We very rarely eat out on a weekday, and when we do eat out, it is usually a quick and dirty takeaway, KFC or fish & chips. I both enjoy cooking and eating out, but as bacon don’t get home till after 7 usually, it just makes more sense for me to cook on weekdays and we can eat out on weekends. However, on a rare occassion where I run out of ideas of what to cook and there’s not much left in the fridge, we try to make and effort to eat out.

Like many people, I get trapped with a handful of restaurants that I go to. I make an effort to discover new places, but I do tend to repeat a few places, i.e. Sundays are buffet days, the same old thai, indian or chinese. Delicious, but seriously lacking in creativity. As for italian, we had been going to the same old restaurant for years now – I never try anywhere new because I love it, but it was seriously time for a change. I go past Viva in my bus out of town, but never stepped in before. After changing our minds about 10 times whilst heading into town, we ended up in Viva at last.

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The gregarious owner greeted us at the door and shook both our hands in welcome – a big change, I don’t actually remember the last time I’ve been greeted by the owner of a restaurant. All the staff spoke italian inside the cozy restaurant, peppered with some choice English phrases like oki doki. I found this very charming . We were in time for the Early bird deal (up to 7.30pm on weekdays) , which came with any pizza or pasta, choice of starters and desserts. For just over £10, this was an absolute bargain.

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For some reason bacon mistook this for the starter we actually ordered. No idea why!

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We both went for the deep fried brie. Coated with breadcrumbs, deep fried and drizzled with a balsamic sauce, this was heavenly. It did leave me quite full, but the melty cheese contrasted beautifully with the drizzle of sauce and the salad garnish.

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Bacon had the double pepperoni pizza. Unfortunately it was only sparsely populated with pepperoni. Bacon was not entirely impressed. Everything else tasted ok -lovely base, thick with cheese; just not enough pepperoni (I counted 8 slices) to be classified as a double pepperoni pizza.

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I had the chicken and spinach calzone. This was better than the pizza, filled with oozing cheese, lovely tomato concasse and enough spinach & chicken in the calzone. Yumms. We could not finish either the calzone nor the pizza, but they were more than happy to wrap it up for us to take away.

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However, there is ALWAYS space for desserts! I had the tiramisu, which was seriously one of the best tiramisu I’ve ever had. I raved about Jamie Olivers’ tiramisu, but it doesn’t compare to this. Well-soaked sponge contrasts beautifully with just the right amount of mascarpone. Mm Mm good.

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Bacon had the creme brulee, which was lovely as well. We very rarely order the creme brulee, but this was so perfectly faultless. Creamy and sweet, topped with a crunchy layer of burnt sugar.

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Even the coffees have that personal touch. Call me a pushover, but a little latte art pleases me to no end

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Cheap, cheerful, friendly and yummy, I guess Viva will be finding its way to our growing handful of go-to restauraunts:)

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Viva Ristorante
9 Bridge End Leeds,
West Yorkshire LS1 7HG
Tel: 0113 242 0185

“I’d love to live in a city with a Red Bus tour. It shows that there is enough life going about in the city to attract tourists, and it demonstrates a city savvy enough to enrich the lives of its residents whilst preserving its heritage and culture” – my words to bacon a long, long time ago…

C’mon, even Great Yarmouth & Llandudno have one. That is definately reason enough for Leeds to have one, no?

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However, it was with much suprise when I saw the ubiquitious open-top red bus go past me on their trial run late in May. I thought it was a bus from York that was lost in Leeds. However, further investigations shows that Leeds had indeed received its very own open-top red bus tour! Oh my!!! Its only on during the summer months of June-August, but I was chuffed. There is nothing like being a tourist in the city you live in to appreciate the heritage of the place. I kept making excuses though – I can’t justify spending £7.50 going on a bus around the city that I go past every day – I’ve been to the Leeds City Museum, the Royal Armouries, the Town Hall. The bus even goes past my work place.

However, on a typically grey & rainy Saturday morning last weekend, I saw Leeds through the eyes of a tourist. Yep, I went on the bus. Leeds City Tours were offering free rides for residents on the bus, and I have no excuse not do go on it. A merry gathering of @Leedsgrub @gazpachodragon @BottegaMilanese and some others from the twitterland made this into an informal mini-tweetup on the rooftop of the bus.

