Immersive Dining: The Chambers Uncovered

Have you ever tried an immersive dining experience? The Chambers of Flavour describes itself as "inter-dimensional gastronomy," created by Gingerline, and is a fascinating dining experience which before today has been kept entirely secret.

Normally, the entrance to The Chambers of Flavour is concealed and diners must follow clues to find the 'X marks the spot' to enter the Chambers in London. Then all phones and cameras are locked away before the diners enter the experience. I love the idea that the dining experience is completely secret - all diners are sworn to not reveal the inside of the chambers and, impressively, all diners keep their secret.

However, I was lucky enough to be invited to the exclusive reveal to press of The Chambers of Flavour and photograph the dining experience for the first ever time. Although I love the secret nature of the experience, it can be a little scary to commit to a dining experience without any idea of what it promises. The Chambers officially closed yesterday and I'm excited to be able to share the entire wacky, wonderful and bizarre experience with you all.

Each course is held in a separate room with a separate theme - each designed by a different art director for a completely different feel. The experience began by sitting in a sled, which was pushed through a tiny tunnel...into a woodland wonderland. We hunted in the treetops for our appetiser; micro herbs and raw vegetables, parsley dressing and truffle infused tapioca pearls.

Next, we jumped through a hole in a tree to reach the soup course; 'motor oil' soup, served by a crash test dummy mime artist. For the main course, a waiter poured dry ice onto the table and our host burst out of the curtains to entertain us in the grand Victorian surroundings straight out of a horror movie. We then burst into a ball pit, where we were handed gin by a pirate (although I still don't why it wasn't rum!) in a plastic water bottle to drink whilst we slowly sank into the blue ball pit; this and the starter were my favourite rooms. 

Finally, we were seranaded by a drag queen air hostess in a aeroplane cabin before being served my favourite course; delicious mango and green tea profiteroles, accompanied by a strawberry gazpacho and chocolate soil. To escape, we slid down a metal chute, bursting confused and elated back into the real world. It truly felt like stepped back into reality after disappearing down an Alice in Wonderland-esque rabbit hole, full of wonders and surprises. 

The entire experience was engaging and great fun; it's a real 'in it together' meal where you enter in the fantasy along with your fellow diners and it's definitely more suited to confident people as there's plenty of opportunities to volunteer and take part in the room's various scenes. The experience is completely unique - and impressively, the food is great quality too; the Chambers are a dining experience first and foremost and the flavour combinations were delicious and clever. 

If you're looking for something unusual and unique, Gingerline are a company worth buying tickets for. Although the Chambers are now closed, Gingerline is not - they've got plenty more exciting events in the pipeline including a revamped Chamber of Flavours arriving in late 2016. Check out Gingerline for details on their latest event - a new batch of tickets will be released today at midday but you need to be quick! I can't wait to see what they do next!

Jess

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Coffee - what else?

A few weeks ago, I had a complete disaster of a weekend when my trains to Leeds and Manchester for a job interview and some exciting blog events was cancelled. I headed home completely fed up with public transport and quickly tried to make some alternative weekend plans. Luckily the wonderful team at Joe Blogs came to the rescue when they added me onto the list for a coffee event with Currys PC World and Nespresso in London - my weekend was saved and, better yet, filled with coffee!

The event was created to introduce a hoard of bloggers to the wonder of the Nespresso machine, a product you might be aware of thanks to those George Clooney adverts - what else? At home, I have a Tassimo machine for my coffee or I go old-fashioned and use a cafetiere. I hadn't tried a Nespresso machine but it was really easy and I thought the design was slick and modern. Although the initial machines are more expensive, the coffee pods are actually cheaper so we were assured that a Nespresso machine is actually cheaper over time - something to think about if my Tassimo ever stops working!

We were rotated around various stations, including coffee tasting, latte art and cocktail making. For the first time ever, I actually didn't drink the cocktails at a blog event as they simply weren't to my taste - crazy! I would have loved to have made an Espresso Martini or a combination of coffee and Baileys, so I was a little disappointed by the cocktails we were offered; one rum-based and one whisky-based. The only spirit I can't drink is whisky and my attempt at the Kraken rum cocktail failed miserably - I'm clearly not going to become a bartender!

