KatBrown's Qype profile

Sigh. I honestly don’t know why I’ve persevered with Groupon, but Mama’s Help were the last straw. If they were my mama, I would not want their help.

I bought a post-tenancy deep clean for £32. The offer stated this would be two people coming to clean for two hours. When I called Mama’s Help, they carefully said that this actually meant two people coming for one hour each which is a completely misguiding detail and which I would not have ordered. Two people cleaning for two hours is not the same as two people cleaning for one hour.

2) When I had to reschedule their visit, I was offered Thursday at 4pm. I duly left work in the middle of the afternoon to go and let them into the flat, only for them not to turn up. I rang Mama’s Help, who said that I wasn’t in the system. I beg to disagree: if I hadn’t booked it, I wouldn’t be out of work at 4pm.

Not impressed at all, not by their “system” and definitely not by their incredibly squirmy attitude to the English language. A refund has duly been requested.

I haven’t felt this dreadful after three pints for a long time. Next time somebody tells me “This really is lethal” about a drink, I will listen attentively, rather than merrily going “Yeah, whatever.”

The Jolly Butcher has a fantastic array of beers, stouts and – the deathly drinks – cider. I tried the scrumpy (delicious) and the perry (delicious, but utterly evil) and the knowledgeable and lovely staff let me try a morsel of both beforehand to pick what I wanted to try.

It’s a beautifully-decorated pub with lovely detail; from the bird taps in the loos, to the Victoriana wall prints. The staff were all efficient, friendly and helpful, and the punters were as jolly as the pub’s name deserves. I didn’t eat (probably half the problem) but the portions of food that came to our table were very generous and by all account delicious. Definitely worth visiting if you’re in Stokey.

I was organising my friend’s hen earlier this year and after exhaustive research of places to have a cocktail class in London, settled on LVPO. Not only was it dirt cheap – £25 a head for lots of platters of food, Smarties on the bar, cupcakes and two bottles of fizz with sparklers afterwards – but it was incredibly fun.

I’d never done a workshop before and had no idea what to expect. LVPO itself was a bit shambolic – when we turned up nobody was expecting us and we had to wait 10 minutes or so for our bartender – but the class was great, as were the LVPO people – Charlotte and Dan – who I made my email reservations with. They were endlessly helpful and a great asset to the bar.

We had a glass of pink fizz and then our bartender showed us how to make a few classic cocktails.

We then got to make our own. I was expecting us to be watched like hawks, but we were told we could pick anything. We could even make something up! I made a cocktail for the bride-to-be (recipe here! http://www.domesticsluttery.com/2011/05/cocktail-hour-ban...) and then later on we had a team cocktail making competition which was tremendous fun!

The platters of food were delicious and fed us all really well, and the whole class was just terrific. Our bartender was very patient and knowledgeable. Afterwards we sat in a little area upstairs before going on to the next part of the party, and as an extra surprise we were bought a GIANT cocktail in a bowl with loads of straws. Brilliant.

I can see why this mightn’t be the best bar in the world to go to just for drinks, but for cocktail classes that won’t rip you off, I would recommend it wholeheartedly.

Cheers!

I’ve been here a couple of times now and it’s just so good – no queue as with the Wardour Street branch, the staff are really cheerful and efficient, and there’s something incredibly decadent about a doorman who doesn’t behave like someone who’s judging you.

I love the incense and candles as you come in, and the whole spacious decor of the place makes me feel instantly like I’m on holiday.

Last night I had the excellent chicken satay again (great chicken with a little yoghurt, and lovely satay) and the Koh Samui juice (coconut, orange and carrot) which was quite spectacular. My Tom Kha chicken soup required playing that annoying game “Is it chicken, or is it lemongrass?” but tasted lovely.

A fantastic place to eat around Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus, which isn’t exactly troubled for same.

As I live pretty much round the corner, I've eaten at Feng Sushi a couple of times before, but for laziness sake I seem to keep getting waylaid by the comforts of Ping Pong next door. It was jolly nice to be jolted out of the laziness by last night's wonderful Qype event, which took us outdoors to make sushi, drink cocktails and sushi canapes and enjoy a bloody great barbecue.

There was terrific schadenfreude to be had in watching all the hopeful passers-by sidling up to the barbecue, salivating, then mournfully going away again on hearing it was a private event. On the bright side, the barbecue is here for the whole summer, so there's plenty of opportunity to try what we did: pork, lamb and excellent chicken wings.

My favourite barbecue tip was to take a giant spray bottle filled with 25/75 salt/water to dampen the flames and crisp up the meat. Our chicken was so unbelievably light and crispy that it could have escaped from an advert. There was another bottle filled with sake too, hurrah!

We tried two cocktails; a sake sangria and an apple and ginger one. I wouldn't order those myself. The sake was completely overwhelmed by the flavours, and tasted much better on its own. I was very taken with the bottle Kirin and Asahi beers, not least because Kirin always makes me think of the Famous Five. Delicious!

I was incredibly surprised by how easy it was to make sushi (although not so easy to make it look as presentable as it does in the restaurant). It feels like I've learned a wonderful secret, and I can't wait to get my own little rolling mat, seaweed, sticky rice and ingredients and get cracking with a very sharp knife.

