This is my new favorite winter cocktail to drink in our neck of the woods, so I named it after our neighborhood, Skylonda. I just soak some cinnamon sticks in a jar of bourbon for a few days which gives it a nice spice. Then to the bourbon, I add a few drops of bitters and a splash of dry vermouth in one of Umamimart Shop’s lovely Yarai cocktail mixing glasses.

Back in Cupertino, Kuni (my pops) had a huge bag of fuguhire (dried blowfish tails) from Tsukiji market, which he is grills to make fuguhire zake. These tails are from the blowfish variety tora-fugu or “tiger fugu”. Fuguhire zake is a common way to drink hot sake in Japan during the cold winters, at least amongst my father’s generation (ojisan aka old men).

Kuni says that it is becoming harder to find these tails in Japan, and they are generally not for sale here in the States. The tora-fugu variety is of the highest quality.

Also, Kuni has his license to slice blowfish, did you know?

Anyhow, here’s how he makes fuguhire zake for his restaurant, Sushi Kuni in Cupertino.

INGREDIENTS
A couple blowfish tails, and some cheap sake. Kuni emphasizes that you can use run-of-the-mill, non-premium sake here since you are going to warm it up.

1. Pour about a cup of sake into a kettle.

2. Heat sake on stove over medium heat. When steam begins to rise, turn it off.

3. Take fugu tail with wooden chopsticks and slowly sear it over an open fire. If you have a small grill, that is ideal. You could also put them in the toaster.

4. Let it char a bit, but try not to let it burn to a crisp.

5. Grill about four or five of the tails, and drop them into the kettle full of sake.

6. While you are waiting about five minutes for the fugu tails to infuse the sake, make some accompanying side dishes. Like octopus sashimi and morokyu (cucumbers with miso).

Octoporn

The sake is warm and dashi-like, with smoky notes and a hint of the sea. Not fishy at all.

Enjoy!

A great follow-up to the sashimi is nabe (hotpot). A staple meal in every Japanese home during winter.

Add rice at the very end for a hearty shime (ending).

Happy winter! It’s cold and dreary here in Oakland. I hope you’re all hanging in there, I think it’s gonna be a colddddd winter.

Happy new year! How did you spend your new year’s day?

The start of my new year was the worst. On new year’s eve, I was at my a party in SF and drank many whisky cocktails that my friend made. I enjoyed the cocktail and the party, and then went to the BART (the Bay Area train system) station around 3 am. There were still many people in the station, yeah, it’s a new year’s day. I was pretty cheerful at the point, but when I got on the train, I felt so sleepy but also sick. I shouldn’t have sat down, which made me even more sick. You know what happened next… yeah, I threw up everything on the floor.

You can guess the look on my wife’s face, sitting right next to me.

Back home, I washed my dirty clothes, and slept on the couch that night. Then I got sick again. I really apologize to my wife and people who cleaned up my puke on the train.

Anyway, let me introduce to you oyuwari, that heals your weary body and soul.

Normal style of oyuwari.

First, what is oyuwari? Oyuwari is shochu mixed with hot water. You can mix any kinds of shochu with hot water, but imo (sweet potato) shochu is the best shochu for oyuwari, because it has plenty of aroma and sweetness. The hot water makes the aroma bright yet mild. Oyuwari reveals the shochu’s true characters, so it’s a great way to differentiate between good shochus and bad.

Bartender’s tip: it’s pretty important that you pour four parts of hot water in the glass first, then six parts shochu. Don’t mix it. Shochu is heavier than hot water, so it will blend with the hot water naturally. Wait five minutes and enjoy the aroma before it is at the right temperature to drink. The result is a mild tasting, warm shochu drink.

And I would like to introduce a special oyuwari today. It’s called maewari oyuwari which means oyuwari that is pre-mixed. You should combine shochu and water 6:4 and infuse it overnight in a bottle or something like ceramic pot that shades the light. Filtered soft water is best for it. It’s the best way to serve it 24 hours later, and still ok to serve it a few days later — but not a week later, that is too long.

