Boheme Kitchen & Bar
19-21 Old Compton Street
London, W1D 5JJ
www.bohemekitchen.co.uk
Today for my birthday lunch, a colleague and I went to the Boheme Kitchen & Bar for a nice sit-down lunch with a little bubbly…yes, shh…we did have a small glass of prosecco to celebrate! 
Boheme is a restaurant I had passed many times walking down Old Compton Street – I had always thought it looked very nice, especially on nice days when there are people sitting at the tables outside, and so I was excited to have the opportunity to finally try their food.
The menu consists of “British food with an American & European influence”, which means that there was a nice variety of food served. My colleague and I decided to share a small pot of mussels and a large shrimp and avocado salad. While the mussels themselves were a little small, both dishes were very tasty. We were also given some bread with oil and vineager to complete the meal.
The restaurant has a nice simple and contemporary ambiance and it was nice to not have to yell across the table, so I really enjoyed the meal. It was a great birthday treat to have the time to sit down and eat in a proper restaurant, as well. So, if you have some time to spare especially on a nice day, I would recommend dining at Boheme.
Tags: Bar, Modern, Restaurant, Soho
Vital Ingredient Tossed Salad Soup & Juice!
36 Berwick Street
London W1F 8RR
www.vitalingredient.co.uk/
Today I felt like I found London’s version of Hale & Hearty…well, almost Hale & Hearty. Vital Ingredient offers made to order salads, a variety of smoothies, as well as a nice selection of soups that change on a daily basis. There are also other side items such as fruit, yogurt, breads and dessert bars available. They’re missing the Hale & Hearty sandwiches, but I guess not everyone can be as good as they are
I selected a soup and was pleased that I had the ability to taste it before committing (this is something that really reminded me of H&H, which was a favorite NYC lunch stop). You’d hate to get back to your desk and have a full cup of soup that doesn’t agree with your taste buds! I also selected a yogurt with granola and fruit, a piece of pita to dip in my soup, as well as a banana to round out my meal. At less than £6 it wasn’t bad for a complete meal!
My meal turned out to be very filling and delicious – the banana is still sitting on my desk waiting to be consumed before it spoils. I must add that I arrived a bit early by London standards to pick up my food (~12:15) and so I would be curious as to how busy this place gets a bit later during the lunch rush. It’s in a central SOHO location, so my guess is that there could be a bit of a line depending on when you arrive. All good thoughts on recommending others to go back there from me!
Thai Square
166-170 Shaftesbury Av
London, WC2H 8JB
www.thaisquare.net
020 7836 7600
Today I was craving my favourite Thai dish, and since I haven’t been able to locate a fast food restaurant offering it to go, I began calling around to Thai restaurants in the Covent Garden area trying to find one that was open and offered take out. Luckily, after about the third call I came across Thai Square’s Covent Garden location, which offers a complete take-out menu.
I was able to place my order over the phone – my favourite dish Pad See Ew – so no need to look at the menu for me (there is one available on their website) and they said it would be ready in 10 minutes. I left my desk, arrived in ~8 minutes and there was my food ready and waiting – excellent service! It came packaged in a nice plastic take-away box, and complete with a fork, a spoon and a napkin ready to go in a bag. While it was a bit more than I typically pay for a take-away lunch (~£7.50), it was really a complete dish from a proper restaurant, so I have no reason to complain!
My dish was excellent, and since I eat the same thing at every Thai restaurant, I definitely have some history to show that their preparation was very good. It’s a very mild dish with no spice, but this one was full of flavour, as you might find in Thailand. The restaurant itself looked very nice if you would like to stay and sit down, but for me having this take away option was great. And so for my final verdict I give two thumbs up for Thai Square if you’re looking for a delicious Thai meal!
Tags: Call Ahead, Covent Garden, Take Away, Thai
Busaba
106-110 Wardour Street
London, W1F 0TR
www.busaba.com
Today a friend and I met at Busaba in Soho for some Thai food. Busaba is a modern Thai restaurant chain in London with large tables you share with other guests, much like dining in a Wagamama restaurant, and they also have a take-away menu on their website. We arrived early (about 12:15pm) and had the opportunity to have a seat at the table along the windows. It was lucky we arrived when we did, because the restaurant quickly filled up and became very noisy.
Since Busaba does not make my favorite dish, I tried the Smoked Chicken Noodles and my friend had the Chicken Butternut Squash. My dish was okay, but not a replacement for my favorite dish. I had the opportunity to try my friend’s stir-fry, which I found to be quite spicy, but she really enjoyed it.
