London Aug 2015

London has always been Kel’s favourite. Probably due to the fact that he studied there and had a lot of memories in London. I love London too, the liveliness, the musicals, good foods and safety.

My sweet mister treated me to a business class ticket on this holiday. We took a midnight flight and I think the timing of this flight was superb. Our flight departed at 1am and arrived 6am in London.  We slept after supper was served. We did not feel tired when we landed and can cheong immediately.

P8170252

Silverkris Lounge

P8170253

P8180260

1st time walking this corridor. 🙂

P8180270

Yeay! I got this finally.

Supper

P8180274

P8180276

too bo liao

 

P8180264

Tryng to stay awake to finish the movie..

 

Well rested and ready to cheong

P8180277

Unfortunately I packed Summer for London but London as usual is always chilly. So my plan for my first stop was a nice brunch and then shopped for some outerwear.

 

We took the underground from Airport to Gloucester (Picadilly Line) as our hotel, Crowne Plaza London Kensington was located right next to Gloucester station. We headed to South Kensington’s Muriel Kitchen for Brunch. I have to say I love their Latte.

P8180305

P8180306

P8180307

P8180308

P8180309 P8180310

After a heavy meal, we walked around Kensington to find my outerwear. Honestly I felt really silly as we only planned 3 nights in London and I know Italy is going to be hot. Of course I was also calculating the difference between pounds and euros.  We ended up in Sloane Square as our dinner at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay is there. I grabbed a cardigan and prayed it will be sufficient to take me through this holiday.

The dinner was fantastic and you can read about the experience here.

Day 2

Hahahaha, Kel and I are perfect holiday mates. Our interests and style of travelling. We loveeeeee shopping and we both agreed that we are each other best shopping companion. Our Day 2 was to Bicester Village! We bought a lot of stuffs 2 years ago and we will like to see what good deals they can offer this time round. We booked a coach to Bicester  through Evan Evans Tour. It cost 28 for a return trip. They provide a courtesy pick up service at  a no of hotels in Central London, there was one at Radisson Vanderbilt (2 min walk from our hotel) to Victoria Coach Station. From Victoria you will change to the Bicester’s coach. It takes around 1 hr 30min to reach Bicester from Victoria station. You will be handed a return slip for you to board the coach at 5pm.

OI000639-01

Victoria Coach Station

OI000649-01

OI000650-01

OI000653-01 OI000651-01

We got a 10% coupon for all shops except Prada. I keep reminding Kel that we will be going to Italy after this so please buy sensibly. End of the day, I only got myself a McQueen Scarf while Kel bought a lot. 🙁 Bicester got a tax refund office so you can take back your tax refund immediately. This is only possible if you will leave EU within 21 days with the goods you are claiming. You will need to leave them a credit card details in case you do not send back the stamped tax form. They will charge your card then if they do not receive your forms within 90 days.

For more information on list of brands and information about Bicester Village, please go to their website for more information.

I planned a dinner at Hawksmor but we were very tired so we cancelled the dinner plan and ate at the lobby instead. The hotel’s dinner was disappointing. 1st bad meal in this holiday.

 

Day 3

OI000657-02

We cancelled the breakfast arrangement at NOPI because both of us wanted to have Asian food. We headed for Four Seasons but after reading a lot of reviews that their standard has dropped over the years, we tried their neighbour Gold Mine. As the restaurant only opens at 11am, we at coffee at a nearby joint.

OI000670-01

OI000663-01

 

At Gold Mine, we were very satisfied with our choice. I had Wanton Mee and Kel had the roast meat rice. We ordered a roast duck to share. Of course we could not finish, the portion served was really huge.

OI000677-01 OI000679-01 OI000680-01 OI000678-01

With such heavy lunch, we definitely need to walk and digest. We took the tube to Picadilly Circle and walked around. we had coffee and brownies at Fernadez & Wells.

OI000681-01 OI000682-01

OI000702-01

OI000713-01

Kel suggested Covent Garden and we walked there after our coffee. Convent garden was lively as usual with all the street performers.

OI000724-01

Nice interesting shops at Covent Garden

 

OI000719-01 OI000729-01

 

We had an early dinner at Burger and Lobster. No fussy menu, only 3 items. Lobster, Lobster burger or Lobster Roll.  With all the reviews, We had high expectation for this place. End of the day, we thought the lobster was only mediocre, I mean we are from Singapore where seafood are all fairly good. Maybe we were too picky or still full from the roast duck.

OI000746-01

OI000741-01

OI000742-01

Miss Saigon!!! I love musical so I booked the tickets while we were in Singapore. We got very good seats, 6th row from stage. A bit disappointed as the female lead was not the usual lead. Her voice was a bit too sweet, I prefer powerful vocal. Overall we enjoyed the musical.

OI000734-01

Our last night in London so we took a slow walked after the musical to the train station and enjoyed beautiful night view of London. We promised to be back.

Follow:

Fantastic experience at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay

The name doesn’t need much introduction.  Chef Gordon Ramsay’s first restaurant. A 3 stars michellin flagship restaurant located at Royal Hospital Road led by Chef Claire Smyth and her team to provide elegant and unsurpassed modern French cuisine.

OI000167-01

 

I made the reservation 4 months in advance and been looking forward to this day. It is definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We planned our day 1 around this dinner so that we have time to dress up for this dinner.

