I live about 20 minutes away from the town of St Albans, a gorgeous city full of adorable coffee shops and amazing looking restaurants, all of which I want to explore more of. And last week I was invited along to experience one of St Albans newest Thai restaurants, Busaba, and was invited to their launch night, doesn’t that sound fancy? 

Enjoying the perks of being the boyfriend of a food blogger, I brought along Chris with me to the opening of Busaba, where we were both greeted with a glass of bubbly. Looking around the restaurant you could see it was full of hussle and bussle and excitement for the opening, with a DJ playing music, and an artist creating art work to be displayed in the restaurant. 

Once we were shown to our table we were greeted by the head chef who presented to us a sample of four dishes to try from their menu while we decided what to eat. The dishes were designed to be sweet, sour, salty and spicy and were a great sample to the food we were about to taste at Busaba.

As it was the opening night they had a sample menu available for a few of their dishes, as well as a few signature cocktails. For my starter I decided on the Thai Calamari, which came with ginger and green peppercorn, and gosh did it taste amazing – a nice twist on a normal calamari dish.

Chris, who’s a little more adventurous with spicy food, picked the Som Tam – green papaya salad, dried shrimp, peanut, cherry tomato and lime. I’m not one for spicy food, but Chris loves it so it wasn’t a surprise he picked out one of the spiciest things on the menu. It was fiery dish, with lots of flavour – perfect if you like something a little hotter.

When it came to picking a main there was no competition from me, I had to pick the Tamarind Grilled Duck. As a big lover of duck dishes I was excited to see what the Thai take on this would be, which came with Chinese broccoli and sticky rice. The duck was cooked absolutely beautifully, and the tamarind sauce really complemented the flavours of the duck.

Chris once again decided to pick out the spiciest dish, and opted for the Pad Kwetio – flat rice noodle, smoked chicken, king prawn, shitake mushroom and sweet potato fries. As it’s another spicy dish, and I’m a wimp with spice I didn’t pinch any of Chris’s dinner, although I may have pinched a few sweet potato fries, which were oh my, amazing. 

All in all it was a lovely evening, and the whole atmosphere of the opening night was wonderful. If you looked around the restaurant you could see tables of people enjoying the food and cocktails on offer, and overall looked like it was a successful opening night. Not having experienced proper thai food before, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the food, but I feel like I know a little more about the flavours from a Thai dish now, and I’m looking forward to heading back to Busaba to try some more soon!

I’ve always been a girl who loves her food, but recently I’ve had a much bigger interest in food, which you may have noticed on my little blog. Since I’ve moved out of my parents house I’ve been cooking a lot more, I’m still no Gordon Ramsay, but I’m enjoying experimenting. As well as cooking my own food, I’m also enjoying the cooking of others a lot more too. When it comes to eating out I’m usually quite boring, and I tend to stick to big chain restaurants where I know what I like, but lately I’ve been trying to get out and explore more of what’s on offer around me and where I live. 

Hitchin is about 30 minutes away from where I live, and is a gorgeous town that I really need to explore more of. And tucked away down one of the side streets, is a cute little bar that serves cocktails and food, called The Snug. I’ve walked past The Snug a few times and I always thought it was more of a cocktail bar than anything, but recently they invited me to come and try out their new menu so I was excited to experience what their food was like.

As someone who loves cocktails and food just as much as me, I decided to bring along my friend Jen, who’s actually been raving about their St Albans branch to me for a few weeks now. Once we arrived we were given choice of where to sit, and as it was a quiet Tuesday evening we had plenty of choice. We chose to sit in a quite corner, which was decked out with super comfy chairs and fairy lights, it really did feel quite snug. There were a couple of others eating around us, and a few groups of people enjoying some cocktails, but the atmosphere felt relaxing and cosy, a lovely place to come and visit.

There was a huge cocktail menu for us to look through, and each page was broke up into different sections; gin, vodka, whiskey etc. At the moment I’m going through a bit of a love affair with gin, so I chose a Hendricks Summer Garden, while Jen chose a Cherry Jack. Lucky for us, The Snug had a happy hour on 2 for 1 cocktails between 3pm and 9pm, so there was a good opportunity to make our way through the cocktail menu.

