FIRE AND FEATHERS

Sorry for a couple of day's silence on the blog. I travelled back to France from London very early on Sunday morning and wanted to embrace the one family day we had that week. Then yesterday it was a day of unpacking and tackling mountains of laundry. 

But let's get back to London. I really want to tell you about a great, brand new spot on Fulham Road called Fire and Feathers. It's a new restaurant that serves the best ever piri piri chicken. The cuisine is from Portugal, the food delicious, atmosphere casual and relaxed and the bill won't break the bank either.

Let me show you some of the dishes. Some nibbles in the format of garlic carrots. Yummy! I wouldn't eat these on a date though... they are seriously garlicy!

Especially if topped up with these; garlic prawns. Soooo tasty.

Meet the proud owner and my friend, Harry.

Back to the food; a grilled vegetable and halloumi salad. There aren't many things better than halloumi are there?

Some side orders; rice, peas and tomato. I could have eaten the tomatoes as their own dish, they were that good.

And then the signature dish of Fire and Feathers, their chicken. It was unbelievably good. You can choose the level of your preferred hotness. I liked the hottest!

A quick drink outside on the street in the warm summer night. 

And some posing! This is how casual Fire and Feathers is. Jeans are totally appropriate even on a Friday night.

Back to the bar. I have to tell you, they make the most incredible cocktails. And the bar is nice and lively to hang out in.

Bye! I went home with a very full tummy of delicious food.

Well done Harry!

Minna x

FUN FUN FUN IN LPM

I remember doing a post about this restaurant on my old blog many moons ago. I also remember that at least a few readers ended up going there based on my recommendation and very much liking it. So here we go again... One of my favourite restaurants not just here in South of France but possibly just about anywhere in the world, La Petite Maison in Nice. Food is never nothing but absolutely delicious, atmosphere second to none and the service... well it's very good as long as you don't mind that they don't always make you feel the most welcome at the door ;-) Let's not go into details but I guarantee that once you get past that you'll no doubt have an excellent evening. 

The tables are decorated with tomatoes and lemons. Which by the way I always eat... I chop the tomatoes up, cover them in lemon juice, salt and pepper and wolf them down whilst waiting for the actual food.

The most incredibly smooth, creamy and tasty scrambled eggs with truffle. There are no words to describe how good it is. Tastes more of cream than eggs but that's probably where the secret lies!

Another delicious starter, tuna carpaccio.

And dover sole. Pan fried with butter. So simple and so good.

For some reason a lot of restaurants in France get their lighting completely wrong. They seem to love bright ceiling lights, which means zero atmosphere and at least for me ruins the experience. La Petite Maison is the opposite and has it absolutely perfect. 

This particular evening was at the height of the Monaco GP and Cannes Film Festival so it was even busier and livelier than normally but this is what it very often looks like anyway. Especially during the summer they have a band entertaining diners and getting them up on their feet.

We had fun indeed.

And so did everyone else.

As a dessert they carried heaps of fresh berries to our table.

And my favourite ice cream flavour ever; caramel with lots of the gooey stuff.

There are a few La Petite Maisons around these days but Nice is the original and in my opinion the best one. Having said that they're all extremely good restaurants and definitely worth a visit. At the moment there's one in London, Paris, Cannes and Dubai. The Dubai will be seeing me this autumn!! :-)

Minna x

CLOUDY CLUB 55

The weather until a few days ago was on and off... And the forecast could never get it right. This was one of those days that was forecasted sunny and beautiful but doesn't really look like it does it? I think my serious face goes with the gloomy weather. I wasn't complaining though it still wasn't cold and we headed to St Tropez as planned to have another lovely lunch at Club 55.

Little M's outfit was rather colourful that day. I'm still able to choose her outfits but she's starting to have an opinion too. Hence the necklace...

So again we had the fresh veg as a starter to share. Clean, fresh, healthy and tasty!

Their grilled gambas are in my opinion the best dish on the menu. Always delicious. And they're so huge that you can easily share a portion with someone. On the side I had a green salad. It's basically just crunchy lettuce leaves but the dressing, what ever it is, makes it so tasty that I could eat it forever.

After lunch we had a play on the cloudy beach. Clouds were hardly noticed by the little people.

And I got to wear a Zara scarf that I absolutely love. It was a NYC found last month.

Right now the French Riviera is basking in sunshine and there are no signs of grey clouds. The days are getting warmer but the real difference to only a week or two ago is that the evenings are slowly warming up too. Yay! :-) Now if only the camera charger I ordered would arrive so that I could do some up-to-date posts... I manage to loose my charger more than a week ago. It really has disappeared as if the earth has swallowed it. I feel like I'm missing a limb without my camera!

Minna x

ISLAND LUNCH WITH MY NEW BOYFRIEND

Right, after being few days offline we're still in the weekend before last, which was a rather busy one. On Saturday we had lunch in a beautiful restaurant called La Guerite. It's located on Sainte Marguarite island outside Cannes. 

We started off by having a very typically French sharing starter; a basket of vegetables to be enjoyed with a special anchovies dip. I don't like anchovies but I do like veg!

This is what my children ate. Seabass with pasta. Doesn't look that interesting does it... 

But this does! Delicious chilli squid.

Greek salad.

A salmon tartar.

My absolute La Guerite favourite, their octopus salad. Delicious!

The waiters wear the cutest, Frenchest (is that a word?) outfits.

Kids like it there as all the tables are on sand. If you're lunching with little people take a bucket and a spade with you!

Looks like their chicken nuggets were pretty good too!

Right, then onto the main dishes. I have this every time I go there, it's too good to miss. King prawns with chilli.

Someone else's baby chicken, which looked and apparently also tasted lovely.

As a dessert I got a kiss from my little boyfriend. That was definitely the highlight of my lunch!

Off we hopped with tummies full of great food.

We stopped to have a little photo session though! It was still a bit chilly then and a jacket of some sort was needed.

I can't wait to go again! 

You can catch a boat to Sainte Marguarite from Cannes. They run all day long from Laubeuf Quay and take you there in a matter of minutes.

Minna x