Monthly Archives: September 2016

Reviews

Meditation @ Redemption

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Redemption Restaurant. Photos courtesy of NHYM 2016. 

This week I was invited to a new event, Soul Food, by Sophie Purvis, a Yoga and Meditation instructor. The event combines a 30 minute meditation followed by a lovely and healthy lunch at Redemption, ‘the healthiest bar restaurant in London,’ at their Notting Hill location. Now you all know how stressed I’ve been and the beginning of the new school year has piled on extra stress as quickly as I piled on extra pounds during the summer holidays. Meditation + healthy eating sounded like just what I needed to settle my mind.

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Redemption Restaurant. NHYM 2016. 

Redemption is located on Chepstow Road and I have been meaning to try it for ages, but somehow time has flown by and it has already been open for a year. I am amazed at all the ‘healthy,’ ‘organic’ and ‘vegan’ places that are sprouting up faster than mushrooms on a wet day. First there was Planet Organic, then came Daylesford and now the restaurants have followed suit: NAMA, Redemption, Farmacy, and the latest JUSU brothers. I mean, Notting Hill is fast becoming San Francisco. Next thing we know, everyone will be swapping their cappuccinos for juice cleanses (Noooo!!!).

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Sophie Purvis in the foreground, Catherine Salway in the mirror reflection. NHYM 2016. 

Back to the event. I went along on Monday not knowing exactly what to expect. When I got there, Sophie Purvis introduced herself and immediately I thought I was in good hands. Sophie has the most soothing, calming voice and aura that immediately put me in the right mind set. She usually works out of a studio in Parsons Green but found this great collaboration with Redemption here in Notting Hill.

We started the guided meditation, which is a type of meditation I particularly like because all you have to do is listen: Sophie does the rest. Her calming voice told my mind where to go and soon enough, the knot in my stomach relaxed and I could feel myself become less tense. It was a lovely 30 minutes. The only thing I would say is that the meditation is done in the restaurant so you do hear the buses go by and you do feel slightly exposed. (I mentioned this to the founders and they are looking into putting up curtains to create a warm cocoon – much better I told them.)

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Redemption food and detox tea. NHYM 2016. 

After the meditation, we were treated to a lovely lunch and detox tea. Everything I would expect from a vegan restaurant: sweet potato, quinoa and pomegranate salad, raw chickpeas, carrot salad and a few enoki. The food was very good, tasty and filling. Catherine sells her place as a place away from ‘temptation’, wheat-free, sugar-free and alcohol-free. Stella McCartney is apparently her biggest customer and orders staff lunches from here. The restaurant itself is sparsely decorated and has lovely touches like the pineapple lamps, the antique French farmhouse furniture and plush velvet banquettes, but I feel that the decor could use some cohesiveness.

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I had a really lovely time at Redemption – thank you Sophie and Catherine! The meditation was lovely and the food equally so. I felt lighter and healthier coming out of it, as if I had gone on a mini-holiday. For anyone looking for a little peace and soul-feeding in the city, this is one to try out.

xx

NHYM

http://www.nottinghillyummymummy.com

@NHyummymummy

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Reviews

Restaurant Review: Park Chinois

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Address: 17 Berkeley St, London W1J 8EA

Phone: 020 3327 8888

https://parkchinois.com

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Decor: 4.5 stars

Ambience: 4 stars

Food: 4 stars

Value for money: 3 stars

Service: 5 stars

Overall: 4 stars

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Ground Floor Restaurant. NHYM 2016.

Park Chinois is located on the golden square of restaurants: Berkeley Square. It all started with Nobu about 10 years ago who replicated its twin in the Met into a more ‘cool’ happening place. And thus began the domino effect of high end, luxury, and super expensive restaurants: Hakkasan, Novikov, Sexy Fish and finally Park Chinois. And Berkeley Square’s members club are also high in demand: Annabel is having a makeover, the Arts Club just recently opened its hotel and there is a new ‘business’ member’s club which also recently opened. But back to Park Chinois.

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The Restaurant

Park Chinois is a ‘lifestyle’ (his words, not mine), dinner and dance experience by Alan Yau, the man behind Hakkasan, Yuatcha and Wagamama. Now, perhaps you could think that there are enough iterations of high end Chinese restaurants, but not Mr. Yau. Here, he has upped the luxury game and created a £16 million + place to compete with the opulence next door of Sexy Fish. From what I gather, Park Chinois divides people: you either love it or hate it. I went for the third time last Wednesday to make sure I knew which camp I was going to root for.

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Lounge Singer. NHYM 2016.

