I have a few things to share with you today, first of all – who wants to see me make a right tit of myself on stage? Alright, an exaggeration, but I am both very proud and flattered to have been invited by my favourite Brighton foodie Beth to speak at her event – the inagural Food Bloggers Connect. This event is basically a big party for food bloggers everywhere AND also anyone who has a vested interest in Food Blogging to network, share ideas and generally to have a good meal (yup food is obviously involved). The event will take place this Saturday 28th Nov 2009 at Levant Restaurant in London. I have been asked to do two presentations and I just want to give you a little sneak sneak of what I intend to say… also keep reading for the competition regarding the tickets to Amsterdam

Hi guys, just a quick word from my sponsors Douwe Egberts and the chance to enter two competitions to win some pretty cool prizes, please keep reading for the details

01/10/2009 UPDATE Me and We are Social have decided to give Becky (comment 15) and her foodie Mum the chance to have a positively gastrolicious holiday in Lille. Thank you all for participating, sorry can’t offer everyone tickets, if I could I really would. Congratulations Becky, do have a great time in Lillle. Eurostar (and their PR bods We are Social by extension) who put together the foodblogger trip to Lille a couple of weeks ago are now offering readers (that’s You) the chance to win two FREE eurostar tickets to Lille. You might have already seen the same competition up on other blogs such as World Foodie Guide and at the Greedy Gourmet. Ok so here’s how to enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment to this post by answering this question: Tell us why you’d love a little break to Lille. Hey guys, you know me – make your comment interesting, witty and really have fun with it! The most interesting one will be picked by We Are Social and you will be notified via email (so do remember to leave your email address when you comment). I’ll keep the competition open until Friday 25th September 2009. Oh and here are the Terms of the competition: Available to UK participants only, travelling from London to Lille only. Entrants must be able to make their own way to St Pancras. The

The things I do for food. Sunday and I’ve signed up to the Nom Nom Nom Cooking Competition, and amazingly, was one half of the final nine teams. My cooking partner in crime is Billy of Cowfish, and we face-off against… lots of bloggers, with the grand prize of a dinner at Tsuru. I didn’t win, I can’t cook, I almost made a fool of myself, but I did eat alot. Photo essay time folks, follow me behind the scenes to learn what made Team Cowfish+Eater tickle like clockwork. And so we go, into the kitchens of The Cookery School&#

Drumroll please …. and the lucky readers who will get a copy of the Rough Guide to Food are*…. No. 17 – Little Miss Random No. 4  – Ameea No. 32 – The Purple Foodie No. 25 – Sarah Spoon No. 8 – Gudrun *with random number generator Congratulations folks! I’ll get in touch with you shortly to get a mailing address. Still want to participate in another competition? Rough Guide are also running a proper one over at their website which will give you the chance to win a year’s supply of food boxes! Go check it out. Thanks to Rough Guide for the free books, and thanks to all you fine readers who participated in this, have a great weekend folks!

The amazing people over at Rough guides recently launched a new ’rough guide to food’ and they’ve been kind enough to offer LondonEater readers (yay, you) five free copies of the book. The Rough guide to Food aims to help average Joey Bloggs navigate their way through the wonderful world of food. There’s a wealth of useful information in there, and they have quite succintly pulled together extensive chapters on food into one pocketable read. Examples: It gives you information about which fishes being edible (or not), tells you about farming methods, a whole section on supermarkets, explains what a ‘deli’ actually is and there’s even mention of social media sites such as tipped being a good way to find local food shops/services. The final chapter gives you some starters advice on growing your own stuff (with a little chart on fruit/veg seasons) , all in all a pretty comprehensive little know-it-all book about what you and I love most (apart from the cat). To win one, simply complete the following sentence by leaving a comment: An Apple a day, keeps the …&#

