August 21, 2015

I Took My Mini-Fashionista to the West Coast Cooler Belfast FASHIONWEEK Launch Event

August 21, 2015/ Claire Spence

Thursday was a glam day for us. As school is still off, Michael came in tow with me to the launch of the West Coast Cooler Belfast FASHIONWEEK. Held in a very cool little venue in Belfast City centre, the launch was jam packed with glamorous, groomed fashionistas; and that was just the men!

Little Michael has accompanied me to events like this before, and I assumed he would be the only child there, or at least the youngest, but another lady had her little baby with her in its stylish pram.

Michael was very excited by the fact there was a frozen yoghurt stand where he got yoghurt and fresh strawberries; he loves a good freebie, just like his mum!

The launch event ran through the time table of FASHIONWEEK, which begins on the 15th October, and you can get all the info about shows and events on the Belfast Fashion Week website.

We got to see some of the key looks that will be showcased at this, the 20th year of our capital hosting a fashion week. I loved the acid brights, but I am also partial to a good tweed. Suede was another of the themes for this coming autumn and winter. Looking forward to October to catch some shows & be inspired to revamp my wardrobe.

These trousers were my favourite piece in the whole show

Suede in all colours will be big this autumn

August 21, 2015

Marks & Spencer Celebrate Tastes of the British Isles

August 21, 2015/ Claire Spence

£4 for these classic pudding inspired sweets

M&S is one of the truly uber British brands that I would miss terribly if I ever moved to another country. Whilst they do offer worldwide tastes like sushi, Indian foods & Chinese delights, what they do really well is finding the absolute best of British farmers & producers products and bringing them to us at a great price. For example the famous Cornish Cruncher cheese, in its distinctive black packaging. Its an award winning cheese that Marks & Spencer discovered and now sell all over the UK.

This summer M&S launched their Tastes of the British Isles range, which covers almost every section of the Food Hall. They have curated speciality foods from every corner of the UK, including classic puddings, regional bakery items and a whistlestop tour of British cheese varieties. It's a range to be proud of, as it shows the world that Britain has such a wide selection of amazing foods and dishes, with tastes for every palette.

Every few weeks M&S invite me along to Sprucefield to pick items to feature on here, so it seemed about time I shone a light on some of the Taste of the British Isles products.

First, the sweet treats. I know any time I want to bring a dessert along somewhere I always head to M&S. The quality of their cakes is far superior to other supermarkets. Saying that, I'm not a huge fan of their own brand chocolate. My Scottish pal Michael advised I bought the giant chocolate buttons, but sadly even those didn't do it for me. I do like their fancy little bars, like the lemon mousse or cappuccino flavour bars, and you can't deny that Percy Pig is the King of the Gummies.

I'm a sucker for a scone with cream and jam & in the fridge section I came across a scone pack that came with both jam & clotted cream. I also liked the look of these strawberry & cream infused scones. All I need is a big pot of tea with these and I'm set.

Scone selection £3 : Pack of two scones £1.35

Whitby buns are doughnut shaped buns with a lemon curd filling. We had tried the berry version last time, so picked the lemon this time around.

I've never seen a blackcurrant Swiss roll before, but if it's from M&S it's bound to be delicious. The little stripe in the cake is very cute and the £2.50 price tag is brilliant value.

I'm not a frequent yoghurt eater, but sometimes I just take a wee notion and have a yoghurt week! I love some of the unusual flavours here, treacle & clotted cream, rhubarb & custard, and as for the 'Sussex lemon pond pudding', well I'm not very sure what that is, but I'm sure it will taste great. There are further flavours in this range I haven't featured, and they are all on offer at £3 for five.

West Country yoghurts 80p each or five for £3

Sometimes you want an after-dinner dessert but not something humongous, so these little tartlets are just the ticket. They are also available in a lemon meringue variety and cost £2.50 or are two for £4 mix and match with lots of other bakery items.

