Guanabana - a taste of the Caribbean -

Salam and good day readers!

I am a foodie that loves to try on different type of food. I especially love to try food from other countries.

Today I went to a latin and Caribbean style cooking restaurant called Guanabana located at Kentish town. To go here, you can either take the Northern Line towards Camden Road and walk from there or take the C2 bus from Oxford Circus station and stop at Hawley Road.

This restaurant is also nearby another halal pan-asian restaurant called Bintang. we shall talk about that restaurant some other time. hehe...

As we came, the owner and workers greet us with Salam which was very nice. The inside does make you feel a bit like in the Caribbean because it's quite hot.

There are many ranges of delicious cuisines to choose from. 

Their specialty however, is this...

 

Chargrilled half-jerk baby chicken. It's kind of like peri-peri chicken, but with a Caribbean twist. Their gourmet burgers also looks delicious and big!

So, i ordered the chicken with a side of mash potato. 

This mash is also unique because they added feta cheese, which is a type of greek cheese either salted or pickled that add a little tangy taste to the creamy mash.

Numerous choices of drinks as well. the best thing is, all these Caribbean drinks like the mojito and daiquiris are non-alcoholic which means...we (muslims) can drink it! How often does that happen?

I ordered the Mango passion daquiri which was delish!

My bestie ordered Mango mojito which I think was da bomb! You can taste all the different ingredients like lime and mint together with the mango. Superb!

We went to eat here as a farewell lunch for our dear friend, Li Sia who's going back to Malaysia this October. This'll be our last meal together in London...but it won't be our last period! haha...

So the grand total is....*drumroll*

It's not that bad right? You will surely leave with a full stomach. 

We do recommend this restaurant for all you foodies out there. Give it a try. It's worth it! This'll be an addition to our food destinations. 

Until next time....

Anima D' Italia

Salam and good day y'all!

One of the downside living abroad is that you can hardly find a good halal restaurant. Most that you'll find are fast food.

So, when a friend of mine talked about this place in her fb, I immediately go and have a try myself. I have always loved Italian food, so this place was like match made in heaven for me.

Anima d'Italia is located between Whitechapel and Stepney Green tube stations. It is directly opposite of Sports Direct whitechapel.

The restaurant is very cozy and has a nice decor.

The food is reasonably priced and of course affordable for students like me. They have various choices in the menu from appetizers, main and desserts.

Appetizers

I ordered the mozarella sticks. It's a good appetizer to order before a heavy meal. It doesn't fill you up as much but it does fill a grumbly stomach.

I've also tried the funghi fritti con salsa de uova which is fried mushroom that they rolled up in balls and their rissotto which is very nice too. The rissotto is quite creamy, so only order them if you're very hungry or able to put on a lot of food.


Main

There are various choices of pasta for the main. If you like cream sauces, you can order the carbonara which is excellent! I can hardly find a good carbonara nowadays. A lot of restaurants made them runny as if the pasta was immersed in mushroom soup. But the carbonara here is certainly value for your money.

I've also tried the Rigatoni chef. But It's not really to my liking because the Rigatoni pasta is just too big and the sauce is too filling.

You should also try the Linguini mediterranean which is to die for. The taste is just excellent and the dish includes king prawns, zucchini, rocket salad and lightly added with marinated tomato.

There is also Pollo funghi which is chopped grilled chicken added with mushroom cream sauce. The taste is delightful and not too filling. The price is very cheap as well.

I would also recommend the Gamberoni Picante which is King Prawn cooked in chilli and tomatoes. However, this dish is quite small in portion because you'll just be eating the tiger prawns with a small portion of sides. But the taste is wonderful. If you like something a little spicy, this will be your choice.

If you like grilled meat, there are choices of grilled sirloin steak, lamb and chicken with potato and salad sides.

Dessert

There are also various types of desserts to choose from. The most that I would recommend is the tiramisu. To be honest, I don't like it as much because I have tasted better. But my friends all loved it and the presentation is very unique too.

You can't say you've tried italian food until you tried panna cotta. It's vanilla cream, infused in italian custard and it's served with berries and preserved sugar. It is marvellous!!

