I'm spoilt: lunch at The Cube

So yesterday my colleague Grahame Morrison, web editor for KBB, made my winter by telling me he had wangled places for me and two other colleagues to have lunch at The Cube. For those not in the know, The Cube is the pop-up restaurant to end all pop-up restaurants. It's actually a self-contained restaurant 'pod', which has been touring Europe, and seats up to 18 for a blow-your-mind dining experience. It's currently moored on the top of the Royal Festival Hall, and each week a different Michelin-starred chef has taken up residence to cater for the ultimate dinner party.

I've wanted to go for absolutely aaaggggesss, but couldn't justify the £175 (lunch)/£215 (dinner) price tag. Which is why I literally danced round the office and squeaked in delight when Grahame told me he'd got us in. Yes, I know. Jammy journalists.

Cooking for us yesterday was Tom Kerridge, of Hand & Flowers fame. This was also mega exciting as I'd actually seen him on Masterchef just last week. You don't get to see the menu before you go - it's kept back right to the end of the meal, when you're given an autographed copy to keep as a memento. Every course was introduced by Tom himself, and we were able to mingle with him and watch him work throughout the meal.

So what did we eat?

To start with, we were treated to champers as we hung out on the roof terrace (despite the sub zero temperatures), admiring the view of the river. The south bank is my absolute favourite part of London, so it was a real treat to be supping champagne and scoffing canapes while gazing out. Here we are getting excited about our imminent gastrofest...

Our first course (of six!) was a delicious pumpkin soup, with king oyster mushrooms, blue cheese and garlic butter. Thick and heartwarming, it would be the perfect thing to eat on Bonfire Night! It was baked 'en croute' with a pastry lid which Tom cut into, and removed, so that we each got a piece to dip into the soup.

Next up was all the meat from a pig's head, rolled into a little croquette-type thing. I baulked a bit at the pig's head bit, but Tom ensured us that it didn't contain any ears or eyeballs, just the flesh around the head. It turned out to be a bit like pulled pork, rich, meaty and satisfying. It was accompanied by something that looked like a worm, but which was apparently a Jerusalem artichoke - its texture surprised me, being crunchy and sort of like celery (without the strong flavour). A piece of crackling finished it off perfectly.

Then came my favourite course of the lot - hake with grapes. The hake was perfect - beautifully moist and wrapped in vine leaves, with a beurre blanc and shallot sauce. Yum.

I should mention that we were given a different wine with each course - and these were described to us by the very knowledge and friendly waitress before being poured. I have to confess that I'm not used to drinking six glasses of wine at lunch, so I fell behind a little. I'd also been a bit overeager when the champagne was going round at the beginning so was already a little bit tipsy - but it WAS delicious!

The 'main' course was salt-baked lamb with salsa verde, pomme boulengere and sprouting broccoli. The rosemary-encrusted lamb was blow-torched before our eyes before serving - an impressive sight!

The lamb was a revelation - I actually hate lamb, but it was amazingly tender and packed with aromatic flavours, thanks to having been cooked for eight hours. I ended up having three helpings - which got me into trouble further on in the day (more on that later).

Apologies for my rubbish presentation, but we got to help ourselves to this course!

Finally, it was time for pud. A classic crème brûlée , with a beautifully crispy top that cracked satisfyingly when I tapped it with my spoon. This was accompanied by Innis & Gunn oak-aged ale. By this time I was feeling unsurprisingly tipsy and full...

After this, we were served coffee and biscuits. Overall, the whole thing was absolutely amazing - and I would heartily recommend it. It's very expensive, but such a fabulous experience that I don't think it's bad value at all. I loved the fact that Tom chatted to us throughout the meal, and it was great to hear about the cooking techniques involved before we ate dishes. I wish you got that at every restaurant. I can't cook to save my life, but I found it all fascinating.