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Katie & Bacon next to the big red bus

I’ve never really been given much leeway of where to live in the UK, with bacon semi-coercing me to this corner of his comfort zone. To be honest, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Leeds, there is so much potential, Leeds could be so much more. The fact that I love big-smog annoymous cities also did not do much good to the lovely gruff-yet-friendly northern city character of Leeds. The tour definately opened my eyes to the rich heritage that is Leeds. It was a lovely tour around Leeds, taking about an hour. AN HOUR?!? Yes, it can take a full hour to go around Leeds by stopping and waiting at various stops and going really slowly. I really didn’t mind though, it most definately did not feel like a full hour.

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Katie having a whale of a time

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Going past the old Tetley’s Brewery. Time is running out for this Yorkshire institution – the damned Carlsberg are closing down Tetley’s Brewery and moving Tetley’s operations to Wolverhampton. Like seriously. WHAT??! This most definately signifies the end of an era. I love Tetley’s – and incidentally, bacon’s maternal grandfather used to work for Tetley’s. Yep. Grandfather-in-law used to be an ale taster for Tetley’s. They send him all over the country to maintain the quality of the Tetley’s served in pubs. He drinks so much that he never drinks at home. I bet Skipps would’ve love to have that job .

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Weaving another tale, just to show you how ‘diverse’ bacon’s maternal family is, there is an old family tale that prohibits the family from ever shopping from Marks & Spencer’s . According to Grandma Bacon, many many moons ago, her grandfather had a stall in the Leeds Market in Kirkgate. Apparently Mr Marks opened a stall next to them, and his everything for a penny philosophy proved so damaging to the Bacons’ business that they went bust. They’ve held a grudge until now, and every generation of bacons were told this story and forbidden to buy anything from the giant that is now Marks & Spencer’s This lasted until bacon’s mom started working for Marks & Spencer, and the 20% staff discount proved too irresistable . So there, a little personal history for you:).

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Moving on, we went past the Time Ball, which used to house the famous clock-makers, John Dyson & Sons. This used to be where everyone in Leeds sets their clock to as it was synchronized to the time ball in Greenwich. Today it is part of the Marriot Leeds building, and it now houses an Indian restaurant.

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Briggate – the main shopping drag in Leeds. Unfortunately half of it is under renovation/expansion, and the left side of the road looks just a little fugly. I hate it when they call it the ‘Knightsbridge of the North’. Ugh and double Ugh.

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The River Aire. I love all bodies of water. Riverside real estate seemed to be perpetually under development as developers cottoned on to the great ‘River Living’.

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The ‘Rusty building’. This was part of the halls of residence for the massive number of students here in Leeds, and this building was designed to rust so there will be no need to paint it. Interesting.

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Leeds Civic hall

What was fabulous about this trip is that it includes a free ticket for the River Cruise. Unfortunately, the river cruise takes way too long for us impatient Leeds residents, but if you have the time and am visiting Leeds for the first time, I would highly recommend the tour. I took this whilst I was having lunch at the Calls Landing.

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And this was what I had for lunch – stew of Italian sausages & white bean with cheese for only £5, inclusive of crusty bread. Yums.

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All in all, a tres excellent day out in Leeds. Bacon validated most of the commentary as true and accurate, and even learnt a thing or two about this city that he loves so much. They made sure to mention all the important historical facts, for example, do you know the first ever moving picture was filmed right here in Leeds? Or that the Monopoly factory was right here in Leeds? Or that Grand Thef Auto was designed right here in Leeds? Hah!

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Alex & Bacon well happy with the tour

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There is room for improvement though. I would love to see the river cruise going all the way to Thwaite Mills, and the bus going all the way to Kirkstall Abbey, Chapel Allerton and Tropical World. Leeds is not only all about the compact city centre, it is much more than that..that little extra oomph. The tour was well worth the price of £7.50, especially if you took advantage of the river cruise. And I am not comparing this to the red bus tour anywhere else on earth and the fact that it’s cheaper. Leeds stand on its own legs, and £7.50 was a bargin for this very entertaining and informative tour.

It seems that me & Katie of Leedsgrub shared some telephatic cupcake thoughts. I had been plotting all week to pop over to Chapel Allerton on Sunday on my way to lunch for some cupcakery…Katie beat me by ONE day and made it over to the wonderfully vintage little bakery on Saturday! It’s not the first time – I think I missed her at Hansas’ one Sunday by 30 mins!!

