The Criterion - Piccadilly, London

We are in the last week of February and the memories of my sunny Barbados are long forgotten. We are back here in London where it is a celebration when the sun decides to grace us with its warmth and allows us to see where we place our feet as we walk to and from work. Winters in UK seem to be longer than anywhere else on the universe and to forget about the cold and gloom, some prefer to down alcoholic drinks while others like me attempt to dine in places that make us think that we are transported in some European mainland location.

One such place is the Criterion restaurant in Piccadilly, London. Up until now I had not realised that the Criterion was also a restaurant as all that can be seen is the adjacent theatre … the Criterion Theatre.

Up stepping into the small unassuming brown doors you are immediately taken aback by the luxurious décor of the room (click here to see the interior). The lights are very low in the entrance area where people can have drinks. As my friend and I left our coats and extra bags at the cloak room, one of the waiters was called to take us to our seats in an area that had a much better lighting. Looking closer, the decors, it did reflect by its opulence the period it was built in. With all its gold lines on emerald ceilings, the bronze statuettes, multiple cutleries and glasses for each settings…This is only the second time ever that I felt that I was not in my place.

The restaurant is on he left

Having never been in the Criterion, a quick check on the website made me conclude that it was a high end place and as a part time chav, I should make an effort to not appear lost it the beautiful décor and clientele. I was already using a special offer and not dressing appropriately could get us thrown out… just never know with places where the head chef is French.
The waiters were very courteous, that made us feel relaxed and welcomed. We were brought the menus and asked what we wanted to drink and that is when I had to make it clear that we are using a special offer from Topstable.com. For some reason the head waiter had some real difficulty understanding that we were using a special offer that it included a free cocktail. I had to repeat in 3 different occasions… well, they placed the offer there… Had it not been for the offer I would have known there was a restaurant there for one and I wouldn’t have thought I could afford to eat there…

For my starter I had the Blakeney Point mussels with cider very lightly seasoned… with nothing to write home about, but the nice touch was the bowl of water that was brought to rinse our finger as we ate the mussels. Loved that.

My main: Salmon, Samphire, beetroot

My main was a melt in the mouth pan fried salmon steak with a puree of beetroot & horseradish and steamed Samphire which I really enjoyed. I only discovered the Samphire, a stringy vegetable last year and had never tasted it before. It was a nice surprise to find it on my plate although I could have read the menus online beforehand. The portions served where just the right quantities to fill you up without weight you down. My friend had a just right and again beautiful steak that was cooked to perfection… she likes her meat “well dead”.

Our desserts arrived just 5-10 minutes after the plates for our main were cleared away. Mine was a Mini brioche calvados presented with blackberry sorbet which I thoroughly enjoyed and cleared my plate.

We ended up spending £68.00 instead of the £50.00 expected, but it was a well worth experience. One lesson I am learning again and again as I visit various restaurants is that, there is no place you cannot afford. Do not judge a restaurant by it outlook, use special offer, go in and make a note to visit it again if you can afford its full prices. I certainly enjoyed the Criterion and will go back.

If you do go, tweet me your thoughts @beenthererevs.

Thank you for reading J

IS your next stop Barbados?

 So, you have decided to go to Barbados few things for you to do.


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      1.     Find a travel companion unless you like talking to yourself or have balls.

2.     Book your flight with Dial-a-flight, they are a great travel agent if you are on budget. Ask for Marion, she is a star.

3.     Get you Bajan (Barbadian) dollars from Marks and Spencer’s, they have the best exchange rate and I have been using them for 12 years.

4.      Do also have some US$ with you too just in case you have over tipped and ran out of cash. Both the US$ and the BD$ are used on the island. I do not recommend using UK£ there at all. Plan to change £300.00 in total. the exchange rate on 30th December 2013 was BD$3 for £1.00 or BD$2 for 1US$.

5.      Book yourself in a hotel with a restaurant. That way, you will not starve before having spotted your favourite hangout. Eat light or you will feel lethargic all the time. If all fails, there is always a KFC around the corner.