As the restaurant filled up and became noisier and noisier, the service deteriorated and it was a bit of a challenge to catch someone for the bill. While my friend and I had fun catching up over lunch, having to practically yell at each other was not my favorite part of the meal. If you’re looking for a trendy Thai restaurant, Busaba would be your place; however, there are definitely better Thai restaurants in London.
Tags: Restaurant, Soho, Take Away, Thai
Foyles
113-119 Charing Cross Road
London, WC2H 0EB
www.foyles.co.uk
We are now back to our regularly scheduled programming after a visit to the famous Foyles Bookshop and their 2nd floor Cafe. One of my colleagues introduced me to this charming cafe above the bookstore. It’s full of numerous wooden tables, complete with church benches, and small wooden stools lining the windows. I’m told there is free wifi and by the people with mac’s (plus one pc hiding in the corner), this seems to be a great place for regulars to catch up with a cup of coffee.
For lunch there was an assortment of pre-made sandwiches to choose from, as well as a couple of soups of the day. The sandwich I selected was very tasty, full of deli meat and we were able to have our meal looking out the window people watching, which was quite enjoyable. I also had a dessert bar to go, which I enjoyed later in the day. My colleague said he enjoyed his sandwich and coffee as well.
All in all, it was a nice visit to the cafe. It’s not too expensive, you can eat in or out. And you can either head straight up a separate stairwell, or perhaps check out this family run bookstore first before making your way upstairs for a treat!
Tags: Bookstore, Coffee, Covent Garden, Ready-Made, Sandwich
I arrived back in London yesterday morning after a fabulous 2 1/2 days in Puerto Rico, which made the 58 hours of travel it took to get there completely worth it. My friends were estatic and we had an amazing weekend. Because my last post was live from Barcelona, I thought I would relate the end of my fight against the volcano, since it certainly was far from uneventful!
We ended up leaving Barcelona after approximately a 9 hour delay, which put us into Casablanca at ~11:30pm. The baggage claim was notoriously slow and in the end my bag never appeared! Despite the fact that the BCN agent had assured those of us connecting to JFK would receive our bags for the overnight, the CMN workers decided this wasn’t the case. My fellow transit passengers took “No” for “No”; however, knowing how CMN works, I decided to test my French on every worker until I found one who agreeded to find my bag. And, 30 minutes later, there it was! The worker who located it also informed me that I should be receiving a hotel transfer and so I followed his directions and found the right person to speak to next. Knowing that I would be overnighting in CMN, and also knowing the hotels in the area (huge difference from one to another), I had pre-booked a room for the night. When I told the transfer person this, he said they wouldn’t normally transfer me there since I was supposed to use their hotel, but he agreed they would take me there. I then had to find “the big guy when you go outside”, who would then get me to the right place.
Walking outside “the big guy” directed me to a bus, where I found my fellow (now jealous of my bag) transit passengers. We left the airport and 15 minutes later found ourselves back at the airport because they forgot 2 people. Very organized, can’t you tell?! We then went back into Casablanca (about a 30 minute drive) and arrived at the hotel of my fellow transit passengers. The bus driver told me one minute, shut the door and then went to help make sure everyone was checked in. Well, 20 minutes later, the driver wasn’t back and I discovered I was stuck inside the bus since he locked the door. After some frantic waving, I finally got the attention of someone who found the driver. While I understood his intention of protecting the blond girl from strange Moroccan people coming inside the bus, it was 1:30am by that time (3:30am Barcelona time) and I really wanted sleep! It took him so long because they didn’t have enough rooms, so when we arrived at my hotel, he was very happy that I was already sorted (I think the original guy knew there might be room issues, which was why he was so willing to take me to my own hotel).
Thursday morning I leisurly got up and enjoyed a run in the gym before heading back to CMN for my flight to JFK. Luckily, flight #3 was on time and I arrived with no further issues in NYC. But, don’t think the fun stops there! When I got to the JetBlue terminal for my final flight to SJU, I discovered that my iphone was missing. Tears. And unfortunately, by the time I got back to my original terminal, the security personel followed by the cleaners were long gone and so the agents checking in the return flight were of no help. After trying a few others, I was informed that I was responsible for my personal property and that they wouldn’t even take my name. So, someone else is now the proud owner of my jailbroken iphone 
…if anyone is offloading one, let me know!
