[Foodie] Ham Holy Burger.

Hello everyone! 

I'm back again with another foodie post!

I was wandering up and down Oxford Street a few weeks ago doing a little shopping, when tummies began grumbling a little. As we were already in John Lewis, we thought we'd check out their restaurants on the third floor before making a decision where to go. On offer was italian food at Rossopomodoro or burgers and fries at Ham. Now, you know me, I'm not one to turn down the chance to try a new veggie burger, and i'd never seen a Ham restaurant before so we decided to give it a try.

[Foodie] Nando's.

Hello again!

To say i've kind of neglected my blog recently would be a incy wincy bit of an understatement. Between working lots of extra shifts, and special events, I don't have the foggiest where the time has gone!?... I had lots of plans for June, so if you find it, let me know! But I have a little break (phew!) and thought i'd ease back in with a foodie post.   

A 'cheeky' Nando's has long been a favourite of, well everyone right? Famous for their spicy chicken feasts. Now, as someone whose mouth catches fire at the mere sight of a spice jar... and a vegetarian, i'm sure you can forgive me for thinking it wouldn't be my kind of place.

Hard Rock Cafe : Paris

Hey all! I've been promising these for a while, but its about time I came good and started getting out some of those Paris posts! I decided to kick off with a foodie, and I may disappoint you here, but it wasn't fancy French cuisine... But I am really excited to tell you about it because it was our first meal out in Paris, the first time i've eaten at one of these restaurants from a huge international chain... And it exceeded expectations. It was pretty easy to find too, just a short walk from the metro stop!

Now, I'm a very loud person... But for some reason, I become a very softly spoken person to the general public. So my doe eyed startled request for 'deux', must have sounded a lot like two and the staff switched to English for us! Luckily for us this happened a lot, because literally every time we tried to speak to someone in French... We forgot everything. (I think we even forgot basic English...)

 Best seat in the house... Worst angle for snapping a quick pic.

Lucky for us all the staff seemed to speak English. They were also friendly, and cheery and we were sat right under the quirky wall with cafe logo on! It was a great seat but made it really hard to take a good picture of the sign, and it did get a bit awkward when we were trying to eat our food and some tourists came and stood right in front of our table to have their picture taken...

It was a bit on the dark side, so photos didn't come out too great, but there were TV's dotted about playing classic 80's rock and memorabilia like signed guitars which gave the place a really cool atmosphere. There was a bit of a wait to be seated when we first arrived but we used that time to browse the 'Rock Shop' at the front. I wish I bought something but I didn't spot any little trinkets. A keyring or a shot glass would have been great.

There was a really good range of drinks and cocktails and I chose a Strawberry and Basil lemonade. I love the smell of basil, and there is always some in my house as it's Remy's favourite food. This seemed like such a peculiar combination on the menu but it really worked and was really refreshing.

When it came to the food, we started off by sharing a side of onion rings. These weren't just any old onion rings, they were amazing! They were presented in a little stack, growing in size. They were light but filling and very tasty.

Check out the size of this one!

For main, there weren't a lot of veggie options, but I think that for the type of things on the menu, the options available were enough. So, I went for the 'Veggie Leggie' burger with fries. The menu said that the "grilled Veggie Leggie patty is topped with a grilled Portobello mushroom, zucchini, yellow squash and roasted red pepper. Served on a toasted bun with mayo, leaf lettuce, sliced tomato and grilled sweet onions."

Toasted buns and portobello mushrooms are two of my favourite things in a veggie burger. The burger itself is soy mince, rather than a bean type pattie that restaurants usually offer on the menu. The salad and veggies tasted really fresh and added a lot of flavour. I can imagine that all together it would be amazing, but the burgers were too big for our mouths, so we cut them into smaller chunks.

The fries were a thicker cut style chips, cooked to just the right level of crispyness on the outside with fluffy potato inside. I know we weren't too keen on at least one of the sauces, but I can't remember which. We kept the little guitar sticks too, but I think I misplaced mine before we left. :(

After all of that, there wasn't any room in our tums for desert!

It cost us just over £20 each for a meal, a drink and a shared side. Which I didn't think was a bad deal for a restaurant in Paris, and I think I actually expected to pay a bit more at the Hard Rock Cafe anyway. I'd definitely visit a HRC again, and try out the other veggie options and maybe a desert. Definitely some more of those yummy onion rings.

Have a look and see if there's one near you!

Have you ever been to a Hard Rock Cafe? What did you make of it?

See you next time. :)

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Byron Burgers : Beak Street London

Ever since reading Tattooed Tea Lady's post about Byron Burgers, I was dying to go and try the courgette fries. I'm usually the furthest away from these interesting places, but finally a little bit of luck as I was actually going to be in London visiting a friend and flat out demanded she take me. There are a few in London and as we were shopping on Oxford Street, we weren't far from one, so dipped in for a well deserved break.

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If you ignore the fact we went the wrong way about three times, Byron was actually really easy to find. Past Hamleys store and look for the Beak Street sign, turn there, then it's just before Illamasqua (which we of course popped into when we'd finished our food).