I chose the Eccles cakes not for my own house, but for my Dad. He's been buying Eccles cakes from Marks and Spencer for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately as a child I was put off them for life by my Dad trying to discourage me from eating his supply, telling me they were called 'Flies' Graveyards'. So I can't eat raisins or sultanas to this day, funnily enough!

The Tastes of the British Isles range also has a wide variety of savoury offerings. M&S stock more different types of Scotch Egg than I've seen anywhere else! After the success of the Cornish Cruncher cheese, they've expanded the products its a base for. I picked up this delicious Cornish Cruncher terrine, which will blow your socks off.

The Marks & Spencer cheese aisle is a place of wonder for cheese lovers. If there is such a thing as a cheese enthusiast, then they'll love the range of British cheeses M&S currently has on offer. I picked a twist on the classic Cornish Cruncher, a block with balsamic onions though it. My absolute favourite cheese right now is the Blacksticks Blue variety. They also sell it in a soft spreadable cheese, and I've been known to demolish a tub of it within 24 hours, it's just too good!

Juice £2 : Blacksticks Blue £2.20 : Cornish Cruncher £2.50

And look! Blacksticks Blue sausages! I'm not really sure how cheese infused sausages work, so if you want to see how they turn out, keep an eye on my Instagram as I'll show you how they turn out on there when I've cooked them.

Tastes of the British Isles sausage are £3.50

M&S are famed for their Lochmuir salmon, and these BBQ glazed fillets are perfect for late summer dinners. Served with a big green salad its a good option for healthy eating folks.

If you're feeling more like fish and chip shop style grub, they have a wide variety of different battered or breadcrumbed fish. You can buy family sized packs too.

Finally, also part of the three for £10 deal on meat and fish, how tasty does this gammon look with its ale chutney flavouring? Well done, M&S, always something new and wonderful to try.

August 19, 2015

Get On This! 45 Totally Free Photo Prints a Month & No Subscription Required!

August 19, 2015/ Claire Spence

Free Prints is an app which gives you 45 photographic prints a month, and you only pay for postage. Postage starts at £1.49 and is never higher than £3.99

I ordered 45 prints tonight & only paid £2.50 postage. There is no commitment to print every month, no subscription or hidden costs, and things that do cost extra, like different photo sizes, are clearly labelled.

Picking which photos to print is easy you can sign into Instagram or Facebook in the Free Prints app, and simply select which images you want printed & delivered to your door.

Use the invite code cspence47 and get printing today!

August 18, 2015

Our Summer 2015 Dublin Trip, The Good & The Bad!

August 18, 2015/ Claire Spence

On Sunday, Michael and I drove down to Dublin for one last trip of the summer. We started off early and stopped at Fiveways Diner in Newry for breakfast. Because it was Sunday morning in Northern Ireland, nowhere else was open!

Unfortunately our visit left a bad taste in the mouth. The espresso tasted terrible, and my order, an omelette, took twenty minutes. I think they actually forgot about my order, as by the time it came Michael had long finished his cupcake, and my coffee was gone too. But we hit the road again and our next stop was our accommodation, Phoenix Park Travelodge.

I booked the room back in June and got it for only €40. The hotel was quite easy to find, even without Satnav. Round the M50 ring road and exit on the N3. The Travelodge is on the side heading into Dublin.

We arrived at about noon, and I'm not sure when check in was, but they said our room was already ready if we wanted it. As it was we just checked in and asked directions to get a bus into the city. The car park at the Travelodge is a good size, and free, so we just caught a bus at the stop outside the hotel. Dublin buses aren't like Translink buses on a Sunday, we caught one within 3 minutes. There's a bus along so frequently that the longest time you'd have to wait would be about 9 minutes. Plus it only cost €2.20 for us both to get the bus, which took about fifteen minutes to get into the city centre.

The city was buzzing, and everything was open, not like a Sunday afternoon in Belfast which can be a bit like a graveyard. We tracked down the city centre branch of Yo Sushi! and were excited to see it was unlimited dishes from the train for €20 for adults and €10 for kids.

