Lunch at Thai Lemongrass Restaurant in Glasgow

Last Saturday we decided to go to Thai Lemongrass restaurant for lunch for a change. We love this place as the food is always excellent, good lunch menu and price, good service, lovely and relaxing atmosphere, etc. We love sitting one of the booths which provide some privacy and cosy atmosphere yet you can still look out the rest of the restaurant so it's not entirely closed and hidden.

We are sitting in one of the booth; view of the restaurant from the booth.

Another view from our booth.

We love their lunch special - for just under £10 you can get starter, main course and vanilla ice-cream. It also comes with yummy thai prawn crackers as appetiser.

Thai prawn crackers and Thai beer.

If you eat meat, you get to try different kind of flavoursome beautiful Thai dishes. All beautifully cooked. We don't eat meat but there are always something we can try from the menu.

We love their Thai fish cake but there have been some changes in lunch menu. We chose Thai fish cake/ vegetable spring onion combo for starter, which come with 2 different types of dipping sauce.
It is actually fish cake/chicken spring rolls combo but because we don't eat meat they tweaked this for us to replace with vegetable spring rolls. They also offered that we could just have This fish cakes, which was on previous menu but we thought we just try this one instead. They were really tasty but I love their fish cakes too much so next time I will ask for just fish cakes.  My husband wants to order Tom Yum Goong (hot & sour soup with shrimp) next time.

We then had Pad Thai noodles - Thai Seafood Stir fry noodle. It had prawns, squids, scallops, lots of vegetables and fried eggs with thin flat noodles in a very tasty sauce. It was very delicious. They also had seafood salad with lettuce wrap on the menu so we may try that next time.  

To finish off the course, you can also get vanilla ice-cream. By the time it comes to this point you would not want a huge portion of dessert so this is just right.

Overall we really had a lovely lunch, which was even better because of being good value for money, in a lovely relaxing atmosphere.
Oh, I should also like to add that this place has passed my toilet check! Every time I go there, the toilet (I can only comment on ladies...) is in pristine condition.

This restaurant - highly recommended!

Nuts about Doughnuts

My older daughter Emily went to Newcastle with her friends the other weekend and came back with a box of doughnuts. But they were not ordinary doughnuts,  they were from Krispy Kreme!!!

Krispy Kreme was first founded in 1937 in Tennessee in the US and is now an international chain of doughnut stores. Their signature doughnut is a glazed doughnut that is traditionally served warm.
They came to UK in 2003 to open their first store in Harrods department in London; this was closed in 2011 however there are appx. 35 stores in the UK and according to Wikipedia, there is a plan to open one in Scotland in early 2013, probably in Edinburgh! Emily thinks there will be a possibility for a store at Silverburn Shopping Mall in Glasgow. Watch for the space!

Back to doughnuts. Emily came back with a boxful of dozen yummy doughnuts from KK.

Top row - Strawberry Gross and Chocolate Sprinkles.
Middle row - Original Glazed, Maple Iced and Chocolate Praline Fudge Cake.
Bottom row - Chocolate Custard, Chocolate Iced and Glazed Raspberry.

Chocolate Praline Fudge Cake

I chose Chocolate Praline Fudge Cake as I love any kind of nuts so nuts and chocolate combination is TDF!  I check their website for information of this doughnut - it is 'rich chocolate cake, hand dipped in milk chocolate hazelnut sauce, encrusted in caramelised hazelnuts and finished with a dark chocolate icing drizzle'.  Mmmmm! Doughnuts!

Just as well the nearest shop is far-away Newcasle, otherwise we would really become nuts about doughnuts and that would not be good for our waistline!

Lunch at Pizza Express

I have not been updating my blog since 10th October 2012. We have now decided not to get a puppy after all for the time being. So I have then started looking for a cat option as they are low maintenance. They can be left alone during the day and no need for going for a walk... I have been checking on internet looking for cats instead of updating my blog, and then discovered 'Maru', a Scottish Fold breed cat in Japan who has become very popular on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uDuls5TyNE). I now want another Maru for our house, but the problem is that I am almost certain that I am allergic to cats. "Do you think I am really allergic to cats?" I asked my husband. He shrugged his shoulders. I am in denial. But buying a Scottish Fold is a huge undertaking as they are not cheap and if I suffer from allergy after all, we would not be able to keep it and that would be a shame for the cat. So, in the end having a cat is also put on hold. My older daughter Emily and her boyfriend Craig now own a kitten, named Bailey. Emily keeps sending me lots of photos of Bailey so for the time being I just looking at those photos instead of thinking of a Maru for me.

Bailey sitting on Emily's legs.

Since we were no longer pet hunting or going around pet shelters, our weekend is back to normal, going for lunch on Saturdays. This time we opted for lunch deal at Pizza Express. I have been getting emails from them all the time, giving me all kinds of deal to entice us to part our money. To be honest we have not been to Pizza Express for a while. We used to go there quite often, especially when girls were small. I remember we organised a birthday party there for my younger daughter, Maria when she was, I think, 8 or 10 years old. Maria and her friends got to make their own pizzas under the guidance of pizza chef and enjoyed their own hand-made pizzas. All then received certificates and mini chef's whites and hats.

