London restaurants

Serious Seafood at Bonnie Gull’s

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[UPDATE 31 January 2020: This restaurant has permanently closed] My wife and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary yesterday at Bonnie Gull in central London’s Fitzrovia. This British seaside town inspired seafood restaurant is ranking roughly #100 out of 20,000 London restaurants on Tripadvisor. It has been receiving glowing reviews all over the culinary community without exception and we did not regret our choice.     The interior and exterior design already instil a warm, understated, pleasant atmosphere when you enter the tiny dining room from its Foley Street entrance, and despite the lack of space, narrow paths between the tables, and direct proximity to your neighbours and their conversations, we felt thoroughly comfortable. The waiters and waitresses are very friendly and immediately made us feel welcome and at ease, even though, in our experience on that day, they might not have been extremely well trained, but that’s ok (remember, […]

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London restaurants

Bleecker’s new London Burger Joint, Victoria

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We recently checked out the new (opened earlier this week) Bleecker Burger in Victoria, after having heard good things about their Spitalfieds take-away and their food truck.  Timeout London ranks the Spitalfields operation #1 burger place in London. LOTI (London on the Inside) called their burgers ‘undoubtedly among the best in London’, but we would agree to disagree. We tried the cheeseburger and the Bleecker Black (double beef, double American cheese, black pudding, onion and sauce) with a portion of their apparently famous ‘angry fries’ (fries with hot sauce & blue cheese sauce). The blood sausage goes real nicely with the Black, but we’ve had tons of burgers during the past few months that by far outshine the taste of this one. What’s really put us off is the small size that comes with an unheard-of price tag of £14 for Black and angry fries. For that type of money […]

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Australia, Hiking, Sydney, Travel

Rose Bay to Watsons Bay Walk

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From Circular Quay it’s only a bit over ten minutes by speed catamaran to Rose Bay, the starting point of one of the most spectacular walks we’ve done in Sydney. The walk follows the coastline from Rose Bay to Watsons Bay all of about 8km distance with only a few exceptions, when the path is a bit further inland. More than half the distance is through light woodland, so that you are not fully exposed to the sun, and there are several cafes and picnic stops along the way.       From nearly all points you have beautiful views of the city and the harbour and of the many ships and boats in between. The vegetation is abundant and we saw many lizards, cockatoos, kookaburras, rainbow lorikeets, parakeets, butterflies, and other colourful birds and animals.       After about two hours and a half, despite many stops to shoot photos […]

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Australia, Hiking, Sydney, Travel

Taronga Zoo to Balmoral Beach Walk

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This walk has become one of our classics each time we visit Sydney and not a single trip to this town has passed without us doing at least one Taronga-to-Balmoral walk. It follows the twisted coastline around peninsulas and bays through thick subtropical jungle and shrub along beaches and on top of cliffs.        Taronga Zoo is very easy to reach from Circular Quay by ferry (it’s the first stop if you’re on the right ferry). The zoo itself has been on our list for a very long time to visit with our niece (my wife’s brother’s daughter, who lives in Sydney with her parents), but somehow we always get carried away with lots of other activities and haven’t managed to take her to the zoo yet.    Today we saw many very large lizards (the largest one probably 80cm in length from nose to tail, and very […]

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Australia, Hiking, Sydney, Travel

Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk

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We had done the walk before, but it is always great fun to walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach. The walk is about 6km long, but feels longer, because it is usually rather crowded, so you can’t walk at full walking speed, and it does go up and down the cliffs. With all the stops to shoot some pictures, take a rest, sit down at one of the various cafes along the route to rehydrate or have a coffee, and considering we happened to have picked the hottest day of the year (38.8 degrees, hottest day in Sydney in 2016), it took us a very pleasant three and a half hours from start to finish, serious walkers can easily complete the walk in less than one and a half hours. If you choose to walk all the way to Maroubra, then you should add another one and a half […]

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