As you probably figured by now, I love most stuff vintage-y, cute-sy, yumm-y and retro-y. Even baker-y. Yeah, all good things end with a Y. I’ve done a few cupcake rounds, and have grand plans of spending a day trawling cupcakeries in NYC later this year. So far, I’ve loved the Hummingbird as their cakes are not sweet, which is then nicely tampered by the super sugary icing. Bacon don’t like it as much – he thinks it slightly weird that the cakes demonstrate a total lack of sugar whilst the icing is sickly sweet. I don’t mind it as I can then scrape off most of the icing so I end up with a suitably sweet cupcake. And of course, the fact that their recipes always turn out well and tastes like what they serve in-store. BUT the Hummingbird Bakery is not the topic of my post today – the Leeds-born Sunshine Bakery is.

Most definately a welcome addition to Leeds, I had yet to find something quite like this in the Leeds area…or anywhere near. We popped in on our way to Mother’s Day lunch – very lucky as they are not usually open on Sundays- to pick up some cupcakes. I actually checked their twitter feed before I left to see if they’re open, and as luck would have it, off the back of Katie’s lovely review of their cakes, they were offering a free cupcake to anyone who said they love leedsgrub! How nice is that ??

It was very lovely inside the shop, a certain modern vintage feel to it, from the proper coffee machines to china cups. We chatted about twitter abit (i follow them) , and how more businessess should embrace it ect..I do love speaking to businessess on twitter, it’s very bizzare but lovely! It’s even more wonderful when you see the person behind the twitter account….and especially for a ‘small but perfectly formed’ local bakery like this which I would have otherwise not found out about if not for the fact it had been tweeted around by local tweeps.

More on the ‘small but perfectly formed’ part – they are looking into expanding back and front, with tables planned on the sidewalk and opening up of a secret garden up back now that spring is FINALLY upon us. Wow. I must return when that happens – I do love a good cuppa with cake in the garden! At the moment there are tables inside for you to have your cake, and if the mother in law hadn’t been waiting for us at the pub we would had probably sat down for a cuppa and continue chatting with the friendly cupcake maker behind the counter (which I had very rudely not got his name!!). So we had ours to go for after lunch, packed in a sturdy specially-made-for-cupcakes 4 hole box.

We went away with two double chocolate, one mango & passionfruit and one Eton Mess cupcake. The one with the white rose is Eton Mess

The Mango & Passionfruit is the one with choc bits on white frosting

And of course, the double chocolate

The Mango & Passionfruit was very summery – light, with the right amount of fruitininess. Bacon loved this – and for someone who dislike passionfruit & mango, this is high praise indeed. The MIL gave it her thumbs up as well – her favourite. The Eton Mess was also very, very lovely – a meringue-like frosting with the delicate white rose to top it off….and I love the delicate strawberry flavours that was in this pretty and delicious cupcake. yum yum good.

However, the best of them lot, in my opinion, was the double chocolate. The sponge was light and moist, without losing it’s chocolate gooeyness. The frosting was absolutely DIVINE – I believe it’s very whipped chocolate cream with a glaze of chocolate on top. Chocolate cupcakes tend to get slightly sickly for me with the frosting, however, I could have had 10 more of these. Mm mm good.

See how moist the sponge is? Ohmigod…

The verdict? Bacon gave it his double thumbs up, even going as far to say that this is the best cupcake he had had so far. He’s plotting to send me to one of the cupcake classes that they regularly run . As for me, I absolutely love how everything is so light and delicate, with the right amout of sugar and moistness.

The Sunshine Bakery
182 Harrogate Road
Chapel Allerton
Leeds LS7 4NZ

*crossposted from notabrownbag - I have delayed posting this here due to having a sad week last week . It DOES close Monday, so if you’re interested, get clicking NOW!

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In conjunction with the fabulous girls from Culture Vultures ; THE local cultural & art website right here in Leeds, UK ; I am running a bento competition!!! Unfortunately it is only available for entry by denziens living and working in Leeds – but the gifts are definately fabulous as they’re handpicked by me!

The selected winner will be getting a specially made bento from my kitchen (yes, made from scratch!) in an adorable bento box that they get to keep and treasure. I have hand-picked a selection of envy-inducing ‘bento-gear’ for the winner to make their own bento lunches, as well as a how-to handbook on making superbly kawaii bento lunches and being the envy of all your colleagues!

