We celebrated Madge’s Birthday with Bloody Mary’s, Oysters, Prosecco and seafood. Just as it should be! His restaurant of choice was English’s in Brighton – always a favourite for us, especially sat at the bar.
Browsing Tag
Brighton
Ages ago we booked tickets for a matinee performance of A Harold Pinter play, called ‘No Man’s Land’. We knew nothing about the play, and booked it purely for the actors. The idea of seeing Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian Mckellan close up and locally in Brighton was too good to ignore.
Unfortunately, we should perhaps have found out more about the play before we booked. The performances were great, but the play itself was absurd. There was no real story and it wasn’t easy to work out what was going on – or what went on, once it had finished! It didn’t help that it was about 8 million degrees in the Theatre Royal.
A Saturday at home and without any arrangements – what a joy! We popped into Brighton to have lunch with the kids, though only one kid actually turned up. I suspect the other one couldn’t quite make it out of bed in time 🙂
We had lunch at the ever wonderful Chilli Pickle and I had to rush off to get my nails done at The Lanes. They’ve had a revamp in there and it’s looking ultra stylish.
Such a pleasure to get my nails done there after the quick ‘in and out’ nail bars in London. They’re fine when you’re in a lunchtime rush, but you can’t beat proper service, proper quality products and a nice cup of tea and a chat when you’re having a a pamper. I even tweeted ahead and a selection of new colours were waiting for me to choose from. I went for a Spring frost pink called ‘Woman in the Mirror’ and teamed it with a cool grey. The name of the pink made me laugh, considering that’s exactly the shot I accidently captured above 🙂
On the way back, wandering past the shops to meet the boys, I popped into Irregular Choice and couldn’t resist adding these wonderful yellow shoes and bag to my collection. I can’t believe I’ve bought shoes in such a bright colour. They are properly cute.
Here they are in a much better, properly lit (much less green!) shot from the Irregular Choice website.
We also picked up Madge’s Easter present from Gresham Blake, a polka dot shirt with a twist.
I’ve been lucky to go out for lunch in Brighton twice this week, and to two of my favourite restaurants.
Lots of new restaurants and eateries are opening up in Brighton, with some really fab looking places. When I first moved to Brighton about 6 years ago there was a lot less choice. There were a few good restaurants and loads of touristy rubbish, but the foodie revolution appears to have finally made it’s way down from London and we’re starting to get spoilt for choice. Brighton even has it’s own food festival.
So last week, for Madge’s Birthday we decided on a family lunch at The Bistro at the Hotel du Vin. There are much newer and funkier places popping up, but the Hotel du Vin can always be relied on for classic French bistro favourites and the bar does (arguably) the best grown-up cocktails in town.
I ordered the chicken liver parfait, followed by the Gloucester Old Spot pork belly with mousseline potatoes. Both were lovely and very filling. The boys ordered burgers and Madge enjoyed the French onion soup and the cassoulet. All washed down with some lovely bubbly prosecco. I was too full for desert, but the cheese and the enormous profiterole enjoyed by the boys looked great.
All the food was lovely, everyone enjoyed what they had ordered and the service was good too. Always a good, solid choice for a nice lunch or family occasion.
Yesterday we went to English’s, Brighton’s oldest (and best) seafood restaurant. Tucked away in The Laines, there has been an English’s there for 150 years, so it’s quite a Brighton institution.
The small restaurant downstairs was full when we arrived, so we happily opted to eat at the small bar. The upstairs restaurant doesn’t have the same cosy feel, and we don’t mind sitting at a bar watching what’s going on. The menu looked amazing – it was a hard choice, as there were plenty of things I could have ordered. Madge doesn’t like oysters, and they always feel like something to share to me, so we agreed on the mixed starter platter, which had lobster croquettes, sole goujons, wrapped prawns, potted shrimps – and the star of the show, home smoked salmon with dill and goat cheese panacotta. Absolutely scrumptious.
I followed up with salmon en croute, and himself had a whole dressed crab. They serve prosecco on tap, so we made sure our carafe was filled regularly! I have to make a special mention for the staff, who were absolutely superb. Fully attentive, interesting and they seem to know all the regulars’ names and details. Properly special.
It’s been ages since I’ve been to English’s – it’s easy to forget about the more established restaurants with all the new kids on the block, but I definitely won’t be leaving it so long until the next time.
