lifeofyablon.com

by yablon | February 13, 2013

Honey & Co: like bees to a honeypot

the small but perfectly formed Honey & Co

small but perfectly formed Honey & Co (AA Gill wearing the purple jumper)

I am so tempted NOT to write about last night’s dinner. In fact, I am even unsure as to why foodie friend disclosed the location of such a gem – bearing in mind the odds were high that I might tell you all about it. But she is a generous soul and I must be too. Because here I am about to tell you a HUGE secret.

But before I do, please do promise me that you won’t go. Honey & Co seats a mere 20 bottoms and the café-restaurant only hangs its OPEN sign for dinner Tuesday – Saturday. As it turns out, AA Gill and his not-so-blonde-anymore were sitting next to us so the likelihood is that all those Sunday Times readers will be fighting you for a seat in this perfect, Middle Eastern foodie heaven anytime soon…

all hands to mezze

Run by a husband-and-wife team (she is his honey!), this is – without doubt – where the best hummus with spiced lamb is served in London. He and I are potty about the lamb being just the right ratio to the hummus. Together with our friends, we grazed through a mezze of falafel with green tahini, marinated feta, homemade pickles and itzik salad. The bread, well, here my readers is a selection of bread I would gladly buy bigger jeans for…

Honey chatting to her guests

Now, I can dine easily with my husband but cooking with Him would, without doubt, rock our boat. But Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer make it look easy. They are both such smiley, outgoing characters and seem to enjoy checking that their handful of tables is enjoying their creations. The Israeli couple has spent the last eight years cooking in various London restaurants including Nopi and Ottolenghi but now, with their own place, they are really living their dream.

lamb/chickpea stew at Honey & Co

For main, two of us had the Tripoli style (beef and lamb) meatballs which had been baked in a spicy-sour tomato sauce (£12.50) while the boys had the potted lamb, chard and chickpea stew (£13.50). Plates were spotlessly clean before they were cleared.

chestnut cake with salted caramel sauce

I had been pre-warned about the deserts. The chestnut cake with salted caramel sauce was probably my favourite but – to be honest – we ordered one of each and wouldn’t mark any of them as less than outstanding.

So, there you have it. You can’t go and if you do, don’t order dessert, don’t tell your friends and don’t take my seat. I’m already planning a return visit – maybe for breakfast this time…

We ate the set dinner menu £29.50 per person which includes the mezze, a main and a dessert.

Honey & Co. 25a Warren St. W1 020 73886175

mud glorious mud @BeautyWorksWest

Susie Rogers, Beauty Works West

Back in 2005, Susie Rogers had an idea. Her Pilates clients were persistently picking her beauty brains as she flicked through her little black book of dermatology. London, quite frankly, needed its first medi-spa and she was put on this planet to open it.

Keen to try out Beauty Works West for myself, but NOT keen nor brave enough to lean too heavily on the medi-side-of-things, I opted for a GUAM body wrap (85mins/£125).

Aggi was probably my favourite therapist over my long 14 months of beauty reviews. That’s quite a claim, I know. She possessed ALL the qualities you want and need when being scrubbed, smothered in mud, wrapped in cling film and roasted in an electric bed. She was honest, funny (without too many gags), thorough, informative…

roast me at Beauty Works West

Anyway as she rolled me in mud, she disclosed a small nugget of information: there was no shower on the premises. But, I wasn’t concerned. Aggi had 100s of hot towels to make sure I didn’t sport the new-mud-look as I returned to my car on Westbourne Road.

The treatment was MUCH more relaxing than it sounds and I definitely felt slimmer, detoxed and smooth-skinned afterwards. If you have a little black dress to squeeze into anytime soon, book this treatment immediately.

Here is my interview with Susie:

How do you relax at home? In front of a log fire cuddling my boyfriend and dog and with a book.

What or who inspires you in business? Smart women who take chances, find a niche and go for it.

Jimmy Choo biker boots

How do you persuade clients not to over-botox? By offering alternatives, such as Dracula Therapy with Dr Sister .

Do you face pack at home? Yes, once a week, by order of our therapists.

Who is your beauty guru? Any confident intelligent woman who is not over surgically enhanced: Vivian Westwood, Helen Mirren, Penelope Cruz, and, of course, Audrey Hepburn.

Social media or local pub? Neither – friends round for dinner .

Latest fashion purchase? Jimmy Choo Biker Boots, perfect for the country and London.

Body range as a prize

Tell us your beauty secret. Youth, our food supplements, help with hormonal aging. All the creams, treatments and make-up in the world won’t make you look beautiful if your hormones levels are failing.

Beauty Works West 8-9 Lambton Place W11 020 7221 2248

COMPETITION: Beauty Works West has extremely generously given me a set of their Body range (anti-aging cream, body treatment cream, body and hair oil & sugar cane scrub)to give away to one lucky reader worth a whacking great £135. To enter this competition all you have to do is sign up to my blog (top right of homepage), follow me on Twitter and RT the picture of my muddy legs on 26th Feb! The lucky winner will be selected randomly on 27th Feb 2013.