It is my hope that this will start a lunch-volution, and the end of the sloppy sandwich on dry, stale bread that I see so many people stuff their mouths with during lunch time. To be able to go into a working lunch and not served a selection of sandwiches with unidentifiable fillings would be absolutely amazing. Having lived in blue-skies California, winters here in the north gets me depressed – but the thought of opening up a box of sunshine halfway through the work day brightens up my day to no end. Hey, maybe if everyone packs a bento, there will be no crime, peace on earth….and all that jazz…:D

…..my mock-interview, which was posted on their website:

What is a bento box?
“Portion control meets nutritionally complete work of art”.
Bento box is basically a box that you put your food in. If you’ve ever been to a Japanese restaurant, you would be familiar with the plastic mock-lacquer box with compartments that your dinner arrived in. In my opinion (and many others) the hinomaru is the classic bento, freshly cooked white short grained rice with an umeboshi (red pickled plum) in the centre – representing the Japanese flag.

In Japan, bentos are as widely available as Mcdonalds for the lunch-on-the-run, from vending machines to convenience stores (kombini) and railway stations. The credit-crunched version of assembling lunch at home and bringing it with you to eat at work/school has long been part and parcel of the Japanese culture – just as a brownbagged sandwich is to the Western culture.

However, the style of bento that is gaining somewhat of a cult status worldwide are the bentos made for children. This is instantly striking, from the rice molded into adorable shapes like rabbits and penguins. Go a step further and you’ll find great charaben/kyraben (character bento) practitioners recreating whole scenes of computer games into boxes of edible goodness – from a scene out of Mario to Professor Layton! There are competitions in Japan where accomplished charaben artists churn out their most adorably cute creations; from anime characters made out of ham to a whole zoo and Hello Kitty disguised as a penguin!

What do you put in it? Does it have to be Japanese food?
Two words; ANYTHING GOES! There are no hard and fast rules on this – I ensure I incorporate all food groups packed tightly in a box . Traditional bentos usually follow the rule of 4 parts starch, 1 parts fruit/veg and 2 part protein – but this is by no means a be all and end all. I generally try to lower my carbs intake whilst upping my fruit/veg intake, making it more 1:1:1. A bento for me has to tickle my tastebuds and fill me up enough so I do not succumb to a packet of crisps or a bar of chocolate. Fabulous bento practitioner-turned-author advises JUST NO JUNK, whilst another accomplished bento practitioner advises that nothing raw should be packed, and always ensure you use an icepack in summer….nobody wants a spoiled lunch!

Japanese food definitely helps, especially those that are designed to be eaten at room temperature, i.e. rice balls. Again, no hard and fast rules, I have previously packed hummus & crudites. Olives works well, so does cherry tomatoes and mini cheeses (think babybel) Some of the more refined bentoists have turned plain cheese and ham sandwiches into magnificent work of art. The key is to keep each individual item small, that way you are able to add a wider variety of foodstuff.

Is it for one greedy person or for two to share?
That’s the beauty with bentos – and the addiction that many bento makers face with purchasing as many bento boxes as they can possibly find! The variety of shapes and sizes of bento boxes available is astounding, from plain flat plastic containers (i.e. tupperware style) to elaborate cedarwoor crafted ovals and Hello Kitty shaped plastic boxes. Personally, my burger-shaped bento box gets the most laughter when I reveal it at lunchtime .There are boxes out there designed for all appetites, from tiny 350ml containers for toddlers or a snack to giant picnic boxes (kouraku) catering for a family picnic.

The rule of thumb is bento lunches are generally made for one – I keep my boxes tiny (below 600ml volume) to keep a strict tab on the portion size, but the husband gets a man-sized non-cute 1 litre box. Another note; bento boxes comes in all shape and sizes, but generally the cute ones are on the small side, catering to children and adolescent girls!

If you were making a bento box of beauty for your most beloved what key ingredients would you include and why?
Lots and lots of colours! There is nothing more stunning than opening up a box at lunchtime and having a riot of colours exploding from a deceptively simple box. Healthy bento euthusiasts live by the colour rule; Red, Green, Yellow and Orange. This means alot of fruit and vegetables…….but rest assured, I am a self-confessed carnivore, so you won’t be stuck with a vegan lunchbox – unless you want to!

To enter, please click here!

Its been amazing snowfall here in the UK, with chaos wrecked on transport links and such…however, if you stay closer to home its fabulous!!! Could you believe it all fell in a 6 hour timescale – I woke up at 6.15 and it wasn’t snowing…by 7.30 the snow was about 2 inches deep. By noon it was about 6.

So deep you can’t even see my snow angel!!

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Can’t really walk without wellies anymore..

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bacon pretending to be a snowman..

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Bacon shovelling our way into the house

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The farm enveloped by super deep snow