How to serve it? It’s already mixed with water, so you can just pour it to your kettle and warm it up to about 120°F on your stove top.

Portable stove you can get at Asian market.

I hate American measurement units.

Use burning charcoal to keep the kettle warm.

Above style is too special, not available in your house, but if you have passion, you can do it.

Ahh… the aroma transports me to the spa, or Hawaii. Oyuwari is the best for winter, especially for the cold nights when your wife or partner is mad at you, or after a tough day at work. Just pour shochu into a glass with hot water, and the oyuwari will deeply heal your weary body and soul.

Sigh.

Shochu doesn’t cheat you. Shochu always stands by you. Take your shochu time.

*Washi Washino is a certified Shochu Advisor. Find him behind the bar from Monday-Friday at Ippuku in Berkeley.

Winter is coming. The leaves are long gone; stark bare branches and the increasing chill in the air are all that remain of autumn. The sun’s attempts to warm its subjects get undermined by the biting wind. Perfect time to duck into your favorite watering hole and defrost with a winter libation. Keeping with my philosophy of seasonal cocktails, a drink to get you through the frigid weather should be a hearty concoction that warms the body and spirit. Sure we could go with the yuletide staple, eggnog but it is served cold and a bit ubiquitous for my tastes. We need a warm beverage with a boozy punch. Look no further than the granddaddy of eggnog, a drink that used to be an American Christmas tradition called the Tom and Jerry.

The Tom & Jerry is a predecessor to modern eggnog. The origins of the cocktail can be traced back to the days of Walt Whitman. There are various theories of who created the Tom and Jerry, but Jerry “The Professor” Thomas made the drink a saloon staple from 1850-1880s. According cocktail authority David Wondrich’s book Imbibe! From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to “Professor” Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar (2008), Jerry Thomas claimed to created the drink for a patron in 1847 while working at a bar in New Haven, CT. Wondrich’s deep dive into Thomas’ life does uncover that this claim may have been part of the typical sporting man lore of the time. The Tom and Jerry and its derivates were popular in New England before Thomas’ birth in 1830. The Tom and Jerry is listed as recipe number 174 in Thomas’ quintessential cocktail manual, How to Mix Drinks or The Bon Vivant’s Companion (1862).

Tom and Jerry
Original recipe by Jerry Thomas 

5 lbs of sugar
12 eggs
1/2 small glass of Jamaican rum [1 oz]
1½ teaspoons of ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon of ground allspice

Method: Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and the yolks (separately) until they are as thin as water, then mix together an add spice and rum, thicken with sugar until the mixture attains consistence of light batter.

To serve: Add one tablespoon of this mixture to a small bar glass, then add one wineglass (2 oz) of brandy, fill rest of glass with boiling water and grate nutmeg on top.

The original version of the drink needs all that sugar to thicken the mixture against the hot water. To Wondrich’s point, by using hot milk instead of water, the same consistency achieved and amount of sugar can be dialed back to two pounds. The versatility of the drink does not stop with water or milk. In How to Mix Drinks, Thomas is already tweaking the drink and recommends that the 2 oz of brandy can be broken up in 1 oz Cognac, 1/2 oz Jamaican, and 1/2 oz Santa Cruz rum. I believe we can go a step further to make the drink easier to execute in a single serving.

In my recipe below, I use Grand Marnier instead cognac, a full ounce of Smith & Cross over-proofed Jamaican pot stilled rum, substitute pimento or allspice dram for the crushed spices, and simple syrup for the sugar. The result is a spicy and rich boozy cocktail that can be a true corpse reviver in the winter months. The Grand Marnier brings the cognac element but also adds the right amount of orange peel and citrus to the drink. It also marries well with the bold molasses flavor of the Smith & Cross. Using pimento dram adds the mild spice flavors of clove, allspice, and cinnamon while saving on preparation time.