6.      If your hotel is a good one you will find a free copy of "Barbados in a Nutshell". Get drink, seat down and go through that guide as IT is really in a Nutshell.

7.       Visit Bridgetown, it is mini America and most good duty free bargains are there.

8.      Use all 3 types of buses and go anywhere randomly. Just make sure that you know where to catch the bus back and the name of your hotel. Try not to travel too much by private car or taxi, you will no get to mingle with the locals!

9.       If you like rum, book yourself  the Mount Gay tour or if you are curious about cotton check out the Cotton tour

10.   DO the catamaran trip and snorkelling. You will not regret it. The captain IS a comedian and you will have rum on tap during the outing. Info here http://actioncharters.org/home/cruises

11.   Eat FRESH fish at Pat’s Place in Oistin, Christchurch

12.   For goodness sake’s do not eat a full English or chicken in the Caribbean’s… what’s the point of going away to eat what you eat at home?

For the rest? Just let your head down and let that beautiful fine white sand play in your hair you are on holiday enjoy it. Oh, and try to catch a sunrise before 6am (pic on top), be also generous with the birds (pic below).

 

Have you enjoyed the series? please post a comment or tweet @beenthererevs

See you soon

Barbados, Barbados - Part 2/3

Thank you for coming back for more about my trip in Barbados. See last week’s post if you missed part 1/3…

Public transport:
On the second day my travelling companions and I decided to try out the public transports and venture out of Christchurch to Bridgetown… Barbados offers and excellent public transport service and you can go anywhere from BD$2. There are 3 sorts of buses; if you want to get up close and personal with Bajans, get the ZR white buses, where the music is blasting and you are in danger of having someone seating on your laps. Bajans are generally very patient and helpful. Because of that, we could easily get anywhere we wanted to get to. Bus stops (ALL) have girls’ names and do not indicate the location or town name. So you will have to rely on the other passengers to tell you where to get off… if you are shy, you will have to get out of your box if you want to go around Barbados without getting lost! I loved the bus trips!



Butterfly beach resorts beach

Beaches:

There seems to be a beach every 20 houses or so in Barbados, but, the one I kept hearing about was Miami Beach and the Accra beach where you could bring picnics and also buy drinks. My hotel’s beach was good enough, convenient and practical enough for me not to walk too far while wet. And I could always pop to the bar to grab a drink if I needed to. My hotel is just on the other side of the coconut trees on the picture above.




Blue sky from under the coconut tree

The Stiletto catamaran and staff

 Exploring:

The icing on the cake other than the beautiful wedding I attended was the snorkelling trip… Oh my gosh! You cannot, I repeat, CANNOT go to Barbados without taking a trip on the Stiletto Catamaran (above pic) to feed the turtles and visit the shipwrecks deep in the sea. Before I got on to the Stiletto I could not see myself left alone and holding nothing in the deep sea. But the staff of the catamaran was so patient; I was literally taken by the hand and helped in the sea by Sean who was as patient as a saint teaching a kid (40yo kid) to swim. The trip on the catamaran, the snorkelling, feeding the turtles, see the shipwrecks underwater, lunch and buckets loads of alcohol cost BD$175 and it is worth every penny.


View of another catamaran at sea

Fresh fish:
A place you might want to check out while in Barbados is Oistin. Oistin is located in Christchurch and it is where it is at on the Friday night. There is a centre stage with a giant boom box and people willingly expressing themselves on stage with at times extreme twerkings or random ballet moves. Oistin is also the fresh fish home where hundreds of shacks offer you grilled or deep fried fishes lobsters, shrimps and others. Since we did not know what we were doing on our first visit to Oistin we picked the worst shack to have our dinner. Not only were we served frozen fish, half of the accompaniments were not available and then, the waitress was pressurising us for tip… It wasn’t funny at the time and I didn’t want to be the one in the group rising issues with the service again.  I had already done the night before by refusing to pay the service charge on a BD$70 bill because of the poor service in a restaurant uptown.