Michael brought his own chopsticks that Gill kindly sent him last week!

Usually we would be in our element, but this branch isn't owned by the same group as our favourite Belfast restaurant, and the sushi just didn't taste good. The restaurant was quite warm and I think maybe some of the dishes had been circling for some time. Between us, in the end we only ate four plates! That's unheard of! The final straw was when I picked a plate of raw salmon, opened it, to be hit with an awful plastic smell. I tasted it, spat it out and called the waiter. He apologised and said it was the garnish that smelt like that, but it doesn't smell like that when I get it in Belfast. We asked for our bill and left.

In Grafton Street we stopped at the huge Disney Store, it has three storeys & a big Disney Princess section. I forced Michael to pose with Anna, as you can see by the face!

From Grafton Street it's only a short walk to the national museums. As they are closed on Monday, that swayed our decision to do the city centre on Sunday and the zoo the next day. The museums are free, and the natural history one is heaven for me- the most taxidermy I've ever seen.

After the museum we did a bit of shopping, bought some massive cupcakes and snacks for back at the Travelodge, then caught a bus back there. We got back about 5pm, but we couldn't have kept going without being too tired to do the zoo the next day.

The restaurant & bar at the hotel opened at 6pm, so we went there to eat. The menu was basic and straightforward, with a kids' option for €6.50 for two courses. You can eat in or take the food back to your room.

After we ate we headed back to the reception to buy access to wifi. This is via a BitBuzz voucher for €5 which you'll need PER DEVICE, and which lasts 24 hours. This was fairly annoying, as I had reckoned wifi would be free. It was all the more annoying that my ipad couldn't find the network at all. I finally got registered with my iPhone, but found the wifi didn't work while I sat in bed, only when you sat at the table in the room, which made it totally useless. If you're going to charge for wifi, at least make sure it works in all the rooms.

The second problem was the noise. We were in an end room, on the ground floor. We fell asleep crazily early due to our busy day, and I woke up at 930pm to hear someone stomping about upstairs. It went on and on, to the point where I was baffled to what they were doing that you'd need to walk about so much and for so long. About 10pm I went to reception to complain. The receptionist apologised but said they had no other rooms we could move to, but that she would immediately go speak to the person in the room above. I told her it didn't seem like the person was making noise out of badness, or having a wild time, but that it was stopping us sleeping, even with pillows over our ears! The noise died down a bit and we fell asleep.

Until 230am, when the person was up and about again, walking and walking. Off to reception again in our pyjamas to ask the receptionist to knock their door again. The noise stopped and we slept.

The Travelodge we stayed in was the Phoenix Park branch, so in the morning it only took us ten minutes to drive through the park and to the zoo car park. We arrived about 1030am and because of the beautiful weather, it was already becoming quite busy. There was a very short queue for tickets, then we entered the zoo. A handy hint to avoid crowds, everyone heads off to their left when they enter the gate. We chose instead to head to the right and visit in an anticlockwise direction. It meant the first hour it was very quiet, even though the zoo was packed.

Dublin Zoo is a completely different experience to Belfast Zoo. The animals have bigger territories, more places to escape from the public eye if they wish to, and just a lack of moments where you think 'that poor animal shouldn't be in somewhere like that', which I'm afraid happens more and more often walking round Belfast Zoo.

Also there are barely any hills! To walk Belfast Zoo you have to tackle Cave Hill, which can be exhausting. Dublin Zoo also has more toilets, cafés, vending machines etc along the way. We stopped halfway around at The Cove Cafe and got two kids' meals of chicken strips, chips and a drink for €6.50 each. They were quite greasy, so if you want a healthy option I'd bring a picnic.

Another point to note is you'll need coins for the vending machines if you want to buy drinks on your way around. The zoo doesn't have any ATMs, but you can get cash back in the Meetkat Restaurant.