Hellew peeps, did you miss me while I was away ? My flight back to Blighty was pain-free but coming back to my day job is none the more painful. I think I must have gained at least five pounds while on holiday, yes and yes - to answer your questions, I did photograph all the vacation food (with my brand spanking new Nikon D90) and I will write about them shortly. Getting back into the swing of things is the order of the week and I’ve started making reservations in London restaurants for this weekend so expect the first restaurant reviews to resume normal service next tuesday. In the meantime, the guest posting competition with the super duper grand prize of £50 is now officially done. Over the past couple of weeks, fellow food bloggers have helped me prop up very edible guest posts on London Eater and I am eternally grateful to the foodies who chipped in. As today is finally the 11th of March, all the guests posts will now go into a voting poll. The name of the game is very simple: just vote for your favourite one of any of the eight guest posts  and I’ll pass £50 to the blogger with the most votes via paypal. [poll id="5"] The poll will be open until 30th of March and the blogger with the most votes on that date will be £50 richer. Not sure which one tickled your fancy? Keep reading for a quick summary of the guest posts

Kang’s Note: This is the last of this series of guest posts for the £50 competition and it comes from Hillary of Chew on that Blog. This is her 2nd entry and it was originally published on her blog – I think it’s pretty cool, especially the fresh guacamole made fresh in front of you! Wowzie, Thank you to all the foodies who participated in this little competition, remember now, if you like any of the guest posts, come back Wednesday, Marth 11th and vote, vote, vote! -Kang. Aside from Texas BBQ, one of the more notable attractions in San Antonio is the Riverwalk. Many tourists like to stay on the Riverwalk (like us) so they’re close to all the restaurants and action. If the weather is right, it’s a pretty place to walk around, take a boat cruise and enjoy a relaxing delicious meal by the water. So in my quest for San Antonio restaurant recommendations, many of you recommended Boudro’s, a Texas Bistro on the Riverwalk. It was definitely one of our considerations but the deal wasn’t quite sealed until the boat cruise tourguide recommended it as well. He said he’s never had a better meal than the ones he has had at Boudro’’s and that the prices were very reasonable, considering. So after a relaxing boat cruise, we headed on over to Boudro’s. (On a sidenote: did

Kang’s Note: Oliver Thring of Thring for your supper! opted to articulate a charming bashing of The Light, a nightclub, bar and restaurant (in that order) trying to do too much and ultimately failing to do any single one properly. I love a good rant ( who doesn’t right? ) especially when one is done with such flair. Take it away, Ollie! – Kang. The Light [1/5] Restaurants invariably disappoint when attached to other things. The Disneyland diner. The burger van at the dogs. Balconies at the Royal Opera House. Of course, the trump card of such places, their snide and snickering victory, is that the trapped customers have nowhere else to go. Out, then, come the elephant foot kebabs or the patties of pulverised gristle, the preheated, lazily oleaginous mess of it all, with an apathetic shrug that seems to say, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ The Light, housed in a renovated electric light station for G.E.R., is a nightclub, bar and restaurant (the proper order, I fear) squatting at the border between the glassy City and the scruffiness of alt.Shoreditch. We’re here on some recession-wrought deal that one of our party found on the Internet. The place tries to do many things, and does most of them extremely badly. Downstairs, the oversized bar and restaurant have Hoxtonish exposed brickwork and high, uncomfortable stools, while the

Kang’s Note: Jude and Rosie are the London Brighton eating duo defined by the distance between the two places. The Fiftyfourfoodmiles are a road less travelled and Jude has brought back the spirit of blogging with a write-up of Brighton’s Food for Friends with nothing but the power of prose to paint you a picture of the meal they’ve had. Ah yes, some good old fashion writing to stimulate those brain cells. -Kang. Review: Food for Friends 17-18 Prince Albert Street, Brighton, BN1 1HF, 01273 202 310. Brighton is an undeniably good place to be a vegetarian: it doesn’t make you a social leper; in fact as a meat eater you often find yourself in the minority in pub-table conversation. Not surprising then, that Brighton (which now boasts nationally acclaimed veggie spots such as Terre à Terre, for example) was a suitable place to open Food for Friends – the city’s first vegetarian eatery – in 1981; a time when ‘I’m vegetarian’ provoked ‘a what?’ rather than ‘what kind?’ from people. Lactose / gluten-intolerant weren’t common phrases in those days of yore. But, Food for Friends, as a restaurant name? For an old cynic like me it forces an eyebrow skywards. Its name is telling me that my experience will be joyous, wholesome, filled with laughter as my close-knit group of friends and I (yes we’ve had our downtimes! Yes,