Tom and Jerry
1/2 simple syrup
1 oz Grand Marnier
1 oz Smith & Cross Jamaican Pot Still Rum
1/4 oz St. Elizabeth allspice dram
1 egg (optional: yolk and whites beaten separately)
4 oz hot milk
Ground nutmeg

Tools: Mixing tins, Tom and Jerry cup or Irish coffee mug, jigger, egg separator, grater, Hawthorne strainer

Method: Combine ingredients in mixing tins (except milk), dry shake for 5-10 seconds to emulsify the egg. Strain into a T&J cup or Irish coffee mug, add hot milk, and garnish with ground nutmeg.

*Photo by Vanessa Bahmani with FrenchChristmasWallPapers.net

**Got a cocktail question? Reach Fredo on twitter @loungerati, email me at fredo(at)loungerati(dot)com, or simply drop me a comment below!

***Fredo Ceraso is the editor-at-large of the lounge lifestyle blog Loungerati.com. He is head cocktailian and a co-producer of The Salon parties. Fredo is a member of the USBG New York chapter and rolls drinks at many Lounge, Swing, Jazz Age, & Burlesque events in New York City.

It’s that time of the year, when my well-windowed apartment gets really cold and I have to bring out multiple space heaters to supplement the un-strategically placed central heater that seems to whisper lukewarm puffs of air. Luckily, my Zojirushi water boiler and warmer just arrived in the mail and I will have a steady supply of hot water.

Tea is my year-round choice for a hot beverage. My favorite teas for this year are bancha from Japan and jasmine tea from Taiwan. Both are really gentle on my stomach. So much so, that I can drink either first thing in the morning.

But when winter time comes around, I am desperate for a caffeine-free option — a hot beverage that I can have at 11:30pm without worrying about if I will be able to sleep thirty minutes later. Enter the yuzu.

This year seems to be a great year for yuzu trees in the Bay Area. Both my mom and sister’s trees are busting with fruit. The rinds are colored to perfection, not quite as bright as a lemon but not at all green. For my caffeine-free drink, I thought I’d make use of the bounty of winter and use the zest of a yuzu, grated ginger and a dollop of honey.

INGREDIENTS
1 or 2 small zest shavings of yuzu
1 tsp of freshly grated ginger
1 tsp of honey

1. Drop the zest and ginger into your tea pot.

2. Add hot water.

3. Steep for 4-5 minutes.

4. Pour tea into your cup and add honey.

After a few sips, my body is so warm that I forget about how my “central heating” is blowing thin slivers of lukewarm air.

TIP: Since you only use a little bit of the yuzu at a time for this, you can wrap your yuzu tightly in saran wrap and freeze it. The next time you make this, you can take the yuzu out of the freezer and shave off another piece of rind.

It’s Christmas in a minute or two, and from my windows overlooking the big lakes of Copenhagen I watch people rushing back and forth in the typical December rain. They’re probably leaving one Christmas party to go to the next. This month is not only about stressful giftshopping or Christmas Eve preparations or even killing trees in massive numbers.

No, we also enjoy a Christmas parties galore here in Denmark — at the school, at the local gym team, in the shops, on the job — and everyone serves glögg, the sweet red wine-based Christmas drink that you Americans call “mulled wine”. By the time you reach Dec 10th you’re ready to throw yourself over an icy cliff the next time someone offers you a cup of this, but until then it’s actually quite nice.

It’s a good excuse for moms to get their drank on while taking part in their kids’ kindergarten daytime Christmas party, boozing it up with the other high-strung, over-achieving power women in the corner who want to breed perfect kids, make a successful career and be hot as hell in bed. They usually fail in the first category — modern kids are nasty, seriously. Needless to say, a good intoxicating cup of hot glögg or three can take the edge off for a little while.

Most peeps just buy this stuff in a carton, heat it, throw in some Glögg Mix consisting of pre-chopped almonds and raisins and pour it down their throat. But since this is a food blog I have tried to make it from scratch, following some guidelines I found online. And surprisingly, it’s really easy and quick!

*WARNING: This is the Devil’s blood though. Unless you boil the shit out of this glögg and thereby lose the alcohol, it’s still red wine and you’re gon’ get DRUNK if you can’t stay away from the bowl, bitches! Soon you’ll find yourself grabbing Santa’s balls at your Christian neighbour’s Christmas party and it won’t be pretty. So please keep this in mind while scooping up the raisins soaked in alcohol, and licking the sugar off the glass. This stuff is like crack.

+++

INGREDIENTS
Serves 4-5 people

1 bottle of red wine
1 whole stick of cinnamon
2-3 cardamom pods
1/2 organic lemon
85 g sugar (2/3 cup)
2 Pomerans (Seville orange or “bitter orange”)
12 whole cloves
100 g raisins (about 3/4 cup)
100 g almonds (about 3/4 cup)

+++
RECIPE  AT-A-GLANCE

1) Pour the red wine in a pot and put the cinnamon and cardamom in a little cheese cloth with the wine so it can give off spicy vibes.

2) Warm up the wine almost to the boiling point, turn off under the pot and let it sit with the lid on for 5 min.

3) Stick the cloves into the pomeran oranges and place them in a heated (glass) bowl along with the raisins and almonds (preferably blanched).

4) Zest the half lemon, squeeze its juice out and put it all into the wine pot along with the sugar.

5) Pour the wine into the heated bowl and let it sit for 2-3 min with a cloth on top.

6) Serve in small glass mugs with a spoon.

7) Super easy — and something your friends will definitely find interesting! Goes well with æbleskiver (Danish donut holes), waffles, pepper cookies and other traditional Christmas sweets.

+++

So I gave it all a go at home. I made half a portion since it was only me and it was a test.

This is a bottle of red wine, that’s about what I know about that stuff. It was about $10 which the cheapest you can go here in DK without drinking pure acid.

I spend a fortune on spices since the only place you can find them are at the farmer’s market where you pay $6 for a little bag with 25g.

Pomerans/ Seville oranges are sugar boiled orange peels which are spicy/bitter/chewy. Very x-massy.

More fruit: organic lemon.

I forgot to buy whole cinnamon sticks at the farmer’s market so all I had at home was organic grounded cinnamon. That’ll have to do this time.

Cloves – these are essential for glögg, they’re the epitome of Christmas flavours and smells!

Big bag of organic raisins, it was the smallest I could get. Eugh, I hate raisin. What am I gonna do with all these???

Almonds – I was too lazy to blanch them, sorry. They really should be blanched, but since it’s only me drinking this – who cares?

Whole cardamom. I’d never seen these before, but God they smell good!

Open the wine and pour it all into a pot on the stove. I actually thought cork was out of fashion here in 2011? Is it back in again?

Since I didn’t prepare well enough and had no cheese cloth, I decided to try and use my tea filter. Which would work if I had actually remembered buying whole cinnamon sticks.

So in the end I decide to chuck it all into the pot and filter afterwards.

Heat it up! Almost til it boils. The leave for 5 min with lid on.

Stick the cloves into the pomeran orange. Seriously, can this be a more iconic Christmas activity? Old school.

Zest the lemon…

…then squeeze the juice out.

Organic sugar.

When everything’s ready, pour it all into the hot wine. Stir well.

Find a big glass bowl somewhere in your kitchen. It should be pretty. If all you have is a wooden salad bowl like me, use it (but shame on you). Christmas should be aesthtically pleasing.

We can share the shame.

Place the underwater mine pomeran on the bottom and sprinkle the raisins and almonds on top. I really should’ve blanched those almonds, but maybe this is more healthy…?

Now, filter the red wine to avoid big cardamom capsules in your mouth later on. Of course I skipped this step as well.

Pour over the hot wine.

Since it’s only half full I chose to turn the pomeran upside down so it’ll soak up the flavours better.
Cover the bowl for a few minutes with a clean cloth and let it sit for 2-3 minutes. Most people actually leave it on the heat and turn it on now and then to keep it warm.

Now serve in small glasses. Or big, like me.

Remember to provide a small spoon so people can scoop up the raisins and almonds.