My only regret? My eyes were bigger than my stomach. I felt fine after we left, but later on that day a mini mince pie sent me over the edge into the world of severe tummy ache! So if you're going to go, don't get carried away like I did and help yourself to three portions of lamb. Unless you're prepared to be in pain later that day. Although, to be honest, it was probably worth it...

The Cube stays in London until the end of 2012. For more details, visit The Cube website>>

It's time to Feast

It's December, which means it's officially OK to talk about Christmas.

Let's be honest, after the age of about 21, Christmas is all about food. By then, we've worked out that if we want something, we can buy it for ourselves, thus relegating presents to being things we a) can't afford to buy for ourselves or b) boring staples we trust our other halves/parents/siblings to buy, such as our favourite perfume (yawn).

Nope, by the time we're fully fledged adults, Christmas is all about FOOD. And time off. And alcohol. And to a significant extent, cheese.

With this in mind and embracing all things festively calorific, I headed off with my good friend Ruth to the Christmas edition of Feast yesterday. Feast describes itself as a 'Street Food Festival', and was held inside the former north London sorting office in Islington. They'd really gone to town with the decor, with fairy lights galore and suspended 'globes' giving it a very festive fairyland feel. It was really atmospheric - not least because the whole place smelled amazing, like one big delicious barbecue indoors (but without the smoke).

We'd paid £7.50 entrance, and so I was a bit surprised that that didn't include anything - not even a goody bag full of marketing crap you don't want. As we walked in, Ruth remarked it was a bit like paying to get into Borough Market, which is kind of how it felt, except all the stalls sold mini dishes, for consumption then and there, rather than random bits of cheese and dried jalapenos to take home. There were also some long benches in one corner for sitting, chatting and eating, and a little stage with live music.

We were a bit cynical to begin with, but once we'd warmed up and sampled a few things, we properly got into it. Our highlights included succulent pulled pork baps from Randall & Aubin, and a ridiculously tasty mac and cheese from Anna Maes.

But the winner by far was the Mayan hot chocolate which came with a floating cinnamon meringue from the Meringue Girls. Amazeballs, as someone still young enough to write a Christmas list might say...

I'd definitely go again - with more cash and a bigger appetite. It'd be a great place to while away a Friday evening with a huge gang of friends.

What I didn't know about Elephant and Castle

I have a vague memory of my first encounter with Elephant and Castle. We were going to visit one of my distant relatives in the hospital near Waterloo, and I remember getting stuck on the massive roundabout at E&C, and seeing the Elephant out of my window, looking sad and paint-flaked.

I can't remember how old I was - maybe twelve? - but I do remember thinking, 'God this is a scary area.'

Fast forward a few years, and I applied to do an MA in Screenwriting at London College of Communication, without really thinking about where the campus was based. I duly trotted off  to the interview, emerging from Elephant and Castle tube station and promptly getting completely and utterly lost trying to navigate my way through the frankly terrifying underpass. I made it, eventually, relatively unscathed. And was offered a place on the course. For the last two years, therefore, Elephant and Castle has featured more heavily in my life than I ever would have anticipated as I stared out of that car window.

On the first day back of my term this year, we were told to go to the shopping centre and follow someone around for half an hour, making notes about them, which we would then use to create a semi-fictional character. I'd never really bothered to leave the university building before - apart from obligatory trips to the pub after class - and so I'd never been to the shopping centre.

I was amazed. It's easily one of the most interesting places I've ever seen in London. It's like a time warp - and walking around reminded me so strongly of my childhood, and the kind of shopping centres I used to visit with my Mum when I was little. It's so eighties - everything from the old shop signs, to the swirly orange-and-green carpet, the garish multi-coloured fascias and the escalators leading up to the London Palace Bingo. It's kind of amazing, in a rather run-down, impoverished way. Not so much shabby chic as shabby bleak.

