I bought this to go with my lunch when I at the Scandinavian Kitchen the other day.  The lemonade itself was perfect - still and quite sour, just how I like it - but what really won me over was the moustache.  I can't help wondering what kind of facial hair features on all their other drinks...

I bought my lunch from the Scandinavian Kitchen the other day.  This turned out to be a good decision, for three reasons:

1) I had a money-off voucher from kgb deals - £5 worth of food for only £1.  Bargain.

2) The guy behind the counter was cute.

3) They sell my favourite little green cakes from Ikea.  This is a great thing, as my nearest Ikea is miles away and I usually just have to beg people to buy them for me when they visit.  You’d think it was a foreign country or something (well, it is Croydon.  That’s practically foreign, right?)  On second thoughts, this is probably not such a great thing, as now whenever I’m around Oxford Circus I’m going to be tempted to go and buy cakes and that will do my figure NO GOOD AT ALL. Hmm. 

So, that aside, I suppose you’ll want to know what the food is like.  Scandinavian, obviously – little Ikea cakes, open sandwiches, a selection of salads – £4.75 will get you two open sandwiches and some salad to take away, or variants thereof (see menu here).  I went for the Greek salad, Greve and radish open sandwich, and blue cheese mash open sandwich.  It was all fresh, and perfectly nice, if a little small for someone with my gargantuan appetite.  The blue cheese mash open sandwich was an exception, being piled so high with blue cheese that I rather wished for the missing slice of bread to even things up a little.

My conclusion?  I’ll probably be back.  If only to flirt with the counter man.  

Scandinavian Kitchen, 61 Great Tichfield Street, London W1W 7PP.  Tel: 020 7580 7161.  They don’t just do food to take away – there’s a café and grocery store too.

Ingredients

125g/4½oz butter
250g/9oz plain chocolate, broken into pieces
3tbsp golden syrup
2tbsp cocoa powder
2tbsp caster sugar
100g/4oz-ish Maltesers
100g/4oz-ish milk chocolate drops
100g/4oz-ish mini marshmallows
225g/8oz Rich Tea biscuits broken into pieces

Method

1. Line a 10in square cake tin with greaseproof paper (I just did the bottom which worked fine).
2. In a big heavy-based pan heat the butter, plain chocolate, golden syrup, caster sugar, cocoa powder and stir together with a wooden spoon. Once melted together leave to cool for 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, break the biscuits into smallish pieces in a food bag with a rolling pin.
4. After 10 mins is up mix the biscuit pieces, Maltesers, chocolate chips and mini marshmallows in with the chocolate sauce.
5. Spoon into the lined tin, smooth the surface and leave to set in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours.
6. Remove from cake tin by loosening the sides with a knife and then turning tin upside down and bashing hard. Don't worry about it breaking, it comes out in one piece.
7. Slice into bars - should make about 24, I think (3x8).

Many people love to go out and enjoy a great meal in one of their favourite restaurants in London, or perhaps even a new one that they haven’t tried yet.  The only problem with this is that it can cost you quite a bit of money if you want to enjoy a top quality meal out with friends and family at a great restaurant.  This has meant that fewer people are dining out now and their nights out at top London restaurants and becoming less and less frequent, with many people only indulging on special occasions.

However; this no longer has to be the case, as there are many sites out there, like the price comparison site moneysupermarket.com, that can help save you money when you go for a meal out at some of the best restaurants that the capital city has to offer.  All you need to do is to search their site for the great discount vouchers available and start enjoying your meals out again.

Below are just a few examples of what you can expect to find on the site for the London area:

Waxy O’Connor’s – Enjoy some traditional pub food in this cosy and classic pub where you can really get into the spirit of things with traditional music playing whilst you eat.  Now you can enjoy all this for a lot less as moneysupermarket.com have a great buy one, get one free on main meals offer on their site to make your meal out to Waxy O’Connor’s even more memorable.

Criterion – This London restaurant will have you falling in love with it from the start – not just for the food but also the design.  Criterion serves classic British culinary delights that will tease and tempt your taste buds through your entire meal and in the setting of the romantic and classic neo-Byzantine design, you are sure to have an enchanting time at this restaurant.  What could make this meal any better?  Well, how about lunch from £10 to £20 from the fixed price menu with the moneysupermarket.com deal?  It almost sounds too good to be true.

Porters English Restaurant – Enjoy a fantastic meal at Porters English Restaurant where you’ll find mouth-watering, traditional English dishes such as steak and kidney pudding and beer battered fish and chips.  To really make your meal out at Porters English Restaurant special you can now take advantage of a fantastic offer at moneysupermarket.com where you will get a fantastic 2 course meal, a trip on the London Eye and a copy of Porters Seasonal Celebrations Cookery book all for just £35; this is certainly a deal not to be missed.