No queues at Pat's on the Sunday

After our dinner we were joined by more friends and discovered Mr Bellamy fish shack where the boss himself did the grilling. I sat down again tried the barbecued giant shrimps and my mouth still waters at the thought. Just a day before I left Barbados, we discovered the freshest of fresh grilled fish tent in Oistin and it is Pat’s place. Where they do not hesitate to make you taste the fish so that you can plan to have your dinner there… Pat’s place is opened on the Sunday, but on the Friday night the queue is unbelievably long. I now know why.My last day in Barbados was a very rainy one which forced me to rest a bit before the trip home. The transfer coach was much better and in within the expected standard; clean, modern, air con and chatty driver. The Check-in at the airport was quick and having watched many times a TV programme called “Nothing to Declare”, I had made sure not to travel with anything that may cause the UK border force to strip search me. One thing I did learn is that, you cannot travel back from Barbados with more than 1L of Rum and you cannot enter the UK with creamy baked good bought on the Island.


And if it all goes wrong KFC is there for rescue!

If you are planning to travel there, get your change from Marks & Spencer. 600 Barbados dollars are enough for a 5 days trip. Duty free stuff are really really cheap there, but you will need your passport and return trip details in order to benefit from the discount in Bridgetown Malls. UK and EU citizens do not need a visa to enter Barbados so, you can just up and go.

I really enjoyed my time in Barbados and I think 5 days is just the right amount of time to spend in such place to keep it fresh and enjoyable as every day, there is something new to discover.

Enjoy your time there if you are going and do make time to play in sand and sea. Don't worry about getting the sand in your hair... Be free!

 Cio!

 Is your next holiday location Barbados? Check in next week for the checklist. Thank you for reading!

Have you enjoyed the series? please post a comment or tweet @beenthererevs

Barbados, Barbados - Part 1/3

Caribbean sea view by my hotel

In my wildest dreams the Caribbean was never going to be a destination I would plan to visit. Early January last year a friend called me to invite me to her wedding and it was going to be in Barbados! We were still in the New Year resolutions period and I thought “why not?”  Then there I contacted Dial-a-flight and Marion one of the agents whose customer service is second to none.

Marion within 24 hrs sent me few holiday break options and payment plans. She also made sure that I understood everything event two days before the trip… I call that an Excellent service and would recommend Dial a flight to all those who are travelling on a budget or not.

For my trip to Barbados, I opted for a 5 days 5 nights full board, travelling with Virgin Atlantic and lodging at the Butterfly beach hotel in Christchurch, Barbados. I paid £1450 including flight, accommodation, insurance and transfer from the airport to the hotel.


My room at the Butterfly Beach Hotel 1

Upon arriving in Barbados, the immigration and custom process was fairly quick and I was out of the airport within 30 minutes of landing. The transfer coach was waiting for passengers lodging at the Butterfly beach. My first annoyance came as we boarded the coach. The driver reluctantly helped me to load my luggage in the coach which, was unclean and smelly. The driver wasn’t the most welcoming and having paid what I had paid, I was already ticked off, but gave him a BD$10 tip still.

My room at the Butterfly Beach Hotel 2

The hotel was very welcoming and the receptionist surprise surprise was from London. My room was as big as my whole flat in London. It was located on the 1^st floor with a side view of the Caribbean Sea.

The first thing my travel companions and I did after leaving our luggage in our respective rooms was to check out the restaurant and take a walk on the beach… It was just a privilege to be there at this time of the year when in London it is so cold.

View from my room

Our first dinner at the restaurant of the hotel was just average as we all realized that the fish wasn’t fresh. But the sound of the waves beating the sidewalls of the restaurant gave a great atmosphere to the evening.

My first Bajan breakfast

The next day, the breakfast provide included the full English breakfast, fried plantain fish and fresh fruits. The bread was the regular white brown and granary slices we find in the UK… no sign of the spiced bread or things like ackee and salt fish, slices of papaya or watermelon I was dreaming of… by the time I had my second dinner at the hotel, I had concluded that I would not have what I imagined in term of Caribbean cuisine from the hotel… then again the silver lining is that I will not put on weight.. innit?

Stopping here for now… check in next week to read about the great stuff I did and my quest for fresh fish!

Arrivederci!