Picasso

Kings Road is not a good place to have a meal without proper planning. If you went there on a Saturday, with no idea where you were going to have your lunch, you would be just like us, wandering up and down the road like a bunch of lost sheep. At some point in time, we got so sick of the search, we just went into the nearest restaurant and had our lunch. The place was called Picasso and even though, it was situated along the bland row of fashion chains populating Kings Road, it was surprisingly good. Home cooked Italian food, rustic, simple and wholesome. I had the marinara, spaghetti with clams, prawns and squid. It had a rich tomato sauce, a sauce with actual depth unlike the stuff they serve at Cafe Nero and an enormous helping of seafood. M had the penne ragu. She said that it tasted just like the way her mom cooks it. So I assume thats good. So a good discovery in the middle of exorbitant shopping land. Unfortunately, the food left me extremely thirsty while I waited for M; she was doing her usual window shopping so I guessed they must have added a great deal of salt into the food. When we got home and ran an Internet check on the restaurant, we were amused to find that it is one that Gordon Ramsay frequents.

We also went to the Chelsea Farmers' Market. I was expecting something like Borough Market but as M puts it, its not even a real market. Its just an area with some shops and thats it. We went to an organic supermarket there(L, you will love it) and bought some organic icing sugar and caster sugar for our planned attempt to make carrot cake tomorrow. (Fingers crossed(Edit: sadly it didn't turn out that well, we will try again next week) I bought some white tea as well. I am really going into a tea craze, I have green tea, white tea, some flower tea and earl grey in my cupboards and I even bought a teapot today from Habitat. It was quite a good bargain, 6.80 pounds for a Bodium teapot with a detachable compartment for the teabags/tealeaves. Oh and I finally bought a coffee mug to replace the one I broke for my coffee machine.

For dinner, we ordered takeaway. Our very first takeaway meal at our London apartment. Not too bad, we actually resisted getting any takeaway for almost three months. But the craving for greasy Chinese food became too much for us to overcome and so we ordered it. I was also too lazy to cook anything for dinner after our day out. So we ordered from this restaurant, Taste of China, Chicken fried rice, King prawns and broccoli on crispy noodles and salt and pepper prawns. The chicken fried rice was good, the classic taste of takeaway fried rice. M had a huge craving for it. The crispy noodles was unfortunately not crispy anymore but the sauce was alright. Similarly, our prawns weren't crispy but again, the taste was the one we were looking for. Conclusion: the food is alright if you have a craving for greasy chinese food but the delivery time was too long for it to be a really good meal. That said, we might order from this takeaway again, dishes that would not be affected by the delivery time.