When we got back to class, I squirreled my iPhone onto my lap and began researching the area. There was so much I didn't know about it. Apparently, in Victorian times, it was known as the 'Piccadilly Circus of the South' - with shops, cinemas, dance halls and a direct tram line. But it was heavily bombed in the war, and then in the 1950s, plans began to build the largest enclosed shopping centre in Europe on the site. In comparison with contemporary beasts like Westfields, the neo Brutalist centre was relatively modest in size, but the whole thing was designed around the core belief that the future of transport lay with the car. Which goes some way to explaining the way it now lies squashed in on all sides by busy roads. The underpass which transports pedestrians around the area - clearly the design of someone who can do the Rubik's cube with their eyes shut - is confusing, bewildering, smelly and not somewhere you'd want to be late at night. It's hard to believe planners and developers ever believed it would appeal to shoppers.

The shopping centre was a failure from the very beginning, with only 29 out of a possible 120 shops trading when it opened in 1965. It's not a huge surprise to see why. To quote postwarbuildings.com: 'The centre is essentially a windowless box topped by a steel-framed meccano-like office block called Hannibal House.'

Hannibal House? Could they have made it sound any more like the location for a horror movie?

Nowadays, most shops in the centre are actually open and trading, but many are scruffy 'money transfer' type places, with the odd chain store sticking out less than you'd think thanks to their retro signs (I swear the Boots sign hasn't been upgraded since 1984). There's been a market outside the shopping centre and tube station since the 1990s, and this is definitely where you see most signs of life. It seems busy and bustling and there's a large Latin American community in the area - several people from my course ended up following people who spoke Spanish.

Like many run-down areas of London, E&C is in the middle of a regeneration at present - recently developers unearthed 500 medieval skeletons while digging out the foundations for a new leisure centre. The shopping centre itself was meant to have been demolished in 2010, and apparently the large amount of asbestos on the site means work won't even start till 2015.

It's going to be replaced with another similar mall. Maybe they'll call it the 'Westfield of the South'. I can't help thinking it's a shame, somehow. Terrifying and scruffy it may be, but at least, at the moment, the area still has a personality.

Becoming a magazine journalist

I get lots of emails asking for advice, from people hoping to pursue a career in journalism, so I thought it would be helpful to write a post with my thoughts. Unfortunately and fortunately, like most journalists, I’m really busy and struggle to keep on top of my emails, so sadly I don’t have time to respond to everyone personally.

First off, a caveat to the advice I’m about to give: I’m lucky, because I graduated ten years ago and I think things were much easier then. Online journalism was still very much in its infancy, the recession was a long way off, and magazines were booming, especially in my sector: interiors. There were god knows (well, the ABC probably does) how many more interiors magazines on the shelves in 2002 than there are in 2012. But it was a lot more.

Also! I’m not claiming to be an expert. I have no experience in training journalists – this is really just based on my personal experience over the years.

So how did I get into it?

I studied Classics at uni, which was very interesting but not much help when it came to getting a job after. Thankfully, for fun while I was at uni, I was involved with the student newspaper, Leeds Student, and I had written and published a fair few arts reviews for them. So I did have some cuttings. If you want to be a journalist, get involved with your student paper! Obvious but fundamental.

I went to speak to my careers advisor in my final year, and said I wanted to write books for a living. He told me to become a journalist, saying it was more realistic (sadly I have yet to prove him wrong on this). But I didn’t have any journalism contacts, or any idea how to get into the industry. He pointed me in the direction of postgraduate training.

I was really reluctant to take on any more studies, but realised it was that, or doing a year of unpaid work experience and hoping for a job to come up somewhere I’d been making tea and photocopying. This does happen, but it’s a long and expensive route, with very slim chances. I would say only 5% of interns I’ve ever worked with managed to land a permanent job as a result of interning.

So, I found the shortest, most specialist postgrad course I could, which started a week after leaving university and ran throughout the summer. I applied, had a scary interview in London during my final Easter holiday, and got a place! Hurrah.

The course was a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism, at PMA Training, a small but specialist journalism training college. It was fantastic fun – but best of all, they really try hard to get you a job once you finish. It’s also a great course because it’s only 9 weeks, so you don’t have to spend another year training and racking up more debt.