So we had a lovely time at the zoo, then around mid-afternoon we headed back out of Dublin and hit the motorway, stopping at Applegreen's for coffee of course. We also stopped in Dundalk at Marshes, then arrived home about tea time, tired but happy.

August 11, 2015

The Search For The Perfect Espresso Con Panna: Part One

August 11, 2015/ Claire Spence

My discovery of the existence of the espresso con panna came about last week, the morning of the Premier Inn Purple Sauce launch media event . Despite being well versed in the blogging freebies philosophy from an early age, for some reason Michael was coy about taking a bacon sandwich, or drink, so while I had a bacon bap & big cup of tea, he requested to go get a cookie afterwards instead. We had to wait around until 11am for Yo Sushi! to open to get our takeaway to take home anyway, so we went to the Caffe Nero on Anne Street where he got a giant slice of chocolate fudge cake. I was full of bacon and tea, but wanted to get something to drink to occupy me while Michael attacked his cake, so I spied the espresso con panna, and thankfully for the coffee ignorant like me, a description of what it actually was underneath. Two shots of espresso topped with whipped cream. It sounded good, and it tasted good, and it was teeny enough to fit in after by giant cup of tea just half an hour before. Plus it was only £1.90, which seems cheap for a coffee chain where big, sugary coffees are over £3.

And so my experiment unwittingly began.

My next place to try their version of the espresso con panna was local coffee chain Bob & Bert's. Again the drink was printed on the giant wall menu, but the two staff members said literally no-one had ever asked for it before! This led me to Google the drink when I got home, finding out it's actually a very old fashioned coffee option, which was around before other lighter drinks such as cappuccinos and lattes.

At Bob & Bert's there was a small or medium size, which I'm guessing just meant one or two shots. It was served in a cute little glass this time, and was just as good as Caffe Neros.

On Saturday, I was rushing around doing messages before my son got back, and stopped into my local Independant chain Coffee Cure, which has several branches in Bangor, including the restaurant at the heritage centre. I live very close to the original flagship branch on the Rathmore Road, so I popped in to see how their espresso con panna held up.

This time it wasn't on the menu, so I just asked for two shots of espresso with whipped cream on top. They made the cream up fresh, and it was really thick. I forgot to get a photo, but it was good.

The final contender in part one of my search for the best espresso con panna is every coffee snob's nemesis, Starbucks. I love Starbucks, and Michael loves Starbucks, although we rarely go as it's just so bloody expensive. Luckily the espresso con panna was not only on the wall menu, but only £1.90 and apparently only 37 calories. I'm not sure I can really judge Starbucks fairly, as I got the drink to take away, and with all the other cafés I sat in. Why this effects the outcome is that by the time I drove round home with the drink, the cream had completely dissolved into the espresso, so it was just like a tiny strong coffee with a splash of milk in it. It definitely wasn't good, but I might give Starbucks another go sitting in with it next time.

So far I think the best version has been the original, Caffe Nero. But I've plenty more places to try, so watch out for part two!

August 10, 2015

Could You Stomach These Sushi Doughnuts?

August 10, 2015/ Claire Spence

The sushi continues. Bored yesterday I searched for all the posts on Buzzfeed about sushi, and these caught my eye. So if you hate sushi could you still eat these doughnuts? Or would you forever be tainted by imagining raw fish? I'd be willing to eat a tray, just to make sure of course...

Some photos from the Buzzfeed article, the rest from good ol' Google.

August 08, 2015

Battle of the Belfast Sushi Takeaways!

August 08, 2015/ Claire Spence

I was talking about sushi over on Facebook and my friend Claire recommended I try Sakura on Botanic Avenue in Belfast next time, rather than Yo Sushi! Michael & I had actually been to Sakura twice a number of years ago, when they were the only place that had a sushi train in Northern Ireland. It was so long ago I couldn't even remember what it was like to compare to our staple Yo Sushi! takeaway boxes. So I picked up a big twelve piece box for £16.50, at Sakura, and a large salmon & tuna box for £7.50 from Yo Sushi!

