Wahaca

¡Bienvenido to Wahaca!

Wahaca is a Mexican restaurant chain in London.

The central branches are in Covent Garden, Soho and a new one just opened in Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia. I've been to Wahaca in Wardour Street, Soho. It is a canteen style restaurant with a cheerful interior,  colourful lights and walls and some nice retro touches.

They have a big variety of Mexican food: tacos, tostadas, quesadillas, burritos and much more. The food is tasty and reasonably priced. You will manage to be full at the end of the evening without spending more than ₤ 15. Wahaca is the ideal place to order a lot of different starters like chicken tinga tacos or sweet potato and feta taquito and then share it with your friends. If you are not a big fan of sharing, don't worry, they have a large choice of platos fuertes (big plates) as well.

We went there at the weekend and as you cannot book tables we had to wait about half an hour to get a table, which is absolutely fine. There is a bar downstairs where you can play table football, have drinks and nibbles. Therefore the time flies.

If you like Mexican food, cocktails, table football and a nice atmosphere try Wahaca.

¡Buen provecho!

Address: 

Wahaca

80 Wardour Street, Soho

London W1F OTF

while we were waiting...nachos with guacamole

let's play a round of table football

chicken tinga burrito

avocado and squid salad, tostadas and burrito

spicy (!!!) chicken and avocado salad

Sweet and savoury calzone

Make your own Italian calzone!

A calzone is a folded pizza, which is stuffed with different ingredients. Usually the same ingredients which are used for pizza topping. This time I made small calzoni ( plural of calzone), so that I had a bigger variety of fillings. Some vegetarian ones, some with ham, some with salami and olives and so on...I like that more than eating one big calzone.

For the dough you need (for about 15 small calzoni)

300 ml water

500 g flour

7 g yeast

1 tablespoon of salt

3 tablespoons olive oil

a pinch of sugar

for the filling: use whatever you like

I used...

Mushrooms

Black olives

Ham

Salami

Mozzarella

Fresh Basil

Tomato sauce

First of all dissolve the yeast in a small bowl of warm water.

Put the flour on a clean surface and make a well in the middle of the flour. Pour in the water and olive oil, plus salt and sugar. Start to knead the dough for about five to ten minutes until it becomes elastic. Put the dough inside a bowl, cover it with a kitchen towel and let it rest for one hour, so that the yeast can rise. Don't put it in the fridge the yeast needs warmth to grow.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 190°C and prepare your ingredients. Wash and cut the mushrooms and grill them in the pan. Cut all the other ingredients into small dices, so that they are ready to be stuffed inside the calzoni.

When the dough is ready, roll it out about 1/4" ( 2cm) thick. Then cut out either small or big circles, if you want a perfectly formed circle use a overturned bowl as a stencil.

Fill each dough-circle with your favourite ingredients, leaving a two centimeters border around the edge.

Fold the circle into a half moon and press the edges together, use a fork to close it properly. Then put the calzoni in the oven for about 15 minutes at 150 °C. They are ready when they are gold-brown.

We had some dough left over...but instead of throwing it away you can make a dessert with the rest. It is the same procedure as with the savoury calzone but this time with NUTELLA.

A small calorie bomb but delicious!

flour fontain

ham, salami, mushrooms, mozzarella, black olives

filling the calzoni

seal the calzoni with a fork

gold-brown calzoni...ready to eat and a mini pizza

no wonder that we managed to eat all of them, so delicious!

The dessert....nutella calzoni!

the sweet version

decorated with icing sugar and mini oreos 

crunchy outside and liquid inside...perfect!

Bill's

Bill's: delicious and unusual breakfast, lunch and dinner dishes.

You cannot stop looking around: the interior is amazing, it looks like a food shop with all the colourful cans, bottles and jam glasses on the wall. And actually you can really buy all those delicious groceries. 

They have a big choice of food, I couldn't figure out what kind of nationality Bill's cuisine is, because they have an endless variety of different cuisines. 

Italian pasta, American burgers, Libanese hummus and pita bread or African-portuguese piri-piri chicken, just to name a few.

For breakfast they have all typical types of eggs, like scrambled eggs, eggs benedict/florentine or  full english breakfast. Furthermore they serve unusual dishes as french toast with banana, strawberries, toasted walnut yoghurt and maple flavoured syrup. A new branch just opened in Soho the other one is in Covent Garden.

Address:  Bill's
       
Covent Garden
St Martin's Courtyard,
London WC2E 9AB                                                                                                                                                    

Soho

36-44 Brewer Street,

London, W1F 9TB

lamingtons

fascinating unique and creative interior

want to buy something?

poached egg, avocado and mushroom on toast...

what kind of cuisine do you fancy? this collage is created with photos taken by Bill's website

Bar Nightjar

                                                                          
Fancy a drink?