We were having such a good time that I forgot to take any pictures, so the images of the Hotel du Vin are taken from their website and the image of English’s is of the home page of their site.
Bonfire night. And my first weekday off from work in a while. We went into Brighton and had a cocktail at Bohemia and lunch at English’s. Then we came home and watched some tv, before going out for cocktails and a Thai dinner locally. Wonderful day. This is us sitting outside The Dorset, hiding from the rain.
After a long week, including an unexpected stay in London on Thursday night, it was nice to get back to The Shires to start the long-weekend on Friday. I even managed to side step the pub and get on a train slightly early – I must be getting old. Or sensible.
I was up and out and in the hairdressers by 8.30 on Saturday morning, which was pretty cool as I was all done and able to go and do the rest of the boring stuff early. Quick trip down the high street then back home to get ready for lunch at one of my favourite restaurants, The Chilli Pickle, in Brighton.
We’ve been going to The Chilli Pickle for ages, even before it moved to the large premises under the MyHotel about three years ago, when it was a tiny little restaurant in The Lanes. In that time it’s managed to do the seemingly impossible, which is to get better as it has got bigger, with a ever-changing fab menu and consistently excellent service. It’s never lost that friendly family feel and we’re always assured a warm welcome, and even have a ‘usual’ spot, up on the banana bar
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The restaurant décor is wonderful, with bright colours and indian artefacts, but done in a very boutique way. It plays warmly to the space and feels modern and light. The menu is inspired by different regions of India and there is always so much to choose from that it’s hard to decide. The Tandoori chicken and chips is a favourite, and unlike any other tandoori chicken and chips you might ever have had, but I was feeling a little more adventurous.
I ordered a cheeky lunchtime martini (well, late lunch) and we had Momo’s and Pani Puri to share, followed by King Thali’s for main course. The food at the Chilli Pickle is very different to any other Indian restaurant I’ve been to in the UK. Really delicate flavour pairings, with unusual dips and pickles to accompany every dish. I’ve not yet had anything I haven’t liked and usually have to resist ordering too much – though if you do, you can take it home with you afterwards.
If you like lots of little morsels of different tastes The King Thali is perfect. I had the Murgh Pulungari – chicken simmered in coconut, tamarind, squash, turmeric, curry leaf, mustard seeds and black pepper. It was awesome. The Thali comes with rice, bread, poppadum, dal, dhokla and a sweet rice pudding, as well as the wonderful pickles. And I’ve never managed to defeat a whole one yet!
A bottle of Prosecco washed the food down nicely and we happily wandered off home in search of an afternoon snooze 🙂
It was a great week off work, though hanging out with nothing in particular to do took quite a bit of getting used to. We had to keep reminding ourselves that it was OK to Just Do Nothing.
In between long bouts of Doing Nothing I fitted in a visit to the garden centre, got my nails done, visited a local Vinyard, lunched at Nobu, did a trip to Harrods, a visit to the parents, celebrated my birthday, structured a new website and finished off the week of with a long lunch at our favourite restaurant, followed by cocktails and fun.
So really, we did quite A Lot while doing lots of Doing Nothing, when you look at it like that.
I’ve been trying to get better at booking things to go to, so next Thursday I’m off to the Gaultier show at The Barbican. I’ve heard really good things about this and I’m really looking forward to seeing the iconic conical bra and corsets Madonna wore during her 1990 Blonde Ambition World Tour.
I’ve also booked to go to ‘What’s the big idea?‘ in Brighton in September. There are 4 really strong speakers talking about their big ideas. I’m looking forward to hearing from Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion and former leader of the Green Party, Katy Beale, co-founder of London agency Caper, Coding for Kids and Culture Hack, Joan Farrer, director of the Design Research initiative at University of Brighton and Rosa Fox of Codebar Brighton. Should be good.
Also in September I’m visiting the London Transport Museum to hear David Bownes, Assistant Director of Collections at the National Army Museum give a talk on the uses of posters for propaganda during the First World War. I really love the design of propaganda materials, so it should be good. And you get free entry into the museum too.
Amazingly, these 3 events have cost a total of £24. Which is so cheap for top-quality entertainment, and helps me with my constant desire to do social things that don’t involve alcohol!