 A vouchers article written by Gill Critchley for the price comparison site moneysupermarket.com. 

Firstly I made a beeline for Salt Yard's courgette flowers stuffed with goats cheese and drizzled with honey.  "Flowers" was perhaps a slight misnomer as you only received one, but that one was utterly delicious.

Next up was Yautcha's vegetarian dim sum platter, which was, as expected, perfect:

And I finished off with a little thai bite of rice vermicelli with tamerind sauce (tasted like rice cakes mixed with rice krispie cakes, most odd) followed by my favourite summer drink of all, a lychee cocktail.

Of course, you don't have to pay for everything you eat - the most fun we had was wandering around all the stalls, trying a dip of chilli sauce here and a piece of baklava there.  It's entirely possible to get quite tipsy on your way round too; after two (paid for) cocktails, and samples of Welsh wine, honey rum, rose champagne and toffee vodka I was feeling distinctly fuzzy in the head. 

One peculiarity of Taste of London is that it has its own currency - most of the stallholders will also accept normal money, but if you want to eat the restaurant dishes you have to buy Crowns (in the form of vouchers) which are readily available from various points around the festival.  I'm not sure why they set it up this way, but it could be an attempt to confuse you about how much you're actually spending. 

Taste of London is good fun, and I enjoyed my visit.  But - and this is a bit but - it is not a cheap day out.  That courgette flower dish above cost 10 crowns, which is the equivalent of five pounds.  FIVE POUNDS.  That seems like a hell of a lot to me.  Add on another couple of little courses and the normal entrance fee of £26 and you're easily heading towards the £50 mark without even thinking about it.  Just to place that into perspective, for £48 you could go to Le Gavroche for a three-course set lunch including wine, water and coffee.  I know which I'd rather do.

So, on to the review...

I’m always a bit wary of going for pub lunches on a Sunday.  Too often, amidst all the great hulking plates of roast beef with all the trimmings, you’ll find that the vegetarian option is something totally boring and non-roast related, like risotto.  Now, I like risotto, but it’s hard not to get envious when you’re spooning up a mouthful of insipid pap next to an entire tableful of people tucking into a hefty pile of roast potatoes and gravy.

I was therefore really, really happy about my lunch at The Water Poet yesterday.  They do a proper vegetarian roast dinner, with roast potatoes, carrots, parsnip, onion, yorkshire pudding, what seemed like a quarter of a head of cabbage and two massive, stuffing-filled vegetarian sausages.  And vegetarian gravy.   It was such an enormous plate of food that I could barely move afterwards, which is always the sign of a good lunch for me.  And they do Aspalls on tap.  I love that pub.

The Water Poet, 9-11 Folgate Street, London E1 6BX

These hot days of summer always get me in the mood for some Mexican food (says she, staring mournfully out of the window at the rain), and there's nothing simpler than some homemade nachos if you're after a quick fix.  Basically, all you need is some tortilla chips, jalapeno chillies and cheddar cheese; assemble on a baking sheet, stick under the grill for a couple of minutes, bob's your uncle.

Of course, to elevate your nachos to truly ambrosial heights, you need some good accessories.  Sour cream is a must, as are guacamole and salsa.  And the guacamole MUST be home-made.  I promise you, it's really simple to make and tastes about a million times better than the insipid goop you'll find in the supermarket.  Again, no need for a proper recipe - just mash up a ripe avocado with the juice of a lime, some salt and a hefty handful of coriander, finely chopped.  If you're feeling like living on the edge, add some finely chopped green chilli for an extra kick. Nigella Lawson adds roquefort to her guacamole to make "roquemole" which is equally delicious although probably better eaten as a dip than added to your Mexican dish!

Home-made salsa is also worth the effort, as again it's much better than the stuff you'll find in jars, with a real zing to it.  Just finely chop some ripe tomatoes, onion and coriander and mix together with lime juice and salt to taste.  Unlike guacamole, this will taste better if you let it sit for a while so that the flavours can mingle.  For both the salsa and guacamole, make sure the avocadoes and tomatoes are really ripe and soft otherwise you'll just end up with a load of little hard chunks in a bowl, which is not the effect you're after.

Et voila!  How simple was that?

The perfect supper for the perfect summer evening.  Shropshire Blue, Cornish Brie, Epoisses, seeded bread, green tomato chutney and caperberries.  Delicious.