Through the course I got my first job. The course director was doing some consultancy for the company and put me forward for a vacancy that had arisen. I finished the course on the Friday and started the job on the Monday, meaning I actually never had to do any work experience or interning after I finished studying, which was amazing. (And, I now know, very lucky.)

During the course, I did two weeks’ work experience at WENN. This was enough to persuade me I didn’t want to work in celebrity journalism. Fair play to those who do it, but it isn’t my cup of tea. Mostly because I spent two days locked in a dark AV room, transcribing a secretly filmed video of Jordan and her then-boyfriend on a fairground ride, trying to work out what they were saying to each other. Hmm.

Anyway, my first proper, full-time job wasn’t glamorous or fun. It wasn’t even journalism really – I was the ‘sub-editor’ for a big UK holiday company, editing all the marketing text for their brochures. Yep, eight months of writing about sea views and all-inclusive restaurant choices. It wasn’t great. But the people were lovely. And it was a job. And best of all, it helped land me my dream job…

My first proper, bonafide magazine job was as the sub-editor on Kitchens, Bedrooms and Bathrooms, a small consumer magazine about, er, kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms. I still look back on it as possibly my most favourite job ever. I loved it there, and the people were fab and they are all still my friends (and, in different ways, colleagues – I’ve worked with every single one of them in another capacity since) today. How did I get this job? It was advertised in the Guardian. Not even on the website, since these were dinosaur days, but in the actual Media Guardian supplement (Mondays).

I still have the cut out of the ad… *goes misty eyed*. I applied, had two interviews and a subbing test, and got the job. God knows how as I was quite rough around the edges, but thank you to my dear ex editor, for taking a chance on me. I learnt so much at KBB, a lot of which I attribute to the fact it’s quite a small magazine, so I got to muck in and try lots of different things. Small magazines are a great place to start out.

And the rest is history. Literally. So I’ll shut up now. I’m feeling old. If you’re interested in how my career progressed after that, check out my Linkedin page.

So my top tips are:

• Be 100% sure you can write. Seriously. Please. If you can’t, then you shouldn’t want to be a journalist. Be honest with yourself. • On that note, spellcheck and proofread your CV/covering letters to within an inch of their lives. Get someone else to do this – it’s nigh-on impossible to proofread your own work (prize to anyone who can spot a mistake in this – there’s bound to be at least one!). • Be aware that journalism is tough. You work hard, you don’t get paid very much when you start out, and there is a lot of competition. You have to be determined and persistent. It’s brilliant too of course, but tough! • Participate in any student publishing endeavours that come your way. Network, network, network, even at uni. Meet likeminded folk. Journalism is a relatively small industry and it’s all about contacts. • Do a postgrad course. Look for one that’s accredited by the PTC. I really do think having a postgrad gives you the edge – not least because you often then hear about job opportunities that aren’t advertised. • Make sure you are computer savvy. Get a Mac. Beg, borrow or steal (ahem, not really) Indesign and Photoshop and learn how to use them. Learn basic HTML. Mess around on WordPress, Tumblr, all the other web publishing platforms. Be interested. • Actually, be interested and curious in everything. If you’re not, you don’t really want to be a journalist. Journalists are nosey. • Interning is worth it, but only if you make the most of the opportunity. Be polite, humble, approachable, helpful and friendly – even if what you’re being asked to do is like, totally beneath you. I can’t believe some of the attitudes of the interns I’ve worked with over the last few years. I would never have given any of them a job. Everyone has to start at the bottom, and it was me doing that work a few years ago. No one is too good to check the stockists page! • If you do get the chance to socialise with magazine staff while you’re interning, go for it. Journalism is a sociable industry and it’s great to build relationships and keep in touch with as many people as possible. But don’t get ridiculously drunk and embarrass yourself. • Be nice to everyone you work with. Because you never know where your paths might cross again.