I went back to the JetBlue terminal and had my favorite Protein Berry smoothie from Jamba Juice to cheer me up. Then, it felt like I was finally back in the US and I had actually made it! My JFK-SJU flight left on time and I arrived 1/2 hour early. Walking towards the baggage claim I got the best present ever – everyone had come to meet me at the airport!! So, after 1 train, 4 flights, and 2 crazy bus rides for a total of 58 hrs of traveling, I got the best birthday present ever of spending the weekend with six girlfriends at the beach. It was amazing and I can’t wait for the next one!
Tags: Barcelona, Casablanca, Jamba Juice, New York, San Juan, Volcano
Today’s post is brought to you live from the Barcelona Airport where I am currently enjoying a jamon sandwich at Pans & Company. This week my blog is taking a bit of vacation because that’s what I’m supposed to be on tomorrow and Friday; however, for the past day and a half I have been trying to defy the volcano clound hanging over Europe.
This past weekend I started to get worried about the cloud; the airports had been shut for a few days, but I didn’t believe it could continue for much longer. When Monday night rolled around, I was definitely worried my Wednesday night flight from London to San Juan, Puerto Rico through NYC was going to be cancelled since the airports were still closed all over Europe. Since I’m a travel junkie, I had an idea forming in my head, but really didn’t want to think about it until my flight was officially cancelled. Well, Tuesday morning, those dreaded red words appeared above the flight status for my flight the following night.
My travel route creativity immediately set in and I constructed a method for getting across the Atlantic without flying out of the Northern part of Europe. Leaving work in a hurry, I made a mad dash for home to throw things in a bag and booked a Eurostar ticket, as well as a flight through Morocco to get to NYC. The NYC-SJU part is easy thanks to JetBlue, so that part of the trip I wasn’t worried about. I figured that the cloud was primarily affecting Northern Europe and so the goal was just to head South. Luckily, I made my train just in time and although I was allocated a tipup seat (i.e. a fold down seat between cars), there ended up being plenty of regular seats available. Arriving in Paris, I made a mad dash through the metro to get to the right train station for the Hotel train to Barcelona. While I arrived at the station in plenty of time, what I didn’t anticipate was the line. I literaly stood in line for 45 minutes only to arrive at the desk a minute before the train left, which was basically 4 minutes too late by my calculations. Maddening since there had been seats available, but a few previous people had cut the line and the whole crowd made sure they knew how they felt, so I didn’t feel I could do that (and was later told that train could be very sketchy, so probably a good thing I missed it anyways).
Luckily while standing in line, the Greek was able to locate a flight for me in the morning out of Paris Orly, which would get me to Barcelona in time for my flight through Casablanca to New York. I had a bit of a crazy bus ride last night, since a woman gave me poor directions to get to the airport, and ended up having the bus driver flag down a taxi for me so I could switch to actually get to my destination (think lots of flashing lights from a double long bus). Thankfully the driver was super nice and willing to help me since at that point I was probably 2 miles from Orly with no taxi stands around and really what felt like the middle of no where outside Paris. After finally getting to the airport, I stayed at a hotel right on the premesis.
This morning I woke up bright and early to catch my flight to BCN only to have it cancelled. Somehow there were plenty of seats on the next flight; however, that only left me 1 hr to catch my flight to CMN. A nice Welsh woman I met in line to change flights became my airport buddy for the next few hours so I wasn’t completely bored eating breakfast half asleep, which was nice.
The real fun occured when I went to board and the flight attendants decided to pull out the tape meausure and proceeded to tell me they had to gate check my bag (i.e. I’m never going to make the CMN flight so why bother continuing from here). They wouldn’t listen to any of my arguements as to why I should keep it, but then I pulled out the magic charm – tears. And luckily they worked their magic to charm the flight attendants, as well as the pilots. They kept my bag on board and off we went to Barcelona.
So, now, hear I am in Barcelona. I was supposed to have left 7 hrs ago. Can’t you tell how excited I am about this? I of course missed my flight to NYC, but have been put on the one leaving tomorrow and we have been assured that our flight is still leaving tonight to CMN. In another 2 hrs. Ugh. But, the good news is that so long as I make it to CMN tonight and our flight leaves tomorrow as scheduled, I will still make it to Puerto Rico the same day I was supposed to have arrived before the volcano decided to start puffing. Please knock on wood…lots of it…must defy the volcano!
…oh, and my jamon sandwich is very tasty!! I also enjoyed a free meal on behalf of Royal Air Maroc for lunch, as well as some ice cream for a snack this afternoon. The Barcelona airport has two beautiful outdoor areas within the terminal, so it really wasn’t half bad being able to sit outside doing some work with wifi most of the day. And now that my sandwich is finished, I’m off. Wish me luck on the last few legs of plan B!