Drinks

There is no alcohol served in the premises and no alcohol allowed. There are many ranges of drinks to choose from mix fruit smoothies and juices. All of them are highly recommended.

This restaurant is one of the places that I'll bring my out of town friends among others. The food is definitely value for money.

Enjoy!

Until next time....

  

Malaysia Night 2.0 (2014)

Salam and good day people!

Spiderwebs in my blog yet again...huhu...sorry about that. I've been busy with my dissertations and vivas...etc...etc..

Now that I'm free!!! Let the stories begin!

The most recent event, that actually just occurred..I mean..seriously...like 3 hours ago...was

MALAYSIA NIGHT!!!

This was the first event that I went as I came to London. My aunt (the one that owned a restaurant in Chinatown) was the one that told me about it.

This year, the event was held a bit early, on 26th of Sept, unlike last year was in October.

The best part is, this year I get to go with my bestie!! hehu~

Because I've been here last year, and I got a taste of most of the Malaysian restaurants in London, my cravings for the food was not as overwhelming. We mostly just browsed around to see what's out there. My aunt was involved in this year's event as well.

Matrade and Tourism Malaysia booth. You can take a picture with KLCC in the background.

Roti King presents freshly made roti canai!!

Food..food...and more food!! Food stalls everywhere. Well...we are famous for our delicacies.

This year, the stall that I'm mostly interested at is the food market. hahaha...When I first came here, I didn't even look twice at these food products. Now that it has been a year already, these products are most essential! I just looked though, because I'm coming home soon anyway. It'll be a waste if I bought it.

This year, instead of giving out canvas bags of the event, they give out these cute little 'bunga raya' clips. It was very unique and really does show people here our national flower.

We then went to my aunt's stall to buy some dinner. We weren't really that hungry, but surely we will soon enough. So before the crowd gets bigger, it was better to just buy something.

Nasi + Ayam masak merah...nyum3.. We sat at the fountain while enjoying a the performances at the stage. 

Remember last time I said that I had to pray just about anywhere because they didn't provide a proper prayer area for the muslims. This year was the same, which is sad. But, we're more proactive this year because we are more experienced. huhu...

My bestie asked the people at the Tourism Malaysia booth and asked where we could pray. At first the lady just said to pray at the booth because that's what they did. She then asked her colleague just to be sure, and she said we can go to the Tourism Malaysia office which is very near to the Trafalgar Square (where the event took place).

Last year we thought of doing that as well, but obviously it was already after 6, so we figured the office must be closed. Such noobs...=P

This was taken after prayer..of course. =P

So, we went to the office and push on the intercom. A guy came and let us in through the side door. The prayer room was located downstairs. There's just one room though. I'm not sure whether it is shared or not.

A typical Malaysian loo needs at least this water jug. huhu...It was also very convenient that they have this area specifically for ablution. Nice!

  

Those two white lines were supposed to be arrows. I'm too sleepy to correct them. Just pretend you can see.

 Alhamdulillah, after we performed our prayer, we went back to the event. Usually at night the performances are more happening. It's like a huge party!

There were singing...

and dancing representing the multi-racial and cultural side of Malaysia. It was very fun to watch.

They also held a lucky draw with 2 return flights to Malaysia!!! Whaaaaat??!! I didn't win though...a guy that was actually has been living in Malaysia until last year got the prize. Lucky him. They also gave out hampers for 3 more lucky winners.

Before we went back, we bought some light snacks form Pak Awie. Love it!

If I'm here again next year...will add another version here. haha...

Until next time....

Leeds-York Trip

Salam and good day readers!

Post-dissertation syndrome! hahaha...However, unlike many others, my bestie and I didn't go to various places for trips such as euro trip etc. We only managed to go to Leeds and York.

We decided to go to Leeds after raya, when we visited our friends in Sheffield, they had plenty of Tefal pots and pans. They told us they bought it at Junction 32, Leeds where it is cheap!

I have a few friends that I know who's studying in Leeds, so I called one of them to ask whether we can stay. We didn't plan to stay there for how long, on the count of we didn't by any return tickets. =P

Once we've arrived, a friend of mine, Nad picked us up at the station. She brought us around the city. There's a market next to the bus station. The market kind of reminded me of 'pasar malam' in Malaysia.