• Go the extra mile. Obvious but true. People remember the overachievers. They remember the people that bugger off at 5.30pm on the dot moaning about their boring day too, but not for good reasons. • Don’t write for free. Don’t spend months/years writing for really obscure online publications that no one’s heard of. Or for other people’s blogs. Not unless you really really, really think it’s worth it. It’s a bit controversial, but I think your time would be better spent writing your own beautifully designed blog and building it into something really fantastic you can show off on your CV. • Recruiting editors will often, if not always, web-stalk their applicants. Be careful about what’s out there about you. • Be confident. Hard if naturally you’re not, I know. But it’s tough to be a successful journalist if you’re shy and retiring. I once interviewed someone who shook the whole way through the interview – she might have been a great writer, but she made me feel so uncomfortable, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to send her off to interview a designer or a homeowner. • Are you a grammar geek? Can you spot a dangling modifier at fifty paces? Consider subbing. It’s a great route into journalism and actually offers a lot of opportunities for freelancing once you’ve got some experience under your belt. • Either use Twitter well, or don’t use it at all. It’s great for networking, but don’t bombard journalists or magazines you want to work for with pleas for commissions. I’d use it more subtly, to glean information about what editors and writers are up to, what they’re working on etc, and then think about how you can help them (not the other way around). Follow all the major publishing houses as they all have job feeds listing their latest vacancies.

• Pick a subject matter/sector to focus on. It’s tricky when you start out but having a passion for a subject matter, and being able to demonstrate that passion, really makes a difference when you go for a job interview. I reckon I only got the KBB job because I love homes and I was genuinely dying to get it, and I think the editor could see this from my interview. Around the same time I also had an interview for an editorial assistant’s job on a big travel trade magazine – I was offered it, but only after the initial person they offered it to turned it down, and now I look back I think they could tell I wasn’t really gagging to write about airlines. • Do your research. Target the magazines you love and email the editors you want to work for, explaining why you love their title and are dying to write for them/freelance for them/get a permanent job with them. Those emails do get read, and they do get passed around. If someone demonstrates a genuine interest in and knowledge of a magazine/website, and has the talent to back it up, they’re very attractive to editors. • Don’t forget online publishing. It’s the future. I left subbing and joined the online world, and although I do still work for print titles too, the majority of my work these days comes from websites. It’s just as glamorous. I promise. • Last but not least – subscribe to the Gorkana job alert. If you don’t know what it is, find out! Now! What are you waiting for?

From this...

to this...

I swore I never would. I SWORE I never would. But sometimes - just sometimes - it's worth sacrificing your interior design ideals for the happiness of another.

(apologies for blurry top pic - was taken in a rush at an opportune moment on my iPhone)

My Nanowrimo musings

So it's Nanowrimo time of year again... to those uninitiated people, Nano stands for National Novel Writing Month, where crazed writers across the world pledge to write the first draft of a novel during the month of November. The aim is to write 50,000 words, which equates to roughly 1667 words per day. It doesn't divide exactly, which kinda bugs me.

I'm not doing Nano this year, because I'm too busy finishing off my Screenwriting course, but last year I did. And I won!*

Here's my super snazzy graph logging my progress.

Despite it being a bit mental, I really really enjoyed it. I'm never going to be one of those people that runs marathons or climbs mountains, but this felt like an equivalent 'challenge' that I could do. I even finished a few days early, writing 4000 words on the last day, so excited was I to be on the home stretch.

So here are my top tips for anyone suffering this year:

1) Tell everyone you know This basically ensures public humiliation if you fail, which is a great motivator. If you're on Twitter, tweet about it incessantly to remind everyone what you're up to. It may bore them, but it means public pressure pressure pressure, which is what you need!

2) Cheat The 'rules' state that you must start a new project on 1 November. You're not meant to work on something that already exists. F*** that. Work on whatever you like. I used my Nano time to finish off a novel I'd started a year before but for various reasons had deserted during the tricky middle section. I doubt I would have finished that novel for at least another year if it hadn't been for Nano - but I managed to get to the end, meaning I had a shitty first draft to send to my agent. The point of Nano is to galvanise you to write every day, so I think it's perfectly acceptable to write what you like. (I've never much cared for rules anyway.)