London is chilly even in Summer and the pathetic part about me is I brought nothing to cover up. I read up on TripAdvisor and everyone is complaining about the hot weather. Thus I never expect the temperature to be so low. We went shopping at Sloane Square for an outerwear for me to keep warm and we took a nice and slow walk to the restaurant.

OI000152-01

 

We were the 2nd group of diners at RGR. The service staffs are very welcoming and warmth. It is a very small and private restaurant with only 14 tables. (Now I understand why the need to make reservation so early in advance). 14 tables but there are definitely more than 10 service staffs. It is almost like 1 service staff per table. The staff checked who made the reservation and handed me the menu with price indicated and Kel had the menu without.  This is a nice gesture as your guest will not feel stressful when they are ordering. The Sommelier recommended a very nice German red wine and both of us chose the 7 course Menu Prestige. The restaurant surprised us with 3 very delicious appetizers.

IMG-20150818-WA0020-01

Click here to view the  RGR-Prestige-Menu

 

Our 1st dish is foie gra. I am not a fan of any sort of liver but for an experience I tasted and gave a thumb up for it. Kel on the hand preferred the foie gra at Maze.

OI000172-01

Next up was the signature lobster ravioli. Maître D, Jean Claude Breton told us this has been on the menu since day 1. It is heavenly and Kel loves it. Kel is very picky about Ravioli and he gave a very high rating for this dish.

OI000173-01

Jean Claude then served the monkfish. It came with a specially prepared broth that goes very well with the dish. The broth came in a small jug where Jean swirled and handed us the jug for us to appreciate the aroma of the broth before pouring it over the fish.

OI000175

I especially adored my main course which is the lamb. I don’t know how they could made a lamb so tender that it melted in my mouth.

OI000180

Next, I had a Mango, Jasmine and Passion fruit soup while Kel chose the cheese selections.

OI000183 Nice selection of cheese

Pre dessert was served. It is a cucumber sorbet with crushed mint leaves. It was meant to neutralise our taste buds and prepare us for the dessert coming up next.  The dessert was a lemon parfait with honeycomb. Kel thought it was too sweet but I love it. The sour and sweetness was carefully considered while preparing this dish.  Jean Claude surprised us again with 3 more desserts when I called for the bill. Nice frozen chocolate, salted caramel chocolate and something that looks and taste like our osmanthus flower jelly.

Lemon parfait

The best surprise Jean Claude gave was the invitation to visit the kitchen! OMG, we could not believe in our luck. We saw Chef Claire Smyth in action. Chef Claire Smyth is the Chef Patron at RGR and she is the first female British chef to hold and retain a 3 star michellin rating. Not only that, Chef Claire also won Chef of the Year 2013 and scored a perfect 10/10 in the 2015 edition of Good Food Guide.

 

OI000206-02Chef Claire Smyth at work OI000202-01 OI000203-01

It was a perfect experience and a wonderful way to kick start our holiday.  I do hope to come back again on our next trip to London.

 

Remember to make reservation in advance if you are planning to head down.

Nearest tube station: Sloane Square. Walk around 15min from Sloane Square station to restaurant.

Restaurant Gordon Ramsay

0207 352 4441

68 Royal Hospital Road
London
SW3 4HP
Follow:

Kidzania Bangkok

It was my 1st visit to Kidzania, I have heard so much about it and finally I decided to combine a family trip, Guys can golf, Ladies can Shop and Kids go Kidzania!!!

 

A little background about Kidzania, They currently have 16 locations worldwide and there will be one coming to Singapore end of 2015! Every KidZania is themed as a child-sized replica of a real city, including buildings, shops and theaters, as well as vehicles and pedestrians moving along its streets. In this city, children aged 4 through 12, work in branded activities from bottling Coca Cola, working in a dentist office, working at a Mcdonalds restaurant, washing hands with P&G’s soap, and using airline tickets from AirAsia.

 

I have to say whoever that came out with this idea is a genius. Even myself is in awe of the whole concept. It’s like we always asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. The answer to this question is answered at a single venue.

Kidzania Bangkok is huge, there is 2 levels, (3 infact, as there is a small underground for 1 of the occupations). We arrived at Siam Paragon at 11am and there was already a long queue at the ticketing counter.  We bought our tickets online before the trip thinking that we can skip the queue. Sad to say, we still have to queue to collect the tickets. My advise is to just buy the tickets there to avoid all the hassle. We were all given a wrist tag, that is for security purpose where it is equipped with ID chip and frequency antenna.

 

kidzania map

 

The 1st thing we did is to go to the bank. 🙂 We were given a cheque of 50 Kidzos( Kidzania currency) where we have to cash it before we can start the journey. Lauren chose to be a policewoman at the 1st stop and earned herself 8 kidzos. Her role was to patrol the town and looked for suspicious character.

 

Her next stop was whichever position that had the shortest queue. Hahaha. She went on to be a pump attendant. pump attentant2 pump attentant

 

Next she signed up to be a doctor and she went around the city in an ambulance to treat someone who called for help.

 

doc3 doc4 doc5 doc6 doc7doc9

Lauren and Cayden explored the city, trying out different occupations like MTV VJ, Oishi factory worker, Stewardess and resting at a disco. 🙂oishi Stewardess disco

VJ

 

All and all we spent 5 hours there and sad to say we did not manage to complete the city. We will definitely return to complete as I could see that it brought so much fun and joy to the kids.

Follow: