Sarah's reviews
Review of London Buddhist Centre
02 Mar 08, 21:36
And relax...lunchtime meditation 
I'm not in the least bit religious or interested in becoming so, but I go to the London Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green as often as I can to experience led meditation as it makes me really chill out. I am recommending it here on that basis alone - to experience meditation to take you out of yourself.
No one is preachy or there to persuade you to run away to a monastery. Everyone is friendly and nice and welcoming - down to inner peace I guess. A world apart from the Roman Road chaos outside!
You can just turn up on weekday lunchtimes, take your shoes off, sit quietly do a meditation session for 45 min, then pay your £1 and have a cup of tea if you want to and leave feeling calmer and better about the world than when you arrived.
They lead you, in a group, in two different meditation techniques (alternate weekdays so go two days in a row and get an introduction to two different methods). You either sit on cushions and mats or can do it seated on a chair too, whatever suits you.
They also do longer evening sessions - call for details but I think it is about £7 to pay and you still just turn up.
A chance to chill and get closer to some kind of clear headed bliss in the city. Love it, and would recommend everyone to pop in at least once or twice.
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of The Bay Leaf Cafe
24 Oct 07, 22:06
Homemade food from a great family-run cafe
I've been going to this little cafe just around the corner from Goodge Street tube and Pollocks Toy Museum since it opened and I can't recommend it highly enough.
The people who run it are super lovely and the food is always tasty homemade stuff. I would walk a mile for their fabulous moussaka and the chicken pie is always a winner, meanwhile their everyday chilli is brilliant. They are also into making sure everything is in sustainable cardboard packaging so you can ease your carbon guilt over lunch or breakfast from here.
The place looks tiny and most people are queuing for takeouts at lunchtime but there are also tables downstairs where you can hide away and have a good natter or while a bit of spare time waiting for someone or seeking respite from Tottenham Court Road. They also cater for meetings and parties, etc and it's good stuff I've sampled it for myself in the board room (stuffing your face during videoconferences across five timezones is such a good look I find).
Huge recommendation for this place as it is a really well priced, friendly family-run cafe that SO deserves to stick around and go from strength to strength. Enough from me, just try it and see if I'm not right.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of Gordons Wine Bar
22 Oct 07, 20:10
Love this place, stop telling everyone
It's still great and I still can't believe it passes health and safety but am glad it does. Just wish people would stop telling everyone about it...oops there I go. Nice in the summer but really comes into its own as an autumn winter treat. And now you can actually see inside as the clouds of smoke have gone, hope they don't think to clean it though, I suspect the walls are 75% nicotine by now.
Surely London's greatest wine bar, there's nowhere else like it I'll be bound. Now shhhh!
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Sh! Women's Erotic Emporium
22 Oct 07, 10:36
Something for the ladies
Great place (women only, men allowed in if accompanied by a lady friend) to be supremely unembarrassed about buying whirring whizzing jiggling and lubricating bits and bobs for solo or accompanied bedroom shenanigans.
It is all utterly unsleazy unlike every other similar establishment I've encountered (not that I'm a sex shop regular you understand) The staff are really nice, will answer your questions and make it a thoroughly unembarrassing experience. Not impressed by the lingerie they sell myself but the rest of their stock is very comprehensive and well-labelled as to FAQs.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Review of ESHK Hair
18 Oct 07, 10:31
meg is a colour genius
Wanted to give Meg and co at ESHK a bump as they are still preposterously fantastic and should be better known.
No one has ever coloured my hair as brilliantly (who me? no I'm a natural blonde!)
Long may she continue to be the best hairdresser in town, with prices that do not match the hype. Too cool for school.
No 56 bus goes straight past too. Tell them I sent you!
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Review of New Tayyab
18 Oct 07, 10:27
still the best
Been again this week and can confirm that this place is still A) rammed B) amazing value C) the best curry in the east end QED London D) has the most attentive and efficient staff on the down side (is there one?) the more people that know about it the longer the queues get and if you sit too near the kitchen you are half choked with throat-burning chilli fumes but even that is more than worth it And gosh I love their mango kulfi lollies
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Fig
18 Oct 07, 10:18
Food glorious foam
Blimey yes, this food at this little restaurant (ate there this week, Tuesday night) was absolutely beyond our expectations, quite amazing! Everything I ordered seemed to have a delicious 'foam' or veloute element and the combinations of ingredients were surprising but turned out to be fresh, seasonal and glorious.