WOW! This stuff is good! Surprisingly good actually. Even better than the store bought, factory-perfected cartons they sell here in Denmark.

And of course I had one big glass and already felt the hammer on my forehead, bam. I usually don’t drink much so the Devil’s Blood hits hard.

Enjoy! Happy holidays and love from Copenhagen, Denmark, Skankynavia.

“To live and eat in LA, it’s the place to be;
You’ve got to be there to know it, what everybody wanna eat”
- Tupac

Alright, alright, Tupac didn’t say “eat”. But instead of talking about hoes and tricks, he should have rapped more importantly about the bounty of food to be found in LA. Cause damn it, it is a damn fine place for eating. Here are a few of the stops I made on my recent trip to the City of Angels.

BEST FISH TACO IN ENSENADA
1650 North Hillhurst Avenue (Los Feliz)

I try to stop by Best Fish Taco whenever I’m in town. At $1 per taco, it should not be missed. They also have shrimp, for $2. I had one of each. The fried batter is light and airy, and keeps the fish moist, and the crisp of the cabbage makes each bite a piece of crunch heaven.

PHO 87
1019 North Broadway (Chinatown)

As soon as I landed, Brother took me here. The spring rolls were some of the best I’d ever tasted–instead of the usually flavorless pork, Pho 87 adds a sweetly marinated grilled pork. So delish.

As Yamahomo has suggested, always order your rare beef on the side. Dunk like shabu.

Brother

RED CAR BAR @ COLE’S
118 East 6th Street (Downtown)

Cole’s is historically known for their french dip sandwiches, but we stopped by their bar, called the Red Car Bar, for cocktail hour instead.

I was supremely impressed by the care they took in building each classic cocktail–down to their attention to hand-carved ice.

Old Fashioned

A fashionable history

Sazerac

Red Car Named Desire: Rye, Cynar, Luxardo, Maurin

A magical nook of amaros, mezcal and tequila. Oh my!


Martini

Yup, still light out.

“To live and eat in LA, it’s the place to be;
You’ve got to be there to know it, what everybody wanna eat”
- Tupac

Coming Up: Takao restaurant in Beverly Hills, and Robata Jinya in West Hollywood!

By Neyah White
Photos by Travis LoDolce

Well, there is no drink more quintessentially ‘Japanese’ right now than the highball. From crowded, stand-up after-work bars in Tokyo to elegant and sedate members-bars in Kyoto, the simple (but exact!) mix of whisky and water, has become the national drink of choice. There are a few factors involved with this, but the most important line of reasoning is that whisky is cool, whisky highballs go with food, and Japan has a properly mature culture that knows food and drink best enjoyed together.

The Highball Story

A 19th Century, New York barman named Patrick Gavin Duffy talked about highballs as a Scottish thing. It goes that a Scotsman was prone to asking for cut whisky drinks by ordering it in a tall glass. The thing is, they could use the words ‘cup’, ‘glass’ and ‘bowl’ interchangeably (something to do with the residual celtic vocabulary) and the word ‘high’ for the word ‘tall’. So where we would ask for a ‘tall glass’, the Scottish patron of the past would ask for a ‘high bowl’. Throw in a nice healthy highland brogue and to American ears it becomes a ‘high ball’.

The highball stuck with us through Prohibition and actually faired pretty well with the influx of bootlegged Canadian whisky and soda water made way for ginger ale. As style of drink it was popular well through the 50’s and 60’s. It was the end of the 60’s, beginning of the 70’s where it faltered, along with most of we now lump together as classic cocktails.

Now that we have re-embraced the Manhattan, the Martini and the Flip, maybe it is time to rediscover the simple understated highball.

*Neyah White is the Brand Ambassador for Yamazaki Whisky.

When customers visit Ippuku (where I work) and see the shochu collection, they invariably say, “Oh wow, look at the beautiful sake collection!” I’m tired of correcting them, but I have to, and I tell them that those bottles are not sake, they are shochu! And then, they think for a minute and say, “Oh, soju!”.

