The monthly summary for July and it’s been another hectic few weeks!
I was most flattered and surprised when BBC Olive magazine gave me a kind mention in the August issue:
‘worldfoodieguide.com has an amazing array of restaurant reviews and she is very fair and straight with her comments. Particularly useful for Chinese/Asian venues, her area of expertise‘.
A Time Out London post When are food bloggers just meal blaggers? also mentioned me. I won’t replicate the controversial debate on the subject of ‘PR freebies’, whether in the form of complimentary meals or products to review. I’ve tried to be as transparent and fair as possible with the few complimentary meals I’ve written about. It’s a subject that’s still very much on my mind, so I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
I voted for my favourite UK restaurants as part of a panel of over 300 people for Restaurant Magazine’s National Restaurant Awards 2009. The Top 100 UK Restaurants will also be announced on 12th October at the Hurlingham Club. I’m looking forward to the results! Meanwhile, I maintained my position within the top 10 in the Wikio Gastronomy rankings.
The husband and I have decided to go on a traveleating journey around Japan in November. It will be my fifth visit and I’m already excited about researching places to eat. Luckily I have a lot of friends in Japan who will be helping me and I hope to gather some Japan-related tips on Twitter nearer the time. If you have any suggestions, particularly food-related, please send them my way!
Outside the home, I had good meals at 202 Café (smoked haddock fish cakes), Rasa Sayang (black pepper crab), Salt Yard (stuffed courgette flowers) and Sushi-Hiro (very fresh sushi, particularly the scallop). On the other hand, St. Alban was just a so-so meal, while I had a most disappointing dim sum lunch at Min Jiang.
In the kitchen, I attempted to recreate one of my favourite dishes, Cantonese wonton noodle soup. Where to find the best wonton noodles in Hong Kong causes great debate amongst foodies! The egg-less pasta post written by the husband last year was updated with new photos after the recipe was re-tested. I also reviewed two excellent cookery books Balance & Harmony (with a recipe for braised chicken, tofu and glass noodle hot pot) and Modern Spanish Cooking (with recipes for pimientos de Padrón and patatas a lo pobre, both vegetarian dishes).
Finally, Foodies on Twitter, in which I wrote about using Twitter as a foodie, attracted some great comments from fellow Twitterers. Are you using Twitter already, or thinking of joining?
Thank you as always for reading!