Not too expensive and a must return restaurant in a sweet neighbourhood (cor wish could afford to live there) well served by the no 53 bus - stops just outside. Very lovely staff and a genius (Danish?) chef who was unperturbed by my nut allergy, hoorah! We enjoyed a very romantic dinner there on a quiet night and would certainly recommend it!
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Daunt Books
26 Sep 07, 09:22
So much more than guidebooks
Find it hard to express how much I love this bookshop, without sounding slightly unhinged. It is one of the best places in London. I could pretty much live there.
It devotes much of its stock to travel and far flung places, but gives you the novels and poems and cultural histories you might want to read en route as well as the necessary guidebooks to the place you are visiting.
They also have a great children's section and fiction and cards and all the other stuff you'd hope to find in a wonderful bookshop.
All that is missing is the supermarket hype that the chain bookstores foist upon us. The polar opposite of Borders and may it please never change that.
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Andrew Edmunds
14 Sep 07, 16:57
Wonderful!
Ate at this tiny restaurant for the first time last night with someone who has known and loved it for years and was totally sold on it.
Trusted his recomendation but was really pleased to find such fantastic food and a wonderful, discreet (out of time) atmosphere in Soho (opposite Mildreds, up near the John Snow) It has such an unassuming frontage that I must have been walking past it for years and never seen it. Everything we ate was utterly delicious from my beef carpaccio with rocket, parmesan and truffle oil / his dressed crab, and my seabass / his perfectly pink lamb through to the scrummy pudding that we shared so as not to pop.
Not cheap but not too break the bank - c. £80 for two with wine and water.
Small, dark, intimate (not the place to get lots of mates around the same table) perfect for a discreet liaison or meal for four. In summer they have a couple of tables outside too. Lovely staff and attentive but not over-fussy service. Really need to book. Firmly on my own list of favourites in the centre of town now.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Review of Duo Boots
04 Sep 07, 19:04
Beautiful boots that really fit
Now you'll have to take my word for it, but I have pretty ordinary-sized legs (no one remarks on them being like tree trunks for sure, they are just enough to hold up my size 12 frame) but come Autumn/Winter, when the shops are full of gorgeous leather boots, I just know that I will never be able to zip any of them up over my calves.
Seriously frustrated and wanting long boots, a few years ago I googled "fat leg boots" and found this fantastic company Duo which was then only in Bath, but great news it is now in London too!
They do the same fabulous funky leather boots you'd find in any high street store but they make them fit, whether you have skinny or more generously (it's the running not the chocolate) proportioned pins.
Not cheap but amazing quality, loads of choice and utterly wonderful boots with a genius secret - they just add in or take away a bit of the give at the top of the boots with stretchy bits. A visit to the shop gives you access to individual service form one of their trained fitters too. BIG fat recommendation for this shop!
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Five Star Dry Cleaners
09 Aug 07, 22:51
Does just what it says on the tin
Effective cleaning, good prices, quick turnaround when you need it, nice people - that adds up to 5 stars for me.
Not sure what else to say about a drycleaners except that I've never had any complaints about this place and it is cheaper than I used to pay in either Leytonstone or the West End.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of ESHK Hair
04 Aug 07, 07:28
Great hairdressers - top recommend
I've been going to Meg at ESHK for years, since before she and her partner set up this, their own salon. Can't recommend her and ESHK highly enough. I'd be bereft without this place to sort out my hair. Have loved every style they've sent me out with and would never go anywhere else.
Great cuts, lovely folk, cool music and all in all a relaxed not overly trendy but quirky salon (old wooden dressing tables instead of counters), oh and they are not expensive either, certainly not west end whack for cuts or colour.
I've seen all ages and both sexes in there as customers, from children to my mum (whose white hair never looked better and they treated her so kindly, made her feel fabulous). Nearest tube is Barbican, or Angel, it is near the bottom of Goswell Road. Or a short walk from the no 55 or 243 bus stop from Old Street or the centre of town.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.