I can't make my mind up about the interior. The exposed kitchen was a nice touch,  although from our seats we couldn't really see it past the intricate staircase. Everything looked nice and clean, but I was kind of expecting something sleek and modern. The Beak Street store was more industrial in style. It kind of reminded me of somewhere i'd expect to eat in The Foundry... You know, from The Urbz ps2 game...

Inside the door is the little greaters podium, we were there a few seconds before receiving a really enthusiastic greeting. It was quite quiet at about half 12, so it was quite quiet and we were served pretty quick. By the time we left about an hour later it had filled up a lot more.

The staff were really friendly, even the chefs looked cheery. I eavesdropped a little on our servers conversation with a nearby table, (sorry!) she really knowledgeable about the company, their locations and the food they served. I saw a few different members of staff around, and thought it was pretty quirky how their uniform consisted of t-shirts with things like cheese or pickle written on them.

So onto the food! I of course went for 'the Veggie burger'. Grilled portobello mushroom, roasted red pepper, goat’s cheese, baby spinach, tomato, red onion and aioli. It didn't feel like eating a 'fast food' at all. It tasted very healthy, fresh and totally yummy. The bun was nice and soft, the mushroom was a really tasty one, the grilled pepper was prepared just right, and the extra toppings complimented it perfectly. I'm supposed to be on a diet, and I didn't feel naughty chowing down on this at all. It really feels like a lot of thought went into the creation of the vegetarian option and it's really refreshing to be offered something so different. Not that i've got anything against bean burgers... But they can get a little boring after a while.

Veggie Burger £7.95 || Courgette Fries £3.50

The courgette fries are a great twist on a classic side. I expected these to be a little like tempura, but they weren't. The batter was really light, and not greasy at all. But the cut and the batter made it a bit more fun than just eating courgette. They tasted fresh and were really well cooked. I know i've tried to cook courgette before and gotten it horribly wrong...

<<sauce*>>

 Classic Burger £6.75  || French Fries £2.95

My non veggie buddy went for a classic burger and fries combo. She said her burger was well prepared and not at all greasy, neither were the fries. I can confirm that, I nabbed a few to test for myself. Just so I could report back, of course... Things I do for you, hey? :p

For the two of us, the bill came to £25 something...  So we both paid £15 each and left the change as a tip for our server who was great. For lunch in central London, I don't think £15 each was bad at all and our tummies stayed full for quite I while, even with all the walking we did that day. (According to my phone, i'd done five miles by the time I got on my bus back home.) We were going to have a dessert to, but as we felt full we changed our minds. Since seeing pics of them on trip advisor i'm glad. I think i'd have popped after one of those!

Overall, Byron is somewhere we would visit again.

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*Couldn't stop myself, sorry.

[Review] Las Iguanas Vegetarian Menu

I am really excited about today's post.

I saw GemsMaquillage mention on her Twitter, that she thought more restaurants should take a leaf out of Las Iguanas' book, and a link to their menu. So out of curiousity, I gave it a click and it felt a little like stumbling into the Cave of Wonders.

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Las Iguanas is a latin restaurant with 36 branches up and down the UK, and what makes them stand out is the amazing menu on offer. One in particular snagged my interest, and here it is in all its glory.

An entire Veggie & Vegan menu, to compliment their regular menu. The flip side is a gluten free menu, which is equally as cool as I have a few gluten free buddies. Have you ever tried to do to veggie and gluten free at the same time? It's not always easy. So of course, when lunch time on my next shopping spree with a friend rolled around I pretty much demanded we go to Las Iguanas.

We chose some tropical coolers to drink and sat outside overlooking a courtyard area, while we browsed the menu. This is the first time i've been to a restaurant that wasn't Yo!Sushi where I actually had more than three items on the menu to chose from, so I spent quite a while mulling it over.

For mains, I opted for 'The Full Enchilada'. Roasted butternut squash, roasted red pepper and spinach wrapped in a cheese topped tortilla. On spring onion & garlic rice with smokey chilli and tomato sauce. This was really nice and filling. The chilli had quite a kick to it, normally I can't handle spices at all but the veggies, the tortilla and the cheeses balance that out and I managed.

We also decided to share some Sweet Potato Fries that came with aioli dip. I'd never had aioli as far as I can tell, and it complimented the flavour of the sweet potato fries just perfectly. I think my next visit I might just order five portions of these fries. Maybe three more portions to bring home. They are just that yummy.

I also decided to grab an extra little portion of Guacamole because I love it and thought it would be really nice. I think it was about 70p, and it was so much nicer than the shop bought stuff i'm used to.

For dessert, we opted to share Churros. I had the 'dulce de leche' dip and my friend had the chocolate ganache. There was plenty of cinnamon sugar and I was really pleasantly surprised at how yummy these were. They reminded me of a warm doughnut, slightly crunchy, and sooo much better. It wasn't until I got home that I realised I hadn't gotten a good picture. Which is such a shame because the way it was served was super adorable. So I stole this picture from my friends instagram.  How cute is the candy striped bag?

You can check out the locations and menus here. I think next time I might try the mushroom fajitas.

What's your favourite restaurant?

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