It’s so annoying. Ippuku is a Japanese restaurant, why would we have Korean soju? Many American people know Korean soju, but nobody knows about Japanese shochu.

Basically, soju and shochu are the same distilled drinks, but there are a little differences. Let me talk about this today. But actually I don’t know much about Korean soju, so let me check Wiki:

Soju is a distilled beverage native to Korea. Its taste is comparable to vodka, though often slightly sweeter due to sugars added in the manufacturing process, and more commonly consumed neat. Most brands of soju are made in South Korea. Though it is traditionally made from rice, most modern producers of soju use supplements or even replace rice with other starches, such as potatoes, wheat, barley, sweet potatoes, or tapioca. Soju is clear in colour and typically varies in alcohol content from about 18.5% to about 45% alcohol by volume (ABV), with 20% ABV being most common.

Yeah, it’s true–soju is very similar to shochu. Now, let me tell you about shochu in detail. Basically, shochu is divided into two categories as 甲類 (kou-rui) and 乙類 (otsu-rui). Kou-rui is distilled multiple times and often used in cocktails with various mixers such as tea and juice. Due to the less characteristic nature of kou-rui it works well with sugary mixers.

Otsu-rui is a category for single distilled shochus. Within this category is the honkaku sub-category. Honkaku is considered to be premium shochu, mainly because during distillation, nothing can be added besides water and the grain. Absolutely no sugar, unlike soju. In this column, I’ll only be talking about honkaku shochus.

Why is shochu confused with soju? I think because of the words origin from same Chinese word. I have to quote Wiki again…

The word soju is the Korean rendering of the Chinese 燒酒 (pinyin: shaojiu), which literally means “burned liquor”. (Incidentally, the Dutch-derived English word brandy—literally “burned wine”—uses the same linguistic concept to describe a distilled alcoholic beverage.) The Chinese word shaojiu is rendered in Japanese as shochu, the word that denotes a distilled alcoholic beverage that is the Japanese variant of soju.

And I must confess that Ippuku carry many sojus! Actually, we are selling soju as shochu! But we don’t cheat customers and have some excuse. See Wiki again and again:

The liquor licensing laws in the states of California and New York specifically exempt the sale of soju from regulation relating to the sale of other distilled spirits, allowing businesses with a beer/wine license to sell it without requiring the more expensive license required for other distilled spirits. The only stipulation is that the soju must be clearly labeled as such and contain less than 25% alcohol. Another consequence is that the manufacturers of similar distilled spirits from other parts of Asia, such as Japanese shochu, have begun to relabel their products as soju for sale in those regions.

Most shochus’ ABV is 25%, so Japanese distributors would need a hard liquor license, but if shochu’s ABV is 24% and under, they can export it. That’s why many distillers now decrease the ABV from 25% to 24% and export shochu as “soju” to the U.S.!!!

Look at this photo:

This is supposed to be  shochu, but it is “SOJU”.

And this too…

It’s shameful. I have lost my Japanese pride.

Shochu is a hard liquor, but soju is not. If you want to sell shochu, hard liquor license is necessary, but soju doesn’t require it. Hard liquor license is expensive, so it’s easy to sell shochu as soju. To make sure, Ippuku has hard liquor license, of course.

OK, let’s compare soju vs. shochu ads. First, most soju ads are like this.

Fresh! Pretty!! Sexy!!! I wanna drink with her so bad. And how about shochu’s?

Cozy!!!

Maybe I’ll start a new column “Soju Stop”, starting next time.

Soju doesn’t cheat you. Soju always stands by you (with pretty girls). Take your soju time.

I wanna take my soju time now…

Summer this year is a total washout in wet, gray and windy London, so we decided to cheer ourselves up by going    and scoffing some afternoon tea. All lady-like and dainty, of course. Not really. We prepared ourselves by skipping lunch (and I substituted a lie-in for breakfast since it was a Sunday). So we rolled into Bea’s of Bloomsbury at 2pm, hungry and ready to do our afternoon tea some justice.