3) Check out of life The unexpected side effect of Nano, I found, was that it was a BRILLIANT excuse to forgo any kind of social life for an entire month, which was kind of bliss. Now, I love my busy and hectic life, and I know it's a high-class problem (as my dad would say) but it can get a bit tiring - I'm often out four nights a week seeing friends and going to press events. Nano was a wonderful excuse to say no to everything. It also meant I had to tell more people what I was up to, which helped with point number 1 above.

4) Don't fall behind You don't have to write 1667 words a day. You can write more, buying you some leeway the next day, or less, meaning you have a deficit to make up. I tried really hard to write at least 1667 words per day. Sometimes I wrote more, but only a few times less. I fell behind on a couple of days, and it was frustrating having to play catch up when I next sat down. It's so much easier to keep on top of it if you don't let yourself fall behind, ever. No excuses. It doesn't matter how tired you are, you can bash out 1667 words. I even used Write or Die a few times, which was very silly but fun.

5) Get a Nano buddy I had a few - my friend Susie, another writer Emily Gale and a screenwriter buddy Abby - and we moaned and supported each other throughout. It really helped. And of course, Twitter is rammed full of Nanoers you can chat to, using the #nanowrimo hashtag.

6) Percy Pigs Or Red Bull. Or Haribo. Or Espresso Martinis. Or whatever it is that keeps you awake when you want nothing more than a nap on your keyboard. My diet was shocking throughout Nano - I stocked up on microwave meals at the beginning of the week and duly munched through one per night. Yes it's unhealthy. But it's only a month. You can go on a diet/exercise regime in December, when you emerge bleary eyed, incoherent yet triumphant from your den of writerly pain.

7) Reward Hmm. I'm a big believer in rewarding myself. I might take this a little too far, if I'm entirely honest - it's not unheard of me to reward myself because I managed to get up on time that day - but I think Nano definitely warrants a big fat treat if you succeed. I'd actually bought myself a ridiculously expensive Mulberry handbag before Nano started, so I vowed to myself, and several of my supporters, that if I didn't finish Nano, I'd sell it on eBay. That was probably one of my major motivators, if I'm honest!

Like I said, I really enjoyed doing Nano and am a bit sad that I'm not participating this year. I think it actually might get a bit addictive - I've got a few writer friends (I'm looking at you Keris Stainton and Luisa Plaja) who I know have done it many years in a row.

It's a brilliant initiative. Good luck to all you crazy writer bees - I look forward to seeing you in 2013!

*NB: you don't win anything. Except for the virtual badge above, and a printable certificate. Much like everything in the publishing industry, material reward is unconnected to effort...

Tea and Coffee Festival

What a lovely Autumn day! Perfect for a little wander along my favourite bit of London to peruse the Tea and Coffee Festival... I'm not sure how many years the festival has been going for, but this was the first year I'd heard about it. It was lovely - if a little bijou - and perfect for a sunny Saturday lunchtime stroll.

The first thing I did was treat myself to a gingerbread hot chocolate from Jaz and Jules, which was absolutely delicious - not too sickly either, despite the marshmallow topping I couldn't resist.

There were plenty of cakes on offer!

As well as tea paraphernalia...

I was intrigued by these Chaboba bubble teas - originating from Taiwan, they contain tapioca pearls at the bottom of the cup, which flavour the tea and can be eaten afterwards.

There were a few great lunch-on-the-go options available too. I had a grilled halloumi, tzatziki, rocket, chorizo and chilli ciabatta, which was amazing and very filling for just a fiver.

Meanwhile, O went for a spicy lamb flatbread from The Community Kitchen.

Next door to The Community Kitchen stand was La Marmotte, selling the pongiest cheese, lardons, potato and onion concoction I've ever smelt...it looked amazing, but possibly contained a week's fat allowance in one cheesy bowl, so we resisted.