2 Comments

Filed under beauty, prizes, shopping

by yablon | February 11, 2013

LORE: the untold story of WWII

Saskia Rosendahl in Lore

I have gone and broken the cardinal sin in blogging. Well, at least in film reviewing. It’s been a month since the press screening of Cate Shortland’s film, Lore, and I still haven’t written my review of it. Usually this would mean some serious head scratching and digging around online for inspiration. But the story of this young teenage daughter of an SS officer set at the end of WWII has neither faded nor confused in my memory.

Quite the opposite, in fact, I have thought a great deal about the film over the last month. Despite there being factually little in this story I wasn’t aware of, I felt completely and utterly affected by this tale of shattered innocence. Lore, in an outstanding performance by Saskie Rosendahl, is left responsible for her younger siblings as they journey to their grandmother’s home just outside Hamburg. Painfully, she begins to absorb the horrors her father and his collaborators are responsible for and we witness the guilt she bears on behalf of a nation.

Kai-Peter Malina as Thomas in Lore

The plot intensifies as Lore and her siblings are joined on their journey by Thomas, a Jewish survivor from one of death camps. Her initial attitude towards him is instinctively with prejudice (as this is all she has seen at home). Again, this makes for shocking viewing as we are reminded of the distinctly animalistic manner Jews were treated by the Nazis. But her adolescent emotions soon surface as the young couple are attracted to one another.

the untold story of Lore

But the real ingenuity of director, Cate Shortland’s work is that the film is the absolute reverse of ALL other WWII aftermath films. The victim here is German and, from the way the film is shot, we experience her pain intimately as she tried to comes to terms with her heritage. I soon realised that her journey to her grandmother’s home is simply a metaphor for the deprogramming of the German nation in the dying days of the Third Reich.

Some say that the story of the Holocaust is never told and it is true that Shortland has here certainly shown us a new angle. This is a beautifully brutal film and one which you should see, even if you think you have seen enough of the atrocities of Nazi Germany. One month in and I can still see her serious, austere 14-year-old eyes in the face of fascism.

Lore opens on 22^nd Feb in limited cinemas nationwide.

rum’s the word at Rum Kitchen

Lone Star, Barbados

Back in October 2001 (only weeks after September 11^th 2001), fear was at fever pitch and flights were cheap. But He and I weren’t put off. Having just got married a year earlier, quite frankly, the tantalisingly cheap, long haul fights were appealing. So off we set for Barbados with another fearless couple of friends in tow.

While we were there, we ate regularly at a Caribbean beach shack called Lone Star. With its eclectic menu and relaxed atmosphere, it was a perfect place to hang out after a long morning doing a whole lot of nothin’.

the bar at The Rum Kitchen, All Saints Rd

And this is what I half expected from the most recent addition to All Saints Road, The Rum Kitchen. Anyway, it needed to be chilled. The Red Head has had more stress (in the love department) than she needed and, despite being horizontal now, I needed to keep her that way. Rum would do the job.

Grog 349 – I knew rum would do the job

Ironically, The Rum Kitchen is yet another success story from the team behind Ping, which I incidentally had reviewed with the Red Head and her (at-the-time) Him. Either way, a local night out with a few reggae tunes, some jerk chicken and a good old catch up was in order.

We had a Rattle Skull Punch and a Grog 349 (both £8) while we perused the brief menu. I mean, how many choices of jerk does one need? (cue more irony).

Our mains, Curry Mutton (8.50) and Spiced Up Chicken Supreme (£14.50) satisfied our hunger. But, was it soul food? Well, it’s not the most attractive food I’ve seen on a plate but clean the plates we did.

spiced up chicken supreme at The Rum Kitchen

The Run Kitchen’s West Indian interior impressed us much – and I’m NOT usually one for themes. But the shack’s oil-drum tops and beach benches worked a treat. Downstairs we checked out the rum cellar where we found no lack of the sugarcane beverage. Things hot up down here post 1030pm (when the whole place becomes a private member’s club) and, from what I hear, DJ Fast from The Fun Lovin’ Criminals spins the vinyl.

the rum cellar downstairs boasts 100 different types of rum!

In the heart of London’s Caribbean community, I spy a winner. It’s fun, casual and is only lacking a beautiful Barbadian beach at the front.

The Rum Kitchen 6-8 All Saints Rd, W11.

oh and The Red Head has just taken her jewels online. Go check out!

lifeofyablon.com

Honey & Co: like bees to a honeypot

mud glorious mud @BeautyWorksWest

LORE: the untold story of WWII

rum’s the word at Rum Kitchen

Subscribe for Life of Yablon

Recent Posts

Categories

Twitter

Recent Comments