After that, she took us for lunch at Charco's. It's almost similar to Nando's.

Then we took a walk around University of Leeds. My friend needed to go to her office to settle some stuff. This is the great hall, where they held graduation ceremonies.

Beautiful right?

Parkinson Building. Don't know what it's for. I make jokes about the name too...hahaha..=P

This building is located directly opposite of the Charco's restaurant.

My friend is studying PhD in Engineering. I've always wondered how engineering lab would look like. Now I know. hehe..

This is her office. Nice right? It's a new building. They just moved here early of last year.

Flight simulator. According to my friend, it's open to all students and staff. How cool is that!

This is her office's building.

Just a building nearby. What significant about it is this pic...

!*&%&%*&!^&^!!! Crazy to be putting this statue here. What's worse is it's location is opposite of a cemetery!

There's not a lot of graves here anymore, just a bunch of dandelions.

This is a crypt. Can you see the writings on the footpath?

It writes the name of the people who's graves used to be here.

This tree is a grave too.

Of a teenage boy that died on 2001. 

If you can see, this tree is white!

This building is near the great hall. The end of our tour, we took this pic. weeee...

Multiple me.

The next day, we decided to go to York after listening to a lot of testimonies from various people in Leeds that has actually been there. They have a designer outlet in York, which was humongous.

Before we went to the outlet, we went to some sightseeing around town. A friend of ours told us to go along the city wall which was there since the Roman times. 

The wall literally enclose the city of York. 

The wall is located just opposite of the train station.

This monument was nearby too.

The wall kind of looks like the great wall of china. huhu....

The wall is 2 miles long!

Chak!

The weather was super nice for a walk on the wall.

ugh...I'm too short. =P

This is what the city wall looks like in the map.

Hello!

Photobombing!! hahaha

Tea break on the wall after quite a walk. fuhh~~

Don't look down!

This is where we're headed to, Clifford's Tower. It's part of the York castle. 

There's a bridge that we have to cross before reaching the tower.

It was originally built by William the Conqueror. In its time, the tower has served as a prison and a royal mint, as well as the place where Henry VIII had the bodies of his enemies put on public display.

You can read them all here. =D

There's an entrance fee of £4.30/adult. We didn't go in to go to the top because our sole purpose is to shop. huhu...we'll come here again insyaAllah..

York is such a nice town in the countryside. They don't have a lot of Muslims here as compared to London. So we definitely stood out there. hehe...

Ye Olde Fire Station

Then we took a bus to the designer outlet. There's a direct bus near the tower (No. 7).

Once we've arrived, we searched for Tefal outlet. But there wasn't any. So we just walked around.

There's a lot of designer shops here. Some people say it's very cheap, but not to us. It's still pretty expensive for us, so we just ended up browsing around.

We finally found a kitchenware shop that sells Tefal brands, but it wasn't as cheaper as the one that can be found online. So we decided to go to Junction 32 at Glasshoughton. 

We took a train to Junction 32. It's fairly cheap from Leeds that costs about £2.78 with railcard. My face looks terrible because I'm having a nasty flu at this time.

The outlet store is located very near the train station. You can see immediately as you arrive.

Some of the stores are similar as to the ones in York, like Clarks, Cotton Trader etc. But I find that the stuff here are a lot more cheaper than in York.

I managed to grab this thingy for my mum.

And some pots and pans for my future house here. hehe...

We also went to Cadbury outlet and grab these cheap chocolates, each cost £1 and £1+!!

After that we went for dinner at Pizza Express (which I will tell in a later post).

I can barely open my eyes this time. Sooo sleepy.

We stayed at Leeds until Sunday. On Saturday, a friend of mine from Birmingham invited us to go to their friend's house nearby. Her friend will be arriving later, so they (being such good friends) decided to clean up and prepare her house for her and invited the neighbors for 'bacaan Yaasiin'. 

She cooked some Tom Yam (Yummy!) and the dessert were made by a friend who's house I'm staying at.

From left, Zahirrah, Nad (my friend who's house we're staying at), Ina (my friend from Birmingham), Su (just met her here in Leeds), me. =D

After that, we just went home. Not a lot of pictures in this trip because i forgot to bring my camera. hahaha...

Until next time...