Top left £16.50 box from Sakura, top right is a little sushi mix bowl from Yo! which costs £1.50, bottom is the £7.50 Yo! large salmon and tuna box.

Firstly ordering at Sakura was trickier than Yo! because there aren't really premade boxes or pick and choose from. Secondly the menu to order from doesn't have images of each piece, and even though we get sushi often I still don't really know all the names of the things I like, or don't like. I know what a hand roll is (I'm not keen on them), California rolls and maki, but everything else is always ordered with a point at the picture on the Yo Sushi! menu.

So even though the Sakura takeaway menu is more extensive than the Yo Sushi! one, I was a little flustered at what to order and in the end just asked for the large selection.

Compared to Yo Sushi! pieces, Sakura sushi is almost twice the size. I can eat a whole box of Yo! takeaway in one sitting, but I only managed five from the Sakura tray. They give you tonnes of wasabi, soy sauce and pickled ginger too.

Generous amounts of ginger & wasabi with the Sakura box

Tastewise I think Sakura is closer to what you might get in a traditional sushi restaurant in Japan, whereas Yo Sushi! is more of a westernised version of the food type, which I think I prefer. You can't say that Sakura portions aren't generous, in fact I've no idea how I'm going to manage to eat it all this evening while the raw fish is still good!

After my Sakura experience I think I'll stick with Yo Sushi! at least for takeaway boxes for now. I think Sakura would be better for sitting in, so that's on my to do list. Now what am I going to do with all this fresh sushi?? I'm off to hunt for some lose trousers with an elasticated waist band....

Buy me one of these and I will love you forever

August 08, 2015

Bangor's Hidden Gem for Bountiful, Beautiful Breakfasts

August 08, 2015/ Claire Spence

I say Bangor, but more correctly the Cairn Bay Lodge guesthouse is slightly on round the coast in picturesque Ballyholme. I don't know about fellow Bangor West dwellers, but I often forget there's a beautiful stretch of water with rows of colourful Victorian houses and a beach walk way, just a short drive away on the other side of town.

Recently I've been slowly drip fed these gorgeous photos of kitsch interiors, smashing sea views and the odd picture of a plate of mouth-watering grub, on my Facebook timeline. The account behind these tempting photos was Cairn Bay Lodge, a guesthouse overlooking Ballyholme strand. So Michael and I decided it was time to make a trip over town and visit The Starfish Cafe ourselves!

Parking is free and plentiful on the road outside the Lodge, and the cafe spreads through two rooms, with plenty of seating. We visited at 11am-ish and it was busy, but we had a choice of seats.

The interiors were what tickled my fancy initially to prompt the visit. Absolutely splendid interior design, with taxidermy, fairy lights, prints by my very own logo designer Handdrawn Creative Neal McCullough and retro pieces which give the whole lodge a vintage feel without being tacky or gaudy in the slightest. It's kitsch done the North Down way.

The menu all looks delicious, with lots of seafood and high quality produce sourced locally. I went for French toast with mascarpone, crispy bacon and maple syrup. Michael just wanted some icecream, as he had had breakfast at home. This wasn't on the menu, but they kindly gave him a big bowl of vanilla icecream and only charged me £1. We also had coffee and fresh orange juice. The food was excellent. I was really impressed. If you are local and want a really good quality breakfast, or to impress a visiting guest, The Starfish Cafe at Cairn Bay Lodge is the hidden gem of a eaterie you're after.

For our four items I think we paid around £11.50 that's a little more than breakfast elsewhere, but the produce is very high quality. Next time I visit, probably this week coming, I want to try one of the crab dishes.

I had told the owners on their Facebook that we would be calling so we had a brief chat after eating. They are a lovely couple, who's names I didn't remember, I'm sorry! But I can imagine staying at the Lodge would be just as plesant as eating there.