Feast: Brick Lane Yard

Part 2 in my street feast obsession, I went in much more prepared. After a liquid breakfast in the pub watching the Lions take us to victory, I made my way over to Brick Lane to meet Emily to stuff my face yet again. Tickets were a little pricier this time and you don't get the bar tab transfer BUT this Street Feast isn't as regular and promises to attract more food vans. You can either pick the afternoon or evening sessions, we gunned for the afternoon session in the sun and it was such a lovely environment full of people trying to cool down on coconut juice straight from the source.

After a quick peruse around the area I recognised so many friendly stands from other street feasts and a few new ones. First stop, The Rum Kitchen. A restaurant in Notting Hill who funnily enough specialise in rum cocktails, to cool down we asked for rum granitas as a palette cleanser. I'll admit it was a little small for £2 each but it was absolutely delicious. 

Next, Flat Iron. I've wanted to try these guys based in Soho for SO long and I may be finally going next week for a birthday dinner, Praise the Lord! We got a wooden boat of perfectly cooked and salted steak, it did come with horseradish if you feel it looks a little dry but I'm not a horseradish fan.

Now that the starter is complete we decided on our mains, Emily went for a new discovery, the crab roll. Bonnie Gull were offering an iced chest full of goodies and her crab roll looked bloody great. I'd never heard of Bonnie Gull but hope to see them again, even for a cheeky oyster next time. I went for When Mac met Cheese, the main competitor for Annie Mae's who I saw at Truck Stop, they do it a little differently. Annie Mae's use those massive pans and constantly fill it with more cheese and pasta and then put on your toppings individually. When Mac met Cheese make it all in front of your eyes, either go for your Mac and Cheese straight up or with Jalapenos and you can add tomatoes, broccoli and herbies. They heat up a pan, pop in the thickest gooiest cheese sauce, bung in the macaroni and all of the extras and chuck it around the pan for a while, I make it sound so simple, it didn't seem so especially on such a hot day! It was incredibleeee, stretchy cheese makes me go crazy. I can't say I prefer one because they actually taste so different so maybe I might have to try them both again, poor me...

They sell deep fried Oreos, I was too scared to try!

Mmmm CHEEESEEEE

The Meringue Girls stall was a favourite which I didn't get a chance to try but their offer of the Ultimate Eton Mess with those gorgeous pink meringues had me gleeful at the thought.

Groaning with fullness we made room for the main deal, what I'd been looking forward to ever since I saw the special on Twitter. Patty and Bun's Big Poppa Special. Chillis, cheese, guacamole... they had me at hello. I sat Emily down in the shade with a couple of pink lemonades as I went to bring home the bacon (beef). As expected it was huge, cheesy, messy and oh so delicious, Patty and Bun never disappoint, please go if you can!

I got here too quickly for me to take a pic!

Sorry these made it to the internet Emily, I'm sure I'll have to pay for it in her blogs!

My burger, alll mineee!

All in all a beaut day and a very full tummy. Keep an eye out for the next one here, I'd definitely try the evening session, I heard whispers of a Patty and Bun DJ set and if their soundtrack in the restaurant is anything to go by, it must have been a banger.

Truck Stop 4th July Feast

Hi my name's Rosie, I'm a street food addict. In the first of a 2 part series of street food consumed last week I went to Truck Stop in Canary Wharf. Nestled in the middle of sky scrapers and men in suits (swoon) truck swarmed with people and good food. 

What better way to appreciate Americas independence from us than to eat all of my favourite exports from the country. 

I'd already made my mind up on the trucks I wanted to visit my poor friend Emily didn't stand a chance, first stop was Annie Mae's Mac and Cheese. One of the biggest queues (always means its good in street food worlds) and no wonder that steaming tray of cheese needs to be made mine! I went for the Dom Macaroni (pesto and bacon topping) and Emily went for the Spicy Juan which was spicy by name and by nature (jalapeños, hot sauce and sour cream) it knocked my socks off a little too much but Emily likes her chilli and I like my pesto, we'd picked well. 

While in the queue it's rude not to have a drink in your hand so I plucked for a pint sized cocktail with my Truckstop dollars (when you exchange your £10 ticket you essentially get a £10 bar tab, my kind of deal). 

After a peruse of queue lengths we decided to go for a smaller queue and hit the hidden gem that is The Bowler Gourmet Balls. I visited their van at the last feast I went to and taught Emily about the perfect ball equation of two pork balls, Thai coconut sauce with a side of fragranced rice and homemade slaw, boy do we love our balls. 

After this I disappointed myself in being full, what was wrong with me I just don't know. However the vans I would have gone to next would have been Mother Clucker (huge queue), Tacostop (they sell rib tacos, I'm sold) and Spit and Roast (I'm still dreaming about their buttermilk chicken from last time). 

I did however manage to fit in another cocktail and a frozen yoghurt cone along with Emily's double vanilla '99. Mine was a mango yoghurt but it was more kind of flavoured by the mango bits in it rather than being a mango yoghurt, that makes no sense does it?! Oh well. 

Walking away with very full tummys and still pretty full purses, I spent about £20 in all and had a whale of a time. Keep up to date with all of this through the wonders of twitter, I swear these days the only people I follow on twitter involve food. You can get tickets for the next Truck Stop in August here. Part 2 coming momentarily, hold onto your seats kids...

Holiday Sale Shopping

My Mum seems to have a knack of booking holidays just after the summer sales start which means a quick trip to the shopping centre before the hols is always slightly lighter on the purse strings (Mum's purse strings) so I thought I'd give you a little selection of holiday perfect sale bargains that I found before my holiday. I won't be doing this as an outfit post as the very idea of doing this makes me want to run away from the computer right now so I'll let the professionals do it. 