The Design

When you walk into Park Chinois, it successfully takes you to bygone years of dinner & dance, louche Chinese clubs from the 20s and 30s, where everything is opulent and where affairs, business and otherwise, happen in dim light. Upstairs, there is live music, whereas downstairs is the Park Chinois ‘Club’ where the lighting is dimmer and it is the cooler version of the two with club music playing in the background. The favourite colours of this place are decidedly gold and red, and it is everywhere. Every detail is so thought out from the lampshades to the the corniced ceilings.

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The Menu. NHYM 2016. 

The Food

Since I’ve been here three times, I can safely say that I have tried the food thoroughly. The first time I came, it was in a large group with a pre-set menu which included a good sampling of the menu. The Duck de Chine, their famous roast duck, comes at a cool £85 and requires some advance notice. It was good – don’t get me wrong – but frankly, I could get a similar, or better version of it at Gold Mine on Queensway. The other dishes were also good: the fried squid, (which tasted more like batter than squid), the vermicelli clay pot (one of my favourite dishes there), and the dim sum and gyoza were all very good, but again, I could get them at Royal China, also on Queensway, for a third of the price.

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Chilli squid with green papaya salad. NHYM 2016.

The Service

I have to write a special note about the service at Park Chinois; it is really excellent. I have trouble eating at Chinese restaurants because of soy and MSG intolerances and each time I have been the waiters have been really excellent at discussing all my options with the chef. For me, it is one of the standout features of this place.

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Overall

I am definitely in the more-love-than-hate category when it comes to Park Chinois. But, it is true that the restaurant was not full on a Tuesday, whereas Sexy Fish next door was heaving. There are no windows in the whole restaurant and one friend thought it felt like a cruise ship, with its lounge singer and draped curtains on the ground floor, but I still like it even though I prefer the downstairs. I have to give it a lot of credit for what it is trying to do; bold, dreamy and different. And I love that London is a place where risks are taken to create places like this. It is a great place for those who love Hong Kong and yearn for a little nostalgia of bygone years. For the food, you could always go to Queensway.

xx

NHYM

http://www.nottinghillyummymummy.com

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Social Commentary

Hello & Welcome Back!

Hello and welcome back!

Sorry I haven’t posted in a long time, but summer took over and then as soon as I returned to London, within 24 hours, a series of misadventures occurred: I lost my phone (gasp!), my cleaner didn’t show up on Monday when I had a mountain of sandy clothes and suitcases (double gasp!!) and my nanny quit (triple gasp!!!). It has been a stressful return back to London, to say the least. But I am positive that it can all be seen in a positive light. Firstly, a lost phone is a forced digital detox. We all know that we spend way too much time on our phones: texting, phoning, instagramming, photo-taking. So this is an enforced tech abstention, which really should be an annual ritual like going to Mayr’s clinics.

Then, the nanny issue happened. That dreaded moment when your life literally starts to fall apart: your nanny leaves you. Even though for reasonable and valid issues (looking after relatives etc…), it is still dreadful. Yes, I know, upper-middle class problems all the way, I really shouldn’t be complaining, but it is heartbreaking. It leaves you bereft and crestfallen, like a break up. It feels like your perfectly controlled and stable life is being hit by a tornado and that respectful relationship you’ve spent so much time creating and crystallising is breaking up.

You want to ask them ‘why?’ ‘Don’t go!’ ‘let’s try to make it work,’ even though you know the reasons are valid and understandable and there is no way to fit the needs of both parties. And then there are the children, who believe that your nanny is part of the family and you know that tears and tantrums are around the corner when the nanny leaves. Not to mention the process of hiring the new nanny: finding her, interviewing her, training her, and then finding out that she had other plans/has been hired/wants more money (one friend just told me yesterday that she had hired a nanny for September and 2 weeks before she was meant to start, cancelled on her. We were nanny-commiserating at Nannies Anonymous).

Anyway, nanny searching is stressful, tiring and emotional. But on the positive side, I probably needed a change anyway because my children have different needs, but it is still difficult to let go. She nudged me in the right direction, so here we are, on the edge of the abyss looking down on nanny agencies, gumtree, word-of-mouth, Facebook nanny pages and aupair world.

On a completely different note, I am probably not going to write much on the blog in the near future sadly because I have been working on an exciting project (well, for me anyway), and as soon as it is ready to be public, you will be the first to know. Of course, I may fall flat on my face with it, prove an embarrassment to my family and friends (and maybe lose all my family and friends), but it is something I have been wanting to do for a long time. But most bold and exciting projects are risky and have a large chance of failing (am thinking of all the entrepreneurs whose success rate is less than 10%).

So here we are at the beginning of a new school year, full of frazzled mums and dads doing the school run (myself included), but also feeling really positive, despite my misadventures. Good luck with it all and have a happy new school year!

xx

NHYM

http://www.nottinghillyummymummy.com

@NHyummymummy

 

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