Anyway, we decided to go for £12.99 three course meal deal per person.  For the starter, we chose Pizza Express famous dough balls with garlic butter. I also ordered Merlot Rose, which was very nice. I don't know much about wine but it was a gorgeous salmon pink colour with very refreshing taste. I really like that!

We then both had a plate of Classic Giardiniera pizza each. It has artichokes, mushrooms, red peppers, santos tomatoes, leeks, olives, garlic oil, tomatoes and pesto base. It was really delicious!

We then had cheese cake with mascapone cheese each. By then I was getting full. My husband said, "You don't need to finish if you don't want to." I said, "But it would go to waste." He said, "or it would go to your waist!". Very funny... I finished it all anyway.

 My husband then had cappuccino and I had macchiato.

£12.99 per person would be a good deal if you like to have 3 course meals but by the time you add a decent glass of wine and coffee, it's not really that cheap after all. But we did really enjoy our lunch and it was also nice to have lunch somewhere different for a change.

Now, all clean plate and everything I ate that day did go to my waist!!!

Mussels in Brussels!

My husband is in Brussels for business this week. He has just sent me photos of his dinner he had last night for my blog.

Mussels or moules a la marinere is the national dish of Belgium and now is the season (between September and February). This is done in white wine, shallots, parsley and butter, served with side frites (or French fries) and homemade mayonnaise. I heard that Belgians use a discarded shell as a spoon to scoop out mussels off the shells and the juices. There are hundreds of restaurants serving this dish in Brussels, off course. I heard Chez Leon (www.chezleon.be)  is a place to go albeit a bit touristy. Another place is Au Vieux Bruxelles (www.auvieuxbruxelles.com). I wonder which one he went to eat. He has lost counts of how many times he has eaten this dish as he goes to Brussles regularly for business, so he probably does not remember the name of restaurant as long as it's near his hotel and not too touristy...

Moules a la Marinera - where is the homemade mayo???

Cheese croquettes - I guess this was a starter.... 

I shall once day tag along with him to visit Brussels. I definitely want to eat moules a la mariner, Belgian waffles, go to Neuhaus and Godiva for chocolates!!  I suggested to my husband for going there for Christmas Market season but my husband is more like 'bah humbug' and now suggests Barcelona instead - mmmmm this would be a difficult choice as Barcelona would be definitely milder in winter and we love going there.
I will let you know what we decide.

Lunch at Sarti's

Since we returned from our holiday in Sicily, I have not got around to update my blog... as soon as I open my laptop, instead of updating this, I have been busy looking up information of small dogs for a possible family pet for our home. My husband is not convinced - no more holidays in sunny Italy or Spain, instead it would be a daily walkie with a pet dog in British weather that can have 4 seasons in one day!

Neverthless, my husband reluctantly agreed to come with me to visit some dog shelters. We have seen gorgeous white Alaskan Huskies, huge mastiff with adorable face and laid-back rottweiler but all too big for us. Last Saturday, we went to Dogs Trust and saw cute Lakeland terrier that has some serious problem with socialising, which mean that he is too difficult to be re-homed. We also met absolutely lovable 9 month old staffordshire bull terrier, but unfortunately still a big for us and a bit too energetic.
I am now thinking of Bishon Fries or Shih Tzu - they are small, cute and low shedding, AND they don't need much exercise that would suit me! However it is very unlikely that I can find them in a dog shelter so I would need to start looking elsewhere. Search continuous, I declare, while my husband shaking his head in dismay. So, we did not come home with any dog after all.

Anyway, back to main business. Before we went to the Dogs Trust, we went back to Sarti's for lunch. This time we opted for set lunch menu. The restaurant gave us a basket of complimentary focaccia bread to start with, which was really really delicious! We like to dip it into olive oil and balsamic vinegar but sometimes we may have it with olive oil and chilli puree or olive oil with garlic puree...

We ordered 2 glasses of house rose but as this was running out, the Manager recommended us to try something different - we tried this Bardolino rose, Bardolino Chiretto, which was really really nice. (Bardolino is by Lake Garda, north of Italy.)

For main course my husband had a generous portion of lovely mushroom soup and I had roasted red peppers and mozzarella salad, and as usual, the cheese was so soft and creamy it just melted in the mouth...

For main course, we both had penne with tomato sauce with roasted peppers, cherry tomatoes and mushroom and we asked for lots of parmesan on top!

And to finish off, we both had cappuccino. Cappuccino is breakfast coffee so Italians don't have this for lunch or after lunch as it's too heavy. We don't mind and we are not in Italy, so we had it anyway!

To tell you the truth, halfway through the main course I was so full and could not finish the pasta that I actually asked for a doggy bag! Yes, I know, how could I ask for a doggy bag at Sarti's!!! I have no shame ... plus the pasta was really tasty and it would be an absolute crime and shame not to finish it.

So in the end, we did not come home with a doggy but we did come home with a doggy bag!!!