Cropped tees are perfect as a quick layer over a bikini or with anything high waisted, Topshop seem to have bunged them all in the sale...

Topshop - £7 perfect colour for gold jewellery

Topshop £10 - I have this one it's perfect with high waisted shorts!

Topshop - £6 a little nod to High SChool Musical

The ever difficult bikini buy was made easier for me this year by an unlikely find in Next. Anyone who knows me knows I hate Next (sorry Next), if I'm made to enter I head straight to the homeware as its the only area I like, this has now expanded to bikinis. 

Next £14 bikini top, £10 bottoms - perfect for girls who like me weren't blessed with boobs.

The maxi skirt seems to be the new holiday chic look, Lucy decided to rock this one from New Look, I haven't quite decided if its for me yet!

New Look - £16

The sundress was my main outfit of choice while on the holiday, here's my favourite selection.

Primark @ Asos £13

Primark @ Asos - £15

Asos Strap Sundress - £22

Beauty product-wise I discovered a new love whilst on holiday. The Nivea in-shower conditioner, sounds like a fad but apparently not. Apply it after your shower gel and once you're out of the shower you feel silky smooth, no effort required and no awkward standing around the bathroom after moisturising waiting for it to dry. At the price too, it's got my vote!

Croatia Holiday Highlights

Annual Springett family holidays are pretty much this, books, sun, pool. That's it, that's all we do for a week and I've learnt from working full time how incredibly necessary this is, recharging the old batteries and all that. 

It does unfortunately make blogging about said holiday particularly difficult and I'm rooting around to find something to say so I thought I'd do it in the form of a highlights section, lets see how this goes!

Our gorgeous view from the villa, looking across the sea to the next island and boats passing through constantly.

 Fresh fish dinner. 

Our villa was on the side of a mountain surrounded by locals in their homes, a small church and supermarket and pretty much nothing else. The local town to us Omis was about a 15 minute drive so when we heard about a local restaurant on the mountain we thought we'd better give it a go. I could tell you the name, it's Croatian I haven't a clue how to say the letter jumbled into 'words' there, but it was a lovely local restaurant run by a family who knew everyone on the little mountain. It started with a guy enjoying cooking the fish he caught and started selling plates of sardines for 10kn (about £1.20) and it all expanded from there. The menu has 4 fish options, mackerel, seabreem, seabass and sardines, you pick your fish and they pop it on their BBQ, cool it to perfection and place it on your table ready for you to pick and devour the flaky fish hiding inside the silvery wrapping. Along with some French fries it was a perfect simple meal, I had the seabass and loved finding more hiding spots with a flash a white fish waiting for me. 

We discovered they like to dress up their cocktails quite a lot!

Dubrovnik Old Town. 

On the last day we went to a hotel near the airport so we didn't have to wake up in the dead of night and travel to the airport in the morning. Family friends of ours had booked a holiday to the local city for the airport so we decided to meet up for food, wine and a catch up. The Old Town is beautiful, filled with beautiful boats moored for the night and surrounded by old walls which were used to protect the city during their war in 1991, the whole town was bombed and left to repair, you wouldn't notice this unless someone told you, the restoration has been done incredibly well. We sat outside near the bay and watched people wandering around, picking out outfits we liked and watched as large groups of Japanese tourists (do they have a rule to not travel in less than 20 at all times?!) danced with the locals. There were also two wedding parties taking pictures by the sea and getting in and out of boats to different islands, it's a truly beautiful place to get married. Our taxi home came along with our driver Joseph buying Lucy and I ice creams telling us his son was very special and that we should meet him at the hotel tomorrow, I think it might take more than an ice cream but was funny all the same!

I've never seen ice cream this blue!

Read-a-thons. 

You know those books that have been hanging around for ages in your bookcase and you've promised yourself you will get round to them at some point but this was around 2007 and now they're just dusty? I brought those on holiday and it was so lovely to finally get through a few. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak was one of those, I bought it for my Dad years ago and after him reading it in a day a knew I had to catch up on it. It was exceptional, cleverly written and terribly sad, if you haven't read it yet go and see if Waterstones still have it somewhere in the back cupboards! I also read The Help by Katheryn Stockett which was a good light read, I can totally see why it was made into a film, loads of scope for some great acting and beautiful costumes, first thing I did when I got home to the UK was check it out. In the villa I found a copy of On Beauty by Zadie Smith, an author I'd wanted to try for ages, a character based novel, her knack for interesting descriptions hooked even me who shamefully only usually reads the talking bits in books after a while, no wonder I could never describe well at school!

If you like Pina Coladaaaassss

A gorgeous holiday spent relaxing by the pool, after a week of living in a bikini it feels odd having to think of an outfit to wear in the mornings now! Painfully I think I have got paler whilst out there though, curse the English Rose complexion! Croatia seems to be a place everyone I know is going to this summer, the islands are beautiful and if you/a lovely friend have a boat it's the perfect destination. They're doing more festivals around Croatia every year and I can see why, only 2 and half hours on the plane and the booze is cheap. However, on the 1st July they're joining the EU, they aren't taking on the Euro (the exchange rate for their kn currency, 8.5kn to the pound, makes you feel like you're flashing the cash at every bill, or playing with Monopoly money, you decide!) but I think we all know what happens when countries join the EU so hop skip over there now before everything gets expensive like the rest of Europe, you have been warned!

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