Kang’s Note: My forth guest post of the write and win fiddy competition is Hillary of Recipe4living and the chewonthatblog fame, she’s contributed her very first texas BBQ experience and if she says the food is incredible, I’m flying to Texas for it. Start salivating folks! -Kang. This weekend I had the pleasure of visiting San Antonio, Texas. A very last minute trip (like most of my travels), I didn’t have much time to plan out every detail in advance. But, since it would be my first ever trip to Texas, I knew I would have to make time for some Texas-style barbecue (especially after just having Kansas City-style barbecue last month!)

Kang’s Note: Today we have the 5 Star foodie blazing a trail of culinary glory to sample some of the best eateries in the US of A. In this post, she is at the Inn in Virginia and it’s one of those posts which evokes a sense of holiday…… – Kang. The Inn at Little Washington There’s a small Virginia country town, called Washington, located near the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge Mountains, only a few hours away from the busy streets of the capital. It is home to one of the all-time classic restaurants in the United States, the Inn at Little Washington. The Inn, as it is known, has been awarded five stars by the Mobil Travel Guide every year for almost two decades. In 2008 the Inn is celebrated its 30th anniversary. The chef and the proprietor of the Inn is Patrick O’Connell. Patrick O’Connell is a trail-blazer for modern American cuisine, featuring refined American classics with fresh local and seasonal ingredients. Amazingly, he is completely self-taught. His exceptional genius stems from his ability to select just the right combination of flavors and turn these into fantastically beautiful, artistic creations. The Inn has also encouraged the emergence of fresh produce and local farms tailored to fine culinary resources in the Virginia countryside. A true culinary pioneer, Patrick continues to make his own way and pave the

Kang’s Note: Today’s guest post comes from the finance foodie who does numbers by day and eats like me by night! FF blogs about the very best five star establishments to the most modest hole in the walls in search of the proverbial gastronomical high. For this trip, she has landed at Chung Shin Yuan to sample a very Taiwanese Breakfast in Boston. Enjoy it folks! -Kang. Last weekend, I attended a get together at Chung Shin Yuan, a “hidden gem” in Newton, MA known for its Taiwanese style breakfasts. Since the place is about 45 minutes away from Boston, my friends suggested we meet up at 10:30 a.m. in order to beat the weekend crowd (this place apparently fills up faster than my plate at a seafood buffet). When I realized we were meeting before noon on a Saturday (shudder!), I was tempted to feign illness and sleep in. However, my heater inexplicably shut off in the middle of the night, so I was unexpectedly awaken by the bitter cold that drifted into my room at 9:00 a.m. I figured since I was already awake, I might as well go to brunch (plus, I didn’t want to be known as “Anti-Social Athena”). When we arrived on scene, we found half of Boston’s Asian population had already beaten us. Luckily, we bribed an elderly Chinese couple ahead of us in

Ok, so I think it’s about time I close submissions for my ‘Write for me and win £50‘ competition and start telling you guys about what to expect next week. I received eight submissions from seven food bloggers and this is the tentative plan of release: Ambassade de L’ile (London, UK) by Kian of Gen.u.ine.ness 23rd February Chung Shin Yuan (Newton, USA) by Athena of Forays of a finance foodie 25th February The Inn ( Little Washington, USA) by Nathasha Price of 5 Star Foodie 27th February My Texas BBQ experience at County line ( Texas, USA) by Hillary of Chewonthatblog 1st March Eating green and white worms in mud (Malaysia) by Foong of thefoodsite 3rd March Food for friends (Brighton, USA) by Jude of FiftyFourFoodMiles 5th March The Light (London, UK) by Oliver Thring of Thring for your supper! 7th March Boudro’s Texan Bistro (USA) by Hillary of Chewonthatblog 9th March These guests posts will go into a voting poll on 11th March, so if you particularly liked one of the posts, do vote because I’m giving away fiddy quid to the author with the most votes. It’s me first competition here on LE and I’m hoping it’ll be a pretty entertaining – and interactive – one. Meanwhile, do check out the seven bloggers (all linked up) above, they are all pretty delish too. I’d also like to take

