Farewell Sis

My sister, Sophia, and brother-in-law, Pete, have lived in London since March 2009. Pete has now been accepted to study medicine in Australia and they're leaving to return to Oz this Friday.

For most of the time I've lived in London I've had no immediate family here, so it's been so lovely to have Soph here for just a short time. We have shared many occasions, usually (actually always) involving eating. Soph's cooking has even made it onto this blog from time to time (an honour I'm sure she'll keep close to her heart for ever) - Soph's features include this crumble, these pastry and roast tomato canapes, and slow cooked lamb. Soph and Pete have joined us for brunch at Lantana, Rambling Restaurant in Camden, dinner at Can Be Bribed With Food's house and many, many other eating opportunities. Both Soph and Pete have helped out Y & I at supper club - one guest had even done such thorough research that he instantly recognised Soph from a photo on the blog (a little scary, in a stalker kind of way).

Soph & Pete (or "the Kids", as they are affectionately known in our household) will be greatly missed in our little foodie world.

One of the places Soph and Pete wanted to try out before they left London was "the one and only" Buen Ayre, in Broadway Market, Hackney. We were going on a Sunday night, and so popular is Buen Ayre that we could only get a table at 9pm (we're off to Buenos Aires in a week, so this was good practise for late night steak eating). We chose to have the Parrillada Deluxe (thankfully we only ordered it for 4 people, to share amongst 5) which was sizzling grills of Argentinian sirloin steak, Argentinian rib eye, and Argentinian style sausages - devastatingly they were all out of sausages so we were compensated with extra blood pudding and provolone cheese, both of which come with this meal in any event.

The general consensus was to have our steak medium-rare - I would say it came a little rarer than that (which I was personally most happy about). The grills were brought to the table with the steaks, black pudding and melting cheese sizzling away. I vaguely recall some side dishes of salad and chips. We jumped in with embarrassing gusto and eagerness, and looked up only to take the occasional cheesy photo (literally - for some reason we found it funny to hold up melting cheese on our forks and pose for photos).

The steak was good - very fresh and really well cooked. Not the most incredible steak I'd ever had, but pretty good. Not an overly complicated meal, but sometimes, steak, cheese, chips and a random lettuce leaf are all you need - oh and there's yummy "meat sauce" too.

The atmosphere was great and we left the place still humming at about 11.30pm. If you've got an appetite (and by 9pm, you should have), and like your steak - you should check Buen Ayre out.

Soph and Pete have been staying with us this week and they fly out in two days' time. Soph's last day at work was today, and the story of her day is typical of her - she does what she wants, and always lands on her feet!

She flatly refused to bring in cake for all her colleagues on her last day. Because it was her last day, so why should she? She gets to work - her boss's chauffeur takes her to Tiffany's where she is bought a beautiful silver necklace, meanwhile the work colleagues pitch in to get her the matching Tiffany's bracelet (Pete is feeling a little inferior tonight, it must be said). And if that's not enough - they order all these cakes from Hummingbird bakery. She walked in the door tonight with this entire red velvet cake which was leftover! We happily sipped tea and devoured a slab each. Hmmm - maybe there are some good things about the Kids leaving ...