One Twenty One Two - The Royal Horseguards, London.

This was definitely a good throwback for me. This was one of the first ever date night for us after I obtained my spouse visa. I started my first job in UK and we were going to celebrate.

He wanted to surprise me and arranged for everything. All I had to do was to meet him at Embankment.

Turns out, we were going to dine at the One Twenty One Two at The Royal Horseguards. Such a mouthful eh? Haha.

So many good reviews at this place.

Great ambience too. The restaurant is situated in th hotel, so you can expect a very private and quiet environment. But not in an uncomfortable way.

We started off with a bottle of prosseco which we didn't finish. (It was a work night..else, we will never let a good bottle of wine go to waste!)

Good hair day and skinny face. 

I swear one automatically put on 4-8 kgs after their wedding. How can that be normal? 😞😞😞

The menu.

The starter for him: Duck terrine.

The starter for me: Cornish scallop.

Mains for him: Lamb cutlet

The main for me: Halibut

The food was really very good and fresh. We really enjoyed it.

The waiting staff were very warm and attentive as well. I would really recommend this place.

Dessert for him: Almond and lemon tart.

Dessert for me: Gateaux Marcel

By dessert, we were both super duper full. We managed to eat half of each desserts. And it was very very good.
There were definitely regrets for not finishing the desserts. 

Find out more: One Twenty One Two - The Royal Horseguards

Address: London SW1A 2EJ

Phone: 020 7451 9333

El Bodegon - Barcelona, Spain.

First meal in Barcelona at El Bodegon. I suspected that this was a restaurant chain but I found out later on that it was not. I thought so because of the setting of the restaurant but we were so hungry and everything looked so good on the menu. So, we settled for this restaurant as J literally couldn't wait any longer to eat. I'm glad we did because I only managed to see the reviews after dining there and the reviews were very good.

We wanted good tapas. Although the regular tapas in Spain was not the nice little gourmet tapas that we were used to outside of Spain, everything was lovely except for the Spicy Fried Potatoes with Chipotle Mayo. It was really just chips drowning in mayo...

I wasn't lying right???? 😂😂😂

Okay here's a snippet of the menu, in case you find yourself about to dine here.

We ended up ordering only tapas as we didn't want to ruin our appetites for dinner. (We ruined our appetites for dinner.)

One of the best Iberian ham I've ever tasted.

Can never resist ordering any squid and octopus dishes. So greasy...so good.

I know I've mentioned this before but as we grew older, we found the joy in eating good food. It doesn't have to be expensive. It just gotta be worth the calories we are intaking.

These days I would literally be sulking if I had a bad meal. Such a brat. I know.

Chisstora sausages. Some damn good sausages. But everything was in such a big portion that we ended up doggy bagging some of it and take it back to the hotel before heading out again.

We did not regret it because we were so full from this meal, we couldn't eat dinner. By the time we were done sightseeing and back in the hotel, we were starving and ate the rest of it.

Man, them fried potatoes I was complaining about earlier was so goooood.

Mr. Husband.

400 hams were hung on the ceiling!

Service was good here. I would say overall it was a good experience. Mainly because of the good and very yummy Iberian Ham.

J love eating ham so I ended up having the opportunity to try different ones too. And the reason I thought this was good was because it doesn't leave that porky aftertaste. Just super smooth and tasty.

We managed to taste other ones during this trip and yup, none was better than this even though we probably paid more for the others.

Man vs. Ham.

Find out more here: El Bodegon - Tripadvisor

Address: Torrent de l'Olla, 38, 08012 Barcelona, Spain
Phone Number: +34 933 48 28 54

Where to stay in Barcelona: Aparthotel Mariano Cubi

So many travel post to write and so little time! 2016 is nothing short of amazing. We ate at a lot of good places as well as travelled loads. I think 9 countries for me and 10 for him. Oh yeah, we also got married last Feb! 😁

I might have to work my way backwards for my memory power sake. Which is poor, which is also why I took photos of everything. Thank god for good camera mobile phones (although I really need a better one for travelling). So year 9 countries with multiple places to review.

Where are my manners??? Happy New Year guys!!! I do realize that I don't have a strong following because of my lack of updates but for those who stumbled upon my blog, welcome! And know that I make fake resolutions every year to update this blog regularly. 😦 I take it very seriously but I have to juggle a full time job and being a full time wife/mom to Dug and all my Netflix series.

The struggle is real.

Instead of rambling on and making excuses, I am just going to blog abt our latest trip!

 Barcelona, Spain! 

This was our final trip of 2016. We did a lot of city breaks last year and I think what I learned from that is that I need a good mix of both nature/scenic holiday and city breaks. By the time we went to Barcelona, I was all city out. 

That doesn't mean we didn't have fun though! The weather was milder than the UK but it wasn't warm warm. I quite like it as the last 2 times I went to Barcelona, it was hot. Toooo hot in fact and I didn't explore it like I did with my hubs.

We stayed in Aparthotel Mariano Cubi. I recommend it to a certain extend as it forces you to explore both directions away from the hotel to the closest 2 subway stations which are complete opposites. One side towards Fortuna is more ghetto while the other side towards Diagonal was much more upper class. 

We booked via booking.com and they said that it was very accessible to the subway. I can say that it is not if you have huge luggage. It is at least 15-20 mins walk. That's long with luggage.

Source: Google

I didn't take photos of the outside of the hotel.

Upon arrival, the service on the front desk was good. In fact, the service was good throughout our stay.

I think the only issue I had was the distance from the subway. 15-20 mins walk is not an issue as I walk a lot in UK anyway. It was just that I didn't expect that distance when we arrived.

The lobby. We didn't go for their breakfast because we wanted to explore local eateries as we always do whenever we go on a city break.

This was really welcoming. They gave us a handwritten note, champagne and chocolates to start our trip. That was a very nice touch.

Fooled around with my new selfie stick but something wrong with my front camera..or so I thought at that time.

When the trip was over, I found out that it was my screen protector that caused the cloudy effect. Ffs.

So we used his phone..which was better. I would normally argue that Samsung Note series has better camera but not that day. 

Not. That. Day.

Cape life. 

I can't find it after our holiday. I wonder if J secretly threw it away since I kept banging on about being Batman...

Outside view of our balcony.

Would I recommend others to stay here? Yes. But make sure you are not travelling with a big luggage if you are taking public transportation.

We only had a hand carry and it wasn't so bad but being a traveller, you need to consider all possible obstacles. It wasn't Summer so it is definitely bearable but comes Summer, that walk would be a tough one with big luggage.

Get a taxi from the airport. We did that on the way home.

"Address: Carrer Mariano Cubi, 62-64, 08006, Barcelona, Spain

Phone: +34 932099699"