And we couldn't resist taking home one of these tea bowls from Comins Tea House...

Halloween by Henri

Genius, pure and simple.

My kind of bauble

By some kind of miracle, this year I have managed to get out of writing a single feature on Christmas. Not even a teeny tiny online news story. Nada. Which was a bit of a relief, if truth be told, because last year I was knee deep in all things Yule for nearly three months, working on the Ideal Home Christmas special magazine. By the end of it I was just about ready to punch Father Christmas in the face. And I've always been a good girl for Santa, so that was most out of character.

The downside to this year's Christmas feature drought is that I've had to sigh and delete many of the fantastic press releases and gift guides that have been filling my Inbox. Which is where this blog will probably prove very handy.

So first up from the impossible-to-overlook-Christmas-press-releases are THESE beauties from Prestat! AKA MY KIND OF BAUBLES! Let's be honest, those foil-wrapped Cadbury's bells and 'parcels' of chocolate you hurriedly chuck in your trolley during a late December shop just don't cut it. Half the time the little string ties break as you're attaching them to the tree and the garish wrappings don't exactly scream sophistication when paired with your precious White Company glass snowflakes...

    

All hail Prestat then, for coming up with these delights. There are five different baubles available, each filled with posh chocolate treats. The Pink Heart Bauble and Blue Heart Bauble are both packed with Praline Truffles, the Snowman Bauble and the Rocket Baubles contain Prestat’s dark chocolate Sea Salt Caramels and the Crown Bauble is filled with Milk Marc de Champagne Truffles. At £6.75 each, I think they're a bit of a bargain too. Available online, and from Liberty, Selfridges and John Lewis. And Harrods. Of course.

Bubbledogs

So, today my gay husband Mev and I decided to have a cultural day out. Lunch 'somewhere chichi' (his words not mine) then off to the V&A to see the new Hollywood costumes exhibition.

It didn't really work out like that. Instead, we found ourselves drawn to the spectacularly un-chichi Bubbledogs, the latest in a new range of 'gimmick' restaurants.

We arrived shortly before 2pm to be greeted by a cheerful queue of around 20 people. So far, so predictable.

Just after we arrived, it started to rain, so we were pleased when the queue shuffled inside, and we ended up stood instead in a narrow corridor eyeballing the already seated punters. For about 20 minutes. Eventually we were ushered inside and allocated our tiny portion of, well, shelf really, overlooking the stairs.

Thankfully, we had these quirky hotdog drawings to keep us entertained/distract us from the fact we were staring at a brick wall.

In case you've been living under a rock for the last few months, Bubbledogs is a restaurant that sells hotdogs and champagne. So, we ordered hotdogs and champagne. Well sparkling rose, which was wonderfully dry.

We both ordered the 'New Yorker' - which came with grilled sauerkraut and onions. Mev ordered a beef hotdog, while I went for the more traditional pork.

We also ordered two of a possible three sides to share - potato 'tots' and sweet potato fries. The third option was coleslaw, which struck me as a bit unimaginative. The tots were lovely and salty, and the sweet potato fries were beautifully crisp on the outside, and fluffy in the middle.

Our verdict? Well, it was hotdogs and champagne. I'm not sure what I was expecting really. It was certainly a very good hotdog, almost as good as the hotdogs I've had in Germany when I've stayed with my German best friend. But...but... was it any better than the hotdogs you can buy on a New York street corner? I'm not sure. But I suppose that's not the point.

The food all seems reasonably priced - at £6 for a glass of champers and £6.50 for a hotdog, so I was a bit surprised that the bill came to £38 - it definitely didn't feel like a substantial 'meal' and for £38 I'd expect to go away feeling full. I'm glad I've been, seen what all the fuss is about, but will I go back? I very much doubt it.

As for the V&A exhibition. Ahem, yes, well. We kind of got sidetracked. And did our own 'exhibition tour' of the boutiques of New Bond Street instead... I blame the lunchtime champagne.

Told you I'd be a rubbish cultural blogger.