong with this green sparkly top which shimmers like scales.

Online it is described as a 'green and black lace top' but to me, this doesn't do the colour justice. Yes it is predominantly green in colour, however it also catches the light for an incredible rainbow-like sheen. Which is remarkably hard to capture in a photo. In person it is a beautiful, beautiful thing and I was pleasantly surprised when I first unwrapped it.

Top* 

The top itself actually has a peplum hem which looks great paired with slim cut black trousers and is excellent for masking a tum that has consumed all the cheese over the holidays (guilty). My favourite way of wearing is tucked into a little skirt or on this occasion, shorts. Also let's address the incredible double frill cuff sleeves which make me feel like I'm in an ABBA tribute band. Frilled cuffs have been such a fashion statement this year - I love how they transform a simple dress or pair of trousers into something extra special.

Admittedly, I don't wear with the long cuffs out all the time. When I'm leaning over the bath tub washing my hair or doing the washing up, these are instances where a shorter sleeve length is more practical. The sleeves on this top easily roll up and the frills don't create any bulk when doing so. I'm quite partial to a three quarter length sleeve, so this works for me!

So there you have it. Another day, another sparkly garment. This top comes in a range of sizes - up to UK size 32 - which I really admire (I'm full of respect when fashion is accessible to all). There is currently an amazing range of shirts and blouses on the website here and I'm very excited to share another outfit with you next week. But until then, I'll remain here, feeling very much like a mermaid.

* Dress very kindly provided by Simply Be but love of versatile, sparkly tops all my own!

Yankee Candle advent calendar

Remember my advent calendar post the other week? I decided to treat myself to the Yankee Candle advent calendar as this was more "me". I love most of the beauty ones but could not justify spending £50-80 on an advent calendar - what if you have an allergic reaction to a product? You've then just paid a fortune to be red skinned and puffy faced at Christmas, eek.

The calendar itself was much bigger than I expected when it arrived. Every day you receive a tea light sized candle. This seemed a bit stingy to me, but if you think about it, tea lights are designed to burn for a few hours. And seeing as the whole premise of this calendar would be to have a candle a day, a few hours burn time constitutes an evening. So it works.

My one disappointment was that there are six candles you receive in rotation - so you don't get unique candles for those 20 odd days. I know that Yankee Candle has a wide range of other festive candles - such as Christmas Eve, Christmas Memories and Cranberry Ice - so they should have had enough in their range to have a bit more variety within their advent calendar.

Also I'm finding that three of the six candles they've supplied are very similarly scented - all very sweet with vanilla tones. So for the first few days I was checking the back of the box in confusion and was still none the wiser. Was it "Christmas cookie"? Or was it "Merry Marshmallow"? I think the calendar itself could be improved if when you opened each door, it told you what candle you have that day.

The last few nights, I have been transported away to my own personal Winter Wonderland where the air is filled with spices, maple, apples, cedar wood and juniper berries. Oh I bloody love this time of the year.

Bathing in milk - just like Cleopatra

I don't know about you, but I still can't quite get my head around the fact that a couple of millennia ago, a certain female Egyptian used to bathe in donkey's milk. And reportedly no less than 700 donkeys were needed to provide enough milk for her daily bath(!) All this to maintain the beauty and youth of her skin. And for good reason - it has since been proven that the proteins found in milk hydrate the skin and help retain the moisture in your skin. Some experts say that milk can help certain skin conditions - that the moisturising fats and proteins in milk can help soothe redness from sunburn and can help relieve symptoms of eczema and similar skin conditions.

I don't think that many of us nowadays could envisage bathing in milk. However thanks to The Scottish Fine Soaps Company, I was able to experience the bathing in milk novelty. Scottish Fine Soaps have their own Au Lait collection where their (real!) milk powder comes in the most Instagrammable milk urn:

Au Lait milk bath powder* - £13.95

Really generously sized, this will continue to take pride of place in my bathroom even after I finish it all up. I sprinkled a generous amount of the powder into my bath and it bubbled up really easily and made my bath all nice and creamy. Their milk powder mix also contains chamomile which added to the relaxing bath experience.

Words cannot explain how wonderful this made my bathroom smell. Not just on the day of the bath - it even hung around in the air the following day. I would describe the scent as light and fresh - just like clean cotton. And speaking of soft things, it left my skin feeling incredibly smooth afterwards. I also used their Au Lait body wash which smelt exactly the same and left my skin feeling equally soft. So a big thumbs up from me! Would buy again.

Later that week I also tried a few more of Scottish Fine Soaps' other products.

Luxury body wash collection* - £14.95

Pink Grapefuit & Argan Oil body essentials* - £9.95

Kelp body wash
I first discovered The Scottish Fine Soaps Company through a beautiful Kelp hand soap and lotion in the bathroom of Carluccios's in London's Covent Garden. It's hard to put into words the scent... It reminds me of walks along the coast. That lovely fresh salty air. I absolutely love it. It's one of the best smelling shower products I've had in a long time.

Pink Grapefruit & Argan oil body wash & body butter
Grapefruit is actually one of the few fruits that I do not eat. I always believed it to be like watermelon - to be mainly composed of water and not have much of a smell to it - so was intrigued how this body wash would be scented. However I was proven wrong. This body wash smells sweet but in a really light and subtle way. Ideal for me as I hate really overbearing sickly sweet perfumes. The balance on this one has been done really well.

Larch and lavender body wash
I'll be honest, I had no idea what larch was. When I tried the body wash, I tried to detect what I could smell other than lavender. And I loved it. It smelt of pines and walks in the forest. When I looked up "larch" online, I found out it was pretty much that - deciduous trees. Such a beautiful scent which I imagine would be equally perfect as a candle.

Source: The Scottish Fine Soaps Company

As you can see from the above photos, all the gift sets are beautifully wrapped in the black and white monotone aesthetic that I love so much. With the added benefit of free delivery on all orders over £20, it's a really easy website to source some lovely Christmas presents from - I know so many people who would love the milk urn! And Christmas wouldn't be complete without their Lavender & Larch candle and Lavender & Larch reed diffuser - the ultimate festive scent, which would really make the house smell like Christmas trees!

In summary, I still really love the smell of their Kelp range, however their Au Lait collection is one my new favourites! I'll definitely be stocking up on more of both when I move into my new house in the new year!

* although The Scottish Fine Soaps Company very kindly provided me with all the above products in exchange for a review, as ever, all words and opinions are my own!

Barcelona - day three

On day three, we stocked up on breakfast essentials from the supermarket. You can't go wrong with a massive bag of croissants and a jar of strawberry jam for just over a euro each!

Today's stop was Barcelona zoo:

This cheeky pigeon was eyeing up our lunch

CANNIBAL!

Comic looking cactus (I'm a perve)

Elephants eating full length baguettes

That night we went to Barcelona's Hard Rock Café. It was pretty exciting stuff - I'd never been to one before

Awesome light!

The food was incredible. I ate my weight in ribs:

... and anywhere where Cava is cheaper than Coca Cola... it's LOVE

Coming soon: Barcelona - day four!