If you do want to try the Vanilla Sky (as my only objection was the whisky and I'm sure the cocktail itself is tasty) simply combine these ingredients in a cognac glass:
50ml Black Label Johnnie Walker Whisky
50ml Vanilla Gomme
1 Dulsao do Brasil Espresso pod
100ml cream
If you try it, please let me know what you think!

If you want to read more about the event, check out Currys' blog about the day here.

Have you entered my competition to win Sue Perkins' awesome auto-biography Spectacles? Enter here before Friday 18th December!

Jess

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A City Break in Southampton and London

As you many know, two weeks ago I finally completed my Masters’ degree and handed in my dissertation. It’s something I’ve been working on all Summer and I feel so relieved, but admittedly slightly lost, now this huge part of my life has been completed. I celebrated the end of this chapter in my life by heading to Southampton and London for a weekend and although I documented a lot of it on Instagram, I wanted to share some of my highlights in a more detailed post.

As soon as I had handed in my dissertation, I headed briefly to Southampton for dinner and drinks – I didn’t get much of a chance to explore but I loved the docks and would definitely recommend Banana Wharf if you are looking for somewhere for a special meal. For breakfast, I had a huge and delicious ice-cream from Sprinkles, then I travelled to London for the weekend. I loved having the time to play tourist and explore some places I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time. Cocktails at the Aqua Shard bar were definitely a highlight; I’ve been ticking off my panoramic skylines throughout the world and although I have headed to the top of tall buildings in to New York, Paris and Rome, I hadn’t yet got a chance to get a good view of London’s skyline. The Aqua Shard is free entry, as opposed to the £30.95 fee to get to the top of The Shard, although if you want to drink, a cocktail is a pricey £16, plus a service charge. However, the views were incredible, particularly at sunset and I loved admiring the skyline as I sipped on a luxurious cocktail.

The following day, I spent most of my time in Shoreditch, pretending to be hipster and trying out some places I’ve wanted to visit for a while. First on my list was The Blues Kitchen, an American blues restaurant known for its food and fun events. I chose the Pig ‘n’ Biscuits for brunch, which you can see above, and it was amazing; pulled pork, eggs, hollandaise and bacon bits on top of traditional Southern ‘biscuits,’ a scone-like base for the perfectly cooked eggs and delicious pulled pork. Then, I headed to a rather unique café; the London Cat Village. Now, I am most definitely a dog person and if a puppy café ever opens, I will be the first one there. However, I actually surprised myself by how much I enjoyed the cat café. For £4, I got to spend an hour playing with cats and I have honestly never felt more relaxed. There were a huge variety of cats and even adorable kittens, and every animal was alert, friendly and loving the attention. I’ve spent the last few weeks showing everyone I can the huge amount of photos I took on my phone and if you head to London for the day, I would definitely recommend it as a fun and relaxed thing to do.

I recently discovered the YPlan app, which is great for seeing what’s on in London that evening, the following day, or at the weekend. London is so huge that I can often find it so overwhelming I end up doing things I could do anywhere, like heading to a chain for lunch or shopping. Thanks to YPlan, I not only discovered the London Cat Village but I found out that the London Festival of Heat was on and I headed there for a taste of chilli and culture. Although it was frankly overpriced for a food market at £8, as it would have certainly been free up North, I still enjoyed myself and had fun challenging myself to try the hottest sauces on offer (in as small a quantity as possible of course). Now, whenever I head to London, I know to check YPlan to see what’s on and make the most of my time there.

I really enjoyed my weekend in London and having the time to explore the city. I packed so much more in than I was expecting and I can’t wait to carry on making the most of the capital whilst I work there part-time and get used to the commuter life. I love UK city breaks for a weekend of travel without the need to hop on a plane and I'm excited to share my recent weekend in Birmingham with you all too!

Where would you recommend to visit in London?