Then I know the perfect place: Nightjar in Shoreditch. 
Nightjar is a cocktail and music bar with amazing live bands. The cocktails are excellent, really unique and delicious. You can see that the bartenders do their job with so much passion, every cocktail seems like a piece of art. I guess that is the reason why we waited quite long to get our drinks, but as soon as you have the first sip you forget about the long waiting time. 

The interior and the atmosphere makes you think you are back in the late 50s, early 60s: black leather sofas, almost no lights, a tin-panelled ceiling, plus the jazz, blues and swing music. Even the people there looked a bit retro, the boys wore vintage suits and had the typical James Dean haircut, the girls with pencil skirts and blouses in pastel colours. 

A really original bar, where you can enjoy delicious drinks and a nice ambience. Furthermore it is the third best bar in the world 2012.

Address:

129 City Road 

EC1V 1JB

London

Moist lemon and poppy cake

This is a really easy and quick cake recipe and it's soo delicious! I love the cracking sound of the poppy seeds, it makes the taste adventure of the cake more exciting. 
If you love the cake really, really moist add a dash of fresh orange juice.

All you need is

100g soft butter

140g flour
100g sugar

30 g poppy seeds

3 tablespoons of cream

2 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
2-3 tablespoons of lemons zests

One dash of fresh lemon juice

For the glaze

4 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

100 g icing sugar

First of all preheat the oven.

Now put butter, sugar, cream, the lemon zests and lemon juice in a bowl and mix well.

Stir in the eggs, flour and add the poppy seeds.

Pour the ready dough into a loaf tin. Bake at 180C for approximately 20 minutes.

Meanwhile prepare the glaze: Just mix the icing sugar together with lemon juice until you get a creamy frosting.

As soon as the cake is ready, take it out of the oven and let it cool down. Once the cake is cooled down pour the glaze evenly over the top of the cake.

Give the glaze time to dry and add some more icing sugar as decoration..... ready is your cake!

mixing the ingredients

ready!

Blogroll

Blogs I can recommend...

      butter me up,Brooklyn! 

The best dessert blog

This is an inspiring food blog. I especially love the aesthetic photos and the desserts she makes…. mouth watering!



Have a look at butter me up, Brooklyn! the award winning blog and find out why baking makes friends

joy the baker

                           The best recipes blog

I want to eat everything she is posting on her blog!!! 

The selection of recipes is big and everything looks delicious, plus her recipes are very original. Like peach tomato and mozzarella crostini or honey chamomile cupcakes, if you don’t know what to cook, have a look at Joy’s blog.  

She has a great eye for food photos,  everything is perfect down to the last detail. 

Even people who eat vegan or gluten-free are spoilt for choice.

The Sartorialist ...

fashion, fashion, fashion

...is a fashion blog by Scott Schumann.
He started to take photos of people in the streets of New York, who are dressed in an eye-catching way.

I really like the way how the people are photographed. It is more than just a fashion blog, he shows the people’s personality not only their style.

This blog shows street style fashion and visual attitude of people in London, Milan, New York and other cities in a very unique way. I really love this blog!

Rachel Phipps

The good mood blog.

Fashion, recipes, beauty products, travel photos and so much more. Rachel, who lives in L.A. combines all these things in her blog. 

I like her blog, because she writes really passionately about the things she does. 

If you want to cheer yourself up, have a look at her sunny L.A. blog and how Rachel enhances her life.

A cup of Jo

                                                             
The blog for good advices.

Joanna is a magazine writer and has a great eye for fashion, art and food.

Her blog is authentic, honest and insightful. It is more than one of those superficial lifestyle blogs, her posts are deep and thought-provoking!

She also gives advices about the daily family life and how to be a good friend, like „Four things to say to a friend after a bad breakup“  and many, many other advices about the everyday life. 

Borough Market

Don't know what to do this weekend?

If you like markets, you are lucky to live in London. 

There’s Broadway Market, Columbia Road Flower Market and Brick Lane Market in East London. Borough Market in South London or Portobello Market and Chelsea Farmers Market in West London, just to name a few. 

I like markets because you can find things or food you can't find anywhere else from dutch baby pancakes to vintage bags. 

Even German bread, which I really miss and love can be bought at London's markets.

This time I went to Borough Market, a food market. 

The full market is open Thursdays from noon until 5 and Fridays until 6 and on Saturdays from 8 am until 5 pm. The market is full of traders selling fresh food products. You can find everything the heart could wish for...fresh bread, handmade cakes, pastries, sweets, chocolates and other sweet treats. Borough Market is a food-lovers heaven, you can find there products of the highest quality as dairy products like cheese milk, butter and cream. There is also fresh fish and seafood, vegetables, fruits, drinks...and of course international dishes like paella, burritos, paninis, veggie burgers and sooo much more!

delicious cupcakes and macaroons

fresh crunchy bread

fresh shrimps.... and poor lobsters, they were still alive

which pepper you like?

a big choice of tomatoes

italian focaccia

ever seen white truffle honey?

panini with prosciutto and mozerella

piadine

coconut chocolate cake