Afternoon tea always puts me in mind of Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier because of their Devonshire and Cornish connections in southwest England, the home of clotted cream. But Bea’s is also located in the heart of Bloomsbury where Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury set ruled their literary nest in the early 20th century and a stone’s throw from the British Museum and the old British Library where Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto. Also down the road on Doughty Street is Charles Dickens’ house which is now a cute little museum.

Afternoon tea can be an expensive affair. For special occasions you may be tempted to explore the Ritz or the Dorchester or, in my case, newly refurbished temple of art deco the Savoy with a glass of champers. Classy five star hotels with a classy price tag which can sometimes be a little disappointing. For everyday afternoon tea with all the trimmings, Bea’s of Bloomsbury is perfect. You still have to book via their website as it’s very busy, but when you get there, you’ll understand why.

Everything is made in-house. There’s probably only about eight tables inside with a couple outside. The bakery is at the back of the shop. At the front is displayed all their offerings. I took these photos after 4pm when most of their cakes had been devoured.

You can order the full afternoon tea with sandwiches and cakes for £15 per person. If you want to forgo the savoury stuff and concentrate on the sugar, then it’s all of £12. Practically a steal–coz’ let’s see all that you get:

Your choice of tea (black, green, herbal). I went for plain Assam. My friend went for Rooibos with milk and got a sexy little jug.

I’ve learnt that you can’t really enjoy the sweet stuff without a bit of savoury. So we went for the full tea and got served these delicious baguette sandwiches.

Chorizo, ham, brie and tomato and roasted vegetables with salami.

The sandwiches were not too big but not too small, and all incredible delicious. They were just right to prepare us for this:

Ok, so we came here for the cakes. Bea’s has been steadily making a name for itself amongst Londoners. They first became known for their cupcakes as they rode the cupcake boom here a couple of years ago (we’re always a few years behind the States here) and have now opened a second shop near St. Paul’s Cathedral. We went to the original shop near Holborn.

Top tier had the following: cupcakes (red velvet and chocolate with hazelnut butter cream), mint and chocolate macarons, passion fruit marshmallows and pecan and chocolate financiers. The bottom layer had plain scones, mini meringues, brownies and blondies. One each for both of us. That’s eight sweets EACH.

The scones came with raspberry jam and clotted cream.

I LOVE clotted cream. If my scone comes with whipped cream instead of clotted cream, I WILL throw a hissy fit. Clotted cream is thick and creamy and gives cream tea its name (i.e. tea with scones). These scones here were served warm (as they should be) and we could smell them being baked throughout the afternoon.

Now, when you eat scones, you can’t be stingy. I like to put the jam on first and then sculpt the clotted cream on top. But you can be as creative as you like. Some like to make a scone sandwich.

Take nice big bites. You can’t really eat scones in a lady-like manner as they’re extremely crumbly, so don’t even try.

The blondie and the brownie. Two small pieces but extremely rich.

We thought we were doing very well, pacing ourselves, drinking tea, chatting and catching up on what’s been going on with our lives. The staff at Bea’s were lovely, extremely accommodating, didn’t make a fuss about giving us extra hot water when our tea ran out, didn’t rush us even though our tea-time slot was for two hours and even shared their recipe for the passion fruit marshmallow, which was my favourite sweet that day. It was soft, juicy and tasted like fresh passion fruit with a refreshing tartness. I may have to go back and get myself a bag of them.

I actually thought we would finish the whole thing but we had to admit defeat when faced with the final two sweets: a cupcake and meringue each. But these were packed away for us with a smile. I had the meringue when I got home and it was very light and crunchy with a chewy centre. I gave my cupcake (the chocolate and hazelnut buttercream) to my flatmate who said it was better than Hummingbird’s. High praise indeed.

We saw this cake decoration on the way out. Hand-painted wedding cake, anyone?

And we walked down the road towards the British Museum an hour before it closed to continue chatting and have a juice in their lovely great court.

Afternoon tea at Bea’s is a robust rather than a delicate affair but with sterling service with a smile and excellent comestibles. So I recommend anyone visiting London to give this place a go. Just make sure to book in the weekends.