Eat&Read is a weekly round-up of yummi-news from around london and the blogosphere, every Sunday. I take it everyone had a smashing time getting all loved up yesterday? As for myself, I’ve been a busy bee planning content for London Eater over the next couple of weeks. Yes there are a few announcements I need to make in this edition of Eat&Read and the first one is that your resident London Eater (me) is going on holiday for two weeks (Hurray!) , but fear not, I’m still going to be blogging and I’d like to tell you abit about the coming content so do keep reading (please, please, pretty please.)

Happy friday folks, I’m going to release another restaurant review tonight, but first, this is a quick reminder of my write a restaurant review competition, the deadline is Valentines Day 14th Feb 09. Here’s what you need to do to win:  Eat out Write a review about it (no obscenities please) Must be at least 250 words in length. ( can be as long as you want , my record is about 2000 words ) Include at least one picture of your meal Make it quirky, interesting, awe-inspiring and apply all your writing skills It can be a review from anywhere on the globe so long as you ate something Email it to me at kang.leong [at] Londoneater [dot] com Deadline is 14th Feb 2009, Valentines day Are allowed to make as many submissions as you like Have fun writing it !  The best 20 submissions will go into a vote and the most popular wins £50. Simple, simple, simple. For more details, read the original post here

I feel it is my london foodie duty to report on any special offers which apply to food lovers in London. This the latest one from the Financial Times will give you the opportunity to have your bill halved. Details from the official website below: Have lunch (or dinner where offered*) with the FT and enjoy fine dining for less. When you take up this offer, your total food bill for two will be halved and you’ll be charged just £5 for your friend’s food. This exclusive promotion runs from Saturday 10 January to Friday 13 February 2009: simply book and eat during this time. To qualify, just collect three vouchers from the FT newspaper and reserve a table at any of the restaurants listed here, quoting Lunch with the FT. You’ll find one voucher in every weekday FT and two in FT Weekend throughout the promotional period. (Terms and conditions apply, click here for details)

Some of you will know that in addition to my bloggero duties here, I also put my foodie cap on and provide short restaurant reviews and eating lists for Metrotwin.com. What is Metrotwin.com? It’s a spanking new website which provides lists of exciting places/stuff to do in both New York and London. It’s backed by BA.com and is a kind of promotional tool to encourage people to fly that route. All the content is provided by the bloggers who are signed up as content partners with them and the idea is that independent locals will have the low down on the very best hidden gems in the city. How to get a free holiday to New York?   All you need to do is surf on to Metrotwin.com and register with them before 15th January 2009 and you will be eligible for the competition to win a pair of economy return flights to New York and three nights in the Plaza NY. Conditions apply, see here for the details.   It’s completely free to register and when you do, you’ll be able to create your own lists too. It’s a cool website, and you can go and read some of my recommendations on it. I’m KangatLondonEaterdotCom on Metrotwin, register now and you might be on your way to New York very soon!

I love reading restaurant reviews. Perhaps this comment from Heidi of Savory tv summarises it most succinctly: “Now you know I live nowhere close to London, so why am I reading a London restaurant review? Because I love your writing! And I get to live a bit vicariously through you, living the glamorous restaurant visiting life.” That’s exactly what I feel reading my favourite foodblog reviews ( Hi Helen ) , which is why I decided to build London Eater. And now, I’m giving you the chance to post your own restaurant review here. Everyone can enter (yes, that means you) and you have the chance of winning a prize amounting to the princely sum of £ 50 if you do