The welovelocal Blog

For those of you have been paying attention you’ll know that we make a habit of rewarding our community of locals with what we call Fun-Free-Friday. We also hinted that reviews of local trades people would go down particularly well this time round, and some of you actually took notice. This week it was Pandora G’s review of Leakbusters, which grabbed our attention and helped her grab a £25 voucher for the always wonderful Heals Department Store.

Fun-Free-Fridays is a way of surprising some of our most original reviewers. However, you can gain extra brownie points (alas, there aren’t actually any points) by taking heed of our less than subtle suggestions. For example, at the moment weloveGREATPLACESTOSPENDASUNDAYAFTERNOON.

With the long weekend upon us, and the promise of three rain free days ahead; here’s a few recommendations from the welovelocals to help make the most of the bank holiday come rain or shine.

Keston Lodge: Ashley F. says: ‘ideal for wishing away a long Sunday afternoon; the music is relaxed’

The Dragon Bar: Anita S. says: ‘This bar is shockingly outrageously funky and different!’

Zebrano: Richard H. says: ‘one of the few places you can have a pint of san miguel in the sun in soho’

The Rake: Tim B. says: ‘This is the beer snob’s Vinopolis’

The Lock Tavern: Stewart H. says: ‘the beer garden is a sure fire winner if your looking for a party venue.’

Bodeans BBQ: JP J. says: ‘You’re guaranteed a slab of (or in the case of the exuqisite pulled-pork, shredded) meat which won’t touch the sides as you scoff it down.’

Sketch: Amy L. says: ‘I wanted to go to sketch merely for the infamous alien egg toilets that they have. I didn’t realise that the food was going to be amazing too.’

The Eagle: Vlad T. says ‘You can while away the time waiting by watching the chefs beaver away or simply relax in an environment that looks like it has been decorated with the contents of a old school.’

The Prince of Wales: Joseph C. says: ‘one of the main attractions of the Prince is the offer of a game of Boule. Rent out one of their sets, get yourself a jug of pernod, repair to the gravelled square and toss your boules with gay abandon. Squint and you could be in a small French village.

Smiths of Smithfield: Meg P. says: ‘it’s hard to find fault with the food - tasty, simple dishes with fresh ingredients and served in a quick and non-fussy way, accompanied by some excellent wines.’

According Harden’s Restaurant Guide today, a record 158 new restaurants have opened in London in the past twelve months, up 13% on the previous year.

It’s not clear what categorisation this survey has used to define a restaurant distinct from say a cafe or gastro pub, however, given the rate that we are currently adding recently opened eating establishments to welovelocal.com, I would probably peg even this phenomenal boom as conservative compared to the next twelve months.

At our last count, we currently feature over 8,000 eating establishments across eighty categories covering everything from Afghan to Mongolian cuisine, with a few great places to get a proper British fry-up in-between. Either way, it’s a great time to be eating out in London.

For those of you who decided to ignore our beautifully composed email you probably don’t even know if you won our first Fun-Free-Stuff Friday. Well let me tell you, it got off to a cracking start. Loads of you decided to send in reviews of places where you could drink and dine al-fresco, in fact it was quite an enlightening experience trawling through them all.

Our winner was Annemarie who wrote a great review of the always wonderful Exmouth Market. She’s been given £30 towards her next visit which we believe she’ll be using at the equally wonderful Moro.

This week were looking for you experiences with London’s tradespersons. The plumbers, carpenters, painters and decorators, the people more commonly know as London’s household lifesavers; like Linda Barker without all the really annoying bits. The winner will get £25 to spend at Heals.

Picture courtesy of Windows Live Earth

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Annemarie also runs a rather spiffing foodie blog called Ambrosia and Nectar

You may have noticed a subtle change to our homepage last week. You can now skip through past Featured Reviews to check out some of our favourite local recommendations over the last few weeks.

Well, just when you thought “pick of the day” Featured Reviews couldn’t get any better, we’ve decided to run a weekly competition to reward the insightful local experts who are selected by our team of editors.

From today, a new featured review will be selected daily based upon a set theme. Each Friday we’ll announce one lucky winner who’ll win a prize related to the theme.

To kick start the first Fun Free-Stuff Friday we’ll keep it simple. So we want you tell us about the best places in London to eat or drink al fresco - places with a great pub garden, terrace, roof top or just great views. Every review on this theme will then be considered for this week’s Fun Free-Stuff Friday where you can win £30 towards your tab at the winning venue. The perfect start to the weekend.

Winners will be announced every Friday and will be contacted using your account email address. The decision of welovelocal.com will be final.

Things never seem to stop round here. Today we announcing a tie in with our good friends at Fridaycities where you’ll be able to get Kudos for reviews. For those who don’t know, Fridaycites.com is an online members club that allows members to share knowledge and ideas about the city they live in. Then to go out and actually live in it.

Knowledge is rewarded with Kudos and as of today hard earned Kudos can be exchanged for a number of great vouchers on offer through the Fridaycites site.

So what do I do?

1. Sign up to both Fridaycites and welovelocal.com

2. Make sure to include you Fridaycities username in your welovelocal.com profile -so we can dole out the Kudos.

3. Write your review of any business in London.

4. Within 24 hours you’ll have your Kudos.

5. Spend it on great things.

You can read the full terms and conditions here. Not multiple accounts, and no junk. Thanks.