Bagel Nash
232 Shaftesbury Avenue
London WC2H 8EG
Today I set off towards Bloomsbury and quickly came upon Bagel Nash, which is like a little piece of the US in London. And since I’m currently homesick…well, not homesick, but friendsick if that makes sense …and worried that I’m going to miss my own birthday celebration trip with friends all because of the silly volcano ash….this was the perfect find for today.
Bagel Nash specializes in bagels and coffee and their menu has a wide selection of each. Since I’m not a coffee drinker, I of course focused on the bagels. There was everything from breakfast bagels (served all day) to simple toasted bagels with jam to specialty sandwich bagels. I selected a cross between the New York and the Salmon Deluxe on an everything bagel. While I didn’t count, I think there was about a half dozen bagel types to choose from.
Whoever defined the ingredients for the New York bagel sandwich obviously hasn’t eaten many lox and bagel sandwiches in NY to know what the typical Jewish sandwich consists of. This is why I ended up combining the ingredients of the two to create something a little closer to what I wanted, as well as threw in my favorite avocado to top it off. In addition to the bagels, there was only some apples, chips and baklava to choose from, so I ended up with some chips to top off my meal.
The bagel sandwich, despite missing capers (not sure if they were forgotten or I forgot to mention them), turned out to be excellent. They didn’t skimp on any of the ingredients and the bagel itself was just to my liking…not too hard and not too small, so that most of the ingredients stayed intact during consumption. The packaging was very nice (custom wrapper) and the price was right too. If you’re looking for a bagel sandwich, I’d highly recommend Bagel Nash over other regular sandwich shops in the area since you actually get to choose your bagel and they don’t skimp on the fillings.
Tags: Bagel, Made to Order, Sandwich
The Covent Garden Kafeneo
14 Tavistock Street
London WC2E 7NZ
www.kafeneo.co.uk/
After wandering around Covent Garden for a bit trying to decide what we wanted for lunch, my colleague and I finally came across Kafeneo and decided to give it a try. It’s in a very modern space and upon seeing the menu, it’s as though they are trying to bring a modern Greek café to the streets of London. The café is quite nice with a wall of windows and a clean white and green paint job; however, from the LCD panels which were not on and the posted paper menus below, it appears that the café isn’t quite there yet.
They have a number of sandwiches and salads to choose from, as well as a selection of coffees and cakes, which include some Greek specialties such as filo dough pastries. I selected a BLT sandwich and was given over 4 different choices of bread and if I wanted it toasted or not, while my colleague had a Caesar salad. We decided to eat in at the café, rather than take it away, and so I was very surprised to have my sandwich delivered with an additional small salad. The sandwich was really very good since they actually made it with crispy streaky bacon, and my colleague enjoyed his salad, as well as trying a Greek coffee. Also, I had a delicious moist chocolate brownie to go, which they packaged in a nice little bag. Let’s just say the brownie didn’t make it longer than 3 minutes sitting at my desk since it was so good.
Overall, we really liked this café and would recommend it. The food was very good, it wasn’t too expensive (£5.40 to eat in with a sandwich, salad and brownie), and the atmosphere was quite nice. If I had to complain about anything, it would be the noise, since it was a bit hard to hear each other while we were seated. Thumbs up from me!
Tags: Covent Garden, Greek, Salad, Sandwich
No 1 Cafe
1 Tower Street
London WC2H 9NP
If you’re looking for a variety of cheap eats and have a bit of time, No 1 Café is the place to be. I believe it’s the cheapest café I’ve visited across the board. I took a snapshot of the menu displayed outside and you can see that all of their prices are quite low. And this snapshot doesn’t begin to relate their menu…inside are billboards that don’t come close to covering all the options. From any type of custom made sandwich, to soup, to jacket potatoes to spaghetti bolognaise, they seem to have it all! Not only do they have a variety of breads for your sandwich (including white bread and bagels!!!), they will also toast your sandwich if you like or leave it cold. They also have a selection of fruits, candy bars and chip bags to choose from as a side to your meal.
I’ve been getting a sore throat this week, so my meal from No 1 Café really hit the spot…a grilled cheese sandwich with avocado, a cup of tomato soup (in a takeaway coffee cup) and a banana….all for a grand total of £3.40. My only complaint was the wait. I’ve passed this café a number of times and there was always a line…and now I know why. To get your cheap eats, you must wait and be patient, because everyone else wants those cheap eats too. So be patient my friends, this place IS really worth the wait.
Tags: Covent Garden, Made to Order, Sandwich, Soup