Above all, it was really lovely to hear about all the sustainable fish (Devon crab was delicious) and to see such experience sushi chefs preparing sashimi and nigiri up close. It took our chef maybe five seconds to make the most perfect nigiri - unbelievable.

Wonderful food and passionate, friendly staff. A terrific evening in a great location.

Am I allowed to fill this box with "NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM" or do I have to expand my vocabularly sufficiently to mention the superlative friendly staff? The barman who made an off-menu Sidecar for me and related the fact that he used to make them for his grandma? The Jewish wedding music in the beautifully decorated bar?

Ok, what about the wine list that came inside a copy of Captain Cook's adventures - they're different for each table. The sommelier who introduced each wine in our wine pairing to us with such enthusiasm that we fell on the wine with even more love than would have otherwise done (amazing choices - saki! Lots of it). The food, so delicious, imaginative and moreish, that we managed six courses plus amuse bouches and palate cleansers without feeling stuffed? That Nuno Mendes came out with a copy for the menu for each of us at the end and I felt a little bit like I'd just met foodie God.

Moreover, that we spent £300 between us, and it still felt like a bargain.

Enough questions, go and answer for yourself. This wonderful restaurant is the full stop of London dining.

I went with a friend and her housemate who practically live here. This was evident by the father-like attentions of the waiters (consummate pros all, our prosecco was constantly topped up without feeling pressured to drink a ton) and the fact that the food is really good. I liked the wallpaper and the room was really nice - good wood tables and romantic without being cheesey.

I had king prawns in a garlic tomato sauce to start - bit too much sauce, but very good prawns. My friend is hooked on their chicken liver pate and very kindly let me tear some away from her plate. It was really, really excellent. I'm a pate addict and this was as good as any I've had, served with a nice heap of rocket and good bread.

I went simple for the next course with meatballs and tomato sauce spaghetti, which sounds infinitely better in Italian. Large portion and perfect. Light, tasty sauce, the perfect sugo.

We asked for our bill, after which a waiter came and offered us drinks which annoyed me a bit as I thought they'd forgotten our bill. Turns out I was being a plum idiot. Being regulars, my friends (and by extension, me) were being offered a digestif on the house. Cue Amarettos all round, a quick fag outside in the nice little paved garden where we swapped shoe shop recommendations with some friendly girls and then it was back to the glamour of the bus stop.

Right - enough of this nonsense, praising Saf is a waste of adjectives that could be used to bring hope to some of London's neediest vegetarian restaurants (Vanilla Black and your delicious food and ghastly in-womb colour scheme, I'm looking at you).

Saf is a nightmare. It is, however, an equal opportunities nightmare, providing horror enough for meat-eaters and veggies alike. I've been twice now, and I won't be making it three times a lady.

First time round, I got to choose where my chap and I went out in Shoreditch. I picked Saf and Lounge Bohemia. After a thoroughly underwhelming and overpriced dinner served by waiters who appeared to be on vegan autopilot, we rang up Lounge Bohemia and asked them to give us our table back to rescue the evening.

Second time, I took my favourite veggie pal. I rang to book a table for our pre-theatre meal and was greeted by the sound of sucking air uncertainty that sounded as though my request was being diverted via wind tunnel.

Duly rocking up at 6.30 and expecting crowds of slavering vegetarians, there was nobody else there. For ages. Not a soul. I can only presume that the phone uncertainty I'd experienced beforehand came about through this conversation:

"Dave, can we be arsed to serve someone at 6.30?"

"No, not really, no."

"It's on the door though Dave."

"Sod it, we'll just serve them really slowly."

Oh my goodness the service is so SLOW. It's raw food! You don't even have to blow on it and it's ready. My cocktail took a mighty 15 minutes from order to table. My dinner companion was caught in traffic and took even longer. When we finally ordered, there was a 35 minute wait between courses.

My soup was beautifully presented, but so is my food at Pho, The Ivy and MacDonald's, all of which take a damn sight less time to release their wares on the world. None of the food we ate at Saf was good enough to warrant the waiting time.

Once again, I was presented with a miserably bad experience and an eye-watering bill. If I could have done, my eyes would have watered blood, just to spite the vegans.

This is really charming theatre. The stalls entrance and bar is almost like popping into a tea room rather than an extortionately priced outing. If your price range is more around the £25 than the £65 mark, you'll be heading round the corner up to the balcony and its nose bleed seats.

Despite being on an almost vertical rake, the view from these seats is actually pretty good. For me, 6'1 with gangly limbs, the real problem was the seats themselves. In addition to the usual cramped leg room that's customary in the old West End theatres, the seats are curiously bucket shaped with a sort of ridge around the back that makes it impossible to get comfortable. I've just had to leave the otherwise excellent The Children's Hour at half time because my back was in danger of turning into a roller coaster. I left my seat 50 minutes ago, and I'm still in pain. Glorious!

Still, for anyone who's shorter, they're ok seats. But still, charming or not, the balcony area really needs updating. It has one ladies' loo. One.