Jess

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Review: Homeslice Pizza

London is always brimming with so much to do and as a food lover, whenever I head there I always try to tick off somewhere new to eat in The City. A few weeks ago, I joined Hayley for the Aldi and Tesco Christmas press days and also had the chance to catch up with Erica, Shaun and Mike; it's always nice when the people you know from the internet are also lovely in real life! I was more than happy to rely on the locals' choice for dinner and so we headed to Homeslice in Covent Garden. I enjoyed it so much that when I headed back to London with my Mum this week, I wanted to introduce her to the wonders of giant pizza...

A gigantic 20" pizza at Homeslice is just £20 and there are some amazing unique options to choose from. If you can't decide, you can even choose a half and half option. My Mum and I opted for half goat shoulder, savoy cabbage and sumac yoghurt and half anchovy, olive and onion. Both were completely delicious; the base was super thin, crispy and perfectly seasoned and the toppings were such good quality. For me, the star of the show was the goat shoulder; strong, meaty and falling to tender pieces. I would have never have thought to put cabbage or yoghurt on pizza but it worked really well, creating a Moroccan array of flavours. The anchovy half reminded me of Greece; the salty anchovies paired brilliantly with the olives and the small amount of cheese meant the pizza wasn't overwhelming. The entire thing was huge but we gave it a pretty good go and I was left feeling completely stuffed but very happy!

Another fun thing about Homeslice is the drinks. When we enquired about wine, we were told that we would be served a bottle from which we could drink as much as we liked and we would be charged for how much we drank. Intrigued, we chose the white wine and did not expect the size of bottle which arrived! It was probably about 2 litres worth and certainly very dangerous if you were in a large group. As we didn't know the price, we only had one glass each, which worked out as £4 per person, and we were very proud of our restraint! Personally, I don't think that's a bad price for wine in a restaurant as the drinks are normally the part of the meal which is more expensive. When we wanted to pay, the waitress brought out a ruler and physically measured how much we had drank to calculate our bill. It was so bizarre and certainly a great quirky way to enjoy some wine!

Homeslice is a must for a friendly, sociable meal with friends or family. I love the casual, relaxed feel and the way of serving wine is simply brilliant. Although there are moments when I would quite like a knife and fork, being able to dig in and demolish the giant pizza with your hands is part of its charm and sometimes you just want to get messy with your meal.

Have you tried Homeslice? Where else do I need to add to my 'to-eat' list in London?

Jess

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Sweet Treats: Bea's of Bloomsbury

Afternoon tea; it's one of my favourite things. Who doesn't love sharing some tea, cake and scones with friends? I recently headed down to London to see some old housemates and of course, we had to catch up over some afternoon tea. After some researching, I discovered Bea's of Bloomsbury and for £19, I knew that we had to try it out:

The photos don't quite do this afternoon tea justice - I wish I had taken far more, but I got distracted and just dug in! I normally find that the sandwiches are the weakest part of an afternoon tea, but I loved the crispy miniature baguettes. The ingredients were fresh and tasty and my favourite was a salami and cheese combo. The scones were a good size and texture - you can't really go wrong with a good scone!

What I loved most about this afternoon tea was the interesting 'sweet' parts to the three tiers of food. We were treated to three cupcakes between the three of us; a tiramisu cupcake, a strawberry flavour with colourful sprinkles, and finally a chocolate cupcake, They were all delicious, light and fluffy, and the flavours were perfectly balanced,

Finally, the top tier was my favourite of the bunch; a mini selection of bite sized treats. This included three different types of brownie; one chocolate, one containing nuts and another white chocolate version. Alongside, there were some homemade marshmallows (if you haven't made these, you should because they are fantastic) and miniature meringues. The chocolate brownies balanced out the sweetness of the meringues and marshmallows, meaning that although we were very full, we weren't in a sugar coma like my rather less enjoyable Mad Hatter's Tea Party in York.

I thought £19 was great value for a London afternoon tea - unfortunately these things are much more expensive down South! For the price, we were treated to an interesting and varied afternoon tea and I would definitely go back again. The flavours of cupcakes and sandwiches were different for everyone so you would have a different and enjoyable experience every time.

Have you tried Bea's of Bloomsbury? Where else would you recommend for afternoon tea in London?

Jess

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