I was randomly chatting with Afrocentric and Nsoromma the other day about going out for dinner when we all remembered one of the most excruciating dining experiences ever! How it ever slipped my mind I'll never know but of course it had to be blogged about.

So sometime last year, this restaurant (which shall remain nameless) was doing a promotion where you'd come and have lunch or dinner from a menu with no prices on it and then in lieu of a bill, you'd pay as much as you think the meal was worth. Sounds like a great deal right? So of course, being the cheapskates and lovers of eating out that we are, Afrocentric, Nsromma and I trekked down to Farringdon looking for the said restaurant. Ah screw it, the restaurant's called The Little Bay. So after going up and down Mount Pleasant and Farringdon Road we eventually find the place right by where we first started. Isn't that always the case? By this stage we were cold, hungry and irritable and the fact that we had to wait for a table didn't exactly help manners.

We were finally seated and by this time we had warmed up enough to take in our surroundings. Woooooooow! This place was rocking velvet flipping ceilings! Add to this the huge frieze (or whatever it was) of Poseidon, the random gold trimmings, and the portly Mediterranean bloke who was wandering through the tables singing shrill opera. The impact of the décor was so powerful that I actually don't remember much about the food. It was perfectly fine I suppose but nothing to write home about.
 The real excitement began when it was time to pay the bill. We'd already decided to pay a fiver each before even entering the place but when it actually came down to it, the pressure was unbelievable. The three gloating women who had happily trekked halfway across London in search of an (almost) free meal disappeared. Beads of sweat appeared on our top lips and surreptitious glances were made towards the door. We eventually came up with a plan that we'd pay 10 pounds TOTAL between the three of us and Nsoromma and Afrocentric would take the lead out of the door whilst I stayed to paid the bill. This seem like a great plan in theory but the execution was another story. My nerves began to fail me when the waitress came to ask if "everything was okay" as she saw us trying to slyly slip on our coats and scarves. It also didn't help that we were the only black people in there as well. Way to disprove the stereotypes about black people being stingy girls! Nsoromma and Afrocentric "conveniently" found something fascinating on their phones and sidled out of the door. I sat there for about half a second before grabbing my bag, throwing down the tenner and practically sprinting out of the door. We collapsed in fits of giggles as soon as we put daylight between ourselves and the restaurant.

This restaurant had a genius marketing plan. Enough people were probably so terrified of looking stingy that they overpaid on their meals, therefore offsetting cheapskates like us. Nevertheless, this was definitely one of the most painful dining experiences I've ever had. So it's over to you. Can you beat our experience? Let's hear it!


(On a side note: there's a Jamaican Restaurant in South Norwood called "Rastarant" and I've always thought this was the greatest name ever! Any good restaurant names to share?)

 Tangerines: When I first saw these, I was like "why is this woman trying to palm us off with unripe fruit?" Let's just say that I finally saw the light when I took them home and got under their bright green skin. Yummy's not even the word. Here they are in my fruit basket with one random "normal"-coloured tangerine.



Oranges: I have a sliiiiiight obsession with oranges but I've never really taken to English oranges- too tasteless. In the ATL, the oranges from the Korean supermarket were a fave because they tasted "like Ghana oranges". So here's the real thing and they're a dream for a lazy cow like me because you can get them ready-peeled! This is a before and the after after I completely demolished it, complete with lip-gloss marks....




Alasa/ Adaswa: I literally screamed when I saw these. I remember them from when I was little and I hadn't had them since my mum randomly brought a couple back from a holiday when I was around 12/13. When ripe, these are quite sweet and they have about 4 shiny black seeds inside each one. Smallish in size, if you chew the flesh for a while it turns into chewing gum! How cool is that? They can also be incredibly sour when not fully ripe; kinda like any sweet from the sour section in a pick 'n' mix. Everybody tells me they're called alasa but I swear down I used to call them adaswa or something like that when I was little. Can anybody help me out with this?


Mangoes: I kept meaning to take pics of the small Ghana mangoes you rarely find in the UK but um, they never lasted that long. Ghana mangoes are my all-time favourite fruit so that's my excuse.

Pineapples: Eating pineapples in Ghana makes you steadily pissed that you've been spending money on impostor fruit that can't hold a candle to the ones here. Sweet is not even the word. Amaaaazing and the taste is simply sensational. Cutting pineapples, however, is not the business....

So here we are for starters and hopefully I won't take the piss in producing a part two!