Quick, tasty Thai in London

TUK TUK is a great place to go for a quick, tasty dinner, or a more leisurely one if you would prefer. It’s a 56, Old Compton Street in London, with Leicester Square tube station close by.

It’s quite small with really friendly, happy staff. The decor is plain and simple and it has more of a canteen style but it’s a bargain! For drinks and a two course meal, it was £12 a head.

Between five of us we shared crispy duck pancakes, satay chicken and tempura vegetables. The satay was particularly good and very tasty, as was the duck.

For the main course I had pad Thai, which was well done and I opted for it with prawns. The portion was good, with a limey tang, nuts sprinkled on top and great flavours all around.

My friends opted for noodle soup and three out of the four of them were defeated due to the portion size. Great food at great prices. 

Exciting new find for great tea and cake in Bucks

IT is official. My friend Lara appears to know all the best places for tea and cake. 

'Have you heard about the pop-up cafe at Peterley Manor Farm in Prestood,' she says. 

'It has pick your own too.'

So along we went one Saturday on a beautiful sunny day and it was amazing!! The cafe is in a yurt and it is charming. The china is lovely, the decor is floral and vintage and the food is amazing!

It serves brunch, lunch and tea and cake, and I combined two of these. I had the scrambled egg and smoked salmon on brown bread (£6.15), which was so well done. The eggs were creamy and cooked just right and the salmon was a good quality. 

I also treated myself to a pot of tea (£2.30), which tasted like no other tea I had tried and was loose leaf. It was realy fragrant and quite fruity, in a good way.

I also had a slice of the strawberries and cream cake (£3.75), which was deliciously rich.  There were layers of cream between moist sponge, all with a strawberry flavour. It was amazing.

We then picked our own fruit, and went away with a smile on our faces. I would highly recommend this place. I hope I will be going back for more cake soon. 

The Eagle in Farringdon

TOM took me to The Eagle in Farringdon. It’s uber cool, with high ceilings, tables very close together, an open kitchen with the menu on chalk boards above.

It’s a bit of an assault on the senses at first as it is so loud, noisy and busy. But once you get used to it, it feels fun and exciting. There are about ten dishes which the chef writes up on the boards each day so it is regularly changing.

Tom and I were perched on stools in a window seat right next to the bar/ kitchen so it didn’t feel particularly relaxed.

But the food was great. We both had a steak salad with rocket, new potatoes and capers. The portions are a tad on the small size. It was about £15, but the quality was superb. The steak was cooked medium rare and was tender, well seasoned and delicious. The other ingredients all married well together and it was a great dish. I would recommend to go there for lunch.

Go to www.theeaglefarringdon.co.uk. 

Filling up on more afternoon tea

ANOTHER afternoon tea beckoned. And this time to Holme Lacey House in Herefordshire. It started off badly when the receptionist was quite rude to my mum and I, but once over that little hiccough the staff were friendly.

We were seated in a very quiet room overlooking the grounds and OAPs sipping on drinks. There was no atmosphere and some music would have been appreciated, as there was only one other couple and we felt we were whispering.

The waitress told us the chef was preparing our afternoon tea but when it came out it had clearly been in the fridge, which was fine, but felt it was an odd thing to say.

But as for the afternoon tea, it was really good. There was a selection of sandwiches from smoked salmon, egg mayo, cucumber and cream cheese and ham and mustard. The ingredients were all a good quality and there were five fingers each, which is more than you would usually expect.

There were also six cakes- a mixture of pastries, carrot cake and sponge and they were all really good- no dry cakes here. An odd addition was two small cups of raspberry liqueur with a splodge of whipped double cream on top. It was so rich and rather odd! I like the liqueur but not with the cream.

The scones were really big and served with Tiptree jam and clotted cream, which was delicious.

And then, as if this wasn’t enough, we were given strawberries and yet more cream.

We were stuffed and they kindly packed the cakes up for us to take away, which was very much appreciated.

We finished the visit with a walk around the nice grounds. This is £35 per couple, which considering how much you get seems fairly reasonable.