When it came to looking at the food menu, I spent just as long trying to decide what to eat as I did what to drink, there were so many delicious sounding options. In the end Jen and I decided to pick one of the small dishes each and share them between the two of us, so we picked the mozzerella chunks and houmous and wholewheat pitta. I’m a big fan of cheese, but the mozzerella chunks were something else. They were perfectly chewy, and the breadcrumbs made them really crunchy. The pitta and houmous was equally delicious, and came warm and toasty. 

When it came to deciding mains I knew I had to have a burger, the problem was deciding which burger to chose as there were so many interesting burgers to chose from! I love burgers, and 95% of the time if they are on the menu I will order them, so I always have high hopes for a good burger, and these certainly didn’t disappoint. In the end I picked the snug burger, while Jen chose the texas ranger, and of course we both decided to have sweet potato fries. I was amazed once our burgers came out of the kitchen, because wow, just look at them! These were quite the monster burgers, and boy did it take a while to tackle them. The snug burger was a classic bacon cheese burger, with onion rings and house burger sauce in a brioche bun, and was honestly the most delicious burger I’ve ever tasted. The mix of the sweet bun and salty bacon was wonderful. The texas burger also came in a brioche bun, with BBQ sauce, black bean and onion rings, and was equally as delicious.   

Despite stuffing my face with the worlds largest burger, Jen convinced me to get pudding. We both decided to get a sundae, I picked an Oreo one and Jen picked a brownie one. I wish I was better at describing food, because my oh my were these delicious, and were the perfect ending to our meal.

Once we finished eating we sat for a while, mostly because we were too full to move, but it also gave us a chance to enjoy some more cocktails in the cosy relaxed setting. The Snug was a lovely place to visit, and I’d highly recommend if you’re in Hitchin or one of their other locations.  I’ve already got plans for another visit! 

*I was offered a meal at The Snug in exchange for this review, all thoughts are my own

A few months ago way back in July during the middle of a heatwave, my friend Gemma invited me out for afternoon tea at Moggerhanger Park. She wrote this amazing blog post on the experience, and because I’m a terrible person who can’t write about things after they’ve recently happened, I’m writing about the whole experience now, in October. Well done Lisa.

Can we just talk about my love for afternoon tea for a second? I’m a big fan. Give me tiny sandwiches, cakes and a pot of tea and I’m beyond happy. Since two of my friends introducing it to me a couple of years ago for my birthday it’s now my new favourite thing to do. I will find any occasion to go for afternoon tea, and I even hunted one down in Manchester for my mum with her many food intolerances at Sugar Junction, that’s just how much I love it. So when Gemma mentioned that she hadn’t gone for afternoon tea before and asked if I wanted to join her, you can just imagine how excited I was about this.

I hadn’t been to Moggerhanger Park before, even though it’s on my own doorstep in Bedfordshire, so I didn’t really know what to expect from the whole experience. But when we pulled up we were greeted by lots of happy looking roaming sheep, and the beautiful main house. It definitely looked like the perfect relaxing atmosphere that Gemma and I needed for a well-deserved treat.

Once we entered the main house we were escorted to the courtyard, as we decided to sit outside and make the most of the British summer. However we decided to pick a table without an umbrella shading us, so it did start to get a little warm! We were then provided the largest jug of cold orange juice which was exactly what we needed on this hot afternoon, and I had a massive pot of tea to myself because I’m a complete and utter tea addict.

The afternoon tea itself was made up of delicious-looking scones complete with clotted cream and jam, cake, macaroons, tuna mayo and BLT sandwiches, oh and did I mention, the most amazing cakes?! Seriously, just look at the cakes. I have a complete weakness for millionaires shortbread so I was beyond pleased to see we’d been offered some. The scones were also made perfectly, not too crumbly or dry, and absolutely delicious.

 

Gemma and I both like our food, but boy there was a lot of it, and with the boiling sun we were starting to struggle, so we had to admit defeat. The whole experience was amazing, being able to have a couple of hours with a friend to chill out in such a beautiful setting with delicious cake, it’s certainly something Gemma and I need to do again. If you’re looking for somewhere beautiful for afternoon tea, I can’t recommend Moggerhanger Park enough, it was such a beautiful location, and if you don’t stuff your face on cake like I did, you can take a lovely stroll around the grounds afterwards.