Tag: The Shard

Breakfast at Aqua – The Shard

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It’s the summer bank holiday. It’s raining and the only good thing about today was I got to eat a posh breakfast at Aqua Shard with Miss Posh who says this place is her “local pub”. Joker! ¬.¬” Well she’s called Miss Posh for a reason on this blog!
A table was booked for 9.30 am. I was dead on time, but I don’t think that was early enough for Miss Posh as we wouldn’t be able to get a window seat she says… We got a window seat. 😛

We caught up with gossip for a little bit, ordered our morning drinks and was deciding what to eat all at the same time.
We had placed our order for two Shard Full Breakfast’s… and it took a long time to get to our tables… quite a long time. So we ate the danish pastries, kept on talking and watching London go all grey with the lovely rain spilling over the city. It reminded me of going up the Empire State Building in the rain. ^_^
The danishes tasted ok, a bit crusty so you may experience a lot of flakes coming off… Hmmmm.

Rainy London!
Apparently they usually do re-fills for the orange juice but maybe because it was a bank holiday this didn’t happen… Don’t know…
Orange juice (tasted sour) and my sweet apple juice

Flat white coffee
Finally the breakfast arrived. 
Shard Full Breakfast… as it appeared


Miss Posh said we needed to move the items around to make the plate look a little colourful. Hahah.

Miss Posh’s plate

My plate
As I started eating I felt full after a few bites. Blimey. What do they put in the food? How can this plate of food make me so full already! Miss Posh gave me her black pudding and I gave her a piece of bacon. Swap! Black pudding was nice, better than what I’ve had before, beans looked different, they weren’t too sweet but tasted good. Sausage, mushrooms, bacon, half tomato and spinach all tasted good and was well seasoned. One of my poached eggs was slightly overcooked but I was ok with it.
Brekkie time!
Managed to eat all of it, but the bread was really dry so I left the crusty bits.
This is the bar part…
Total cost came to £65.25. Yeesh. Expensive for breakfast, but as Miss Posh and I see it, we’re paying for the view…>_<""
My geeky rating: 4.5/5
Good points:
– Nice view
– Breakfast is good
– Service is ok… 
Bad points:
– Expensive (but worth it for the rainy view)
– Can be a long wait for the breakfast
Address: Level 31, The Shard, 31 St Thomas Street, London SE1 9RY
Telephone: 020 3011 1256

Hutong 胡同 @The Shard – London

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Happy Christmas to everyone and to all of those working today!!
It’s been an almost quiet week at work and I think one deserves to go to a posh dining restaurant to chill, relax and enjoy the view from The Shard.
Yesterday I went out with Miss Posh as a get together before the end of the year. I think I reserved my table in September as there were no tables to book for anytime earlier. Tables sell like hotcakes at The Shard, so make sure you pre-book everything if you’re wanting a nice table by the window.
I got to London Bridge and decided to have a tiny walk around before Miss Posh got there. But anyway I had to go into the restaurant by myself… I practically got lost trying to find the right entrance to Hutong! XD
Guess where the entrance is!
Hutong is on the 33rd Floor in The Shard but you actually get a lift up to the 32nd floor and then there’s a bit of walking up some stairs.

The meaning of Hutong 胡同  is “alley” or a “neighbourhood” and are commonly found in Beijing. I only see them in films and Chinese dramas. ^_^

When I got there I was seated straight away and then given a menu later. Miss Posh was late. Thankfully I went straight from work! I had a browse through the menu and had decided what I wanted… I kept sms-ing Miss Posh, and finally in the end I ordered my food plus a gin and tonic in the meantime. 
My starter came out first. Pork slices and cucumber with some spicy hoisin sauce. Blimey! The hoisin sauce was good. I was starving so I had a few. I was actually choking as I was inhaling the sauce and I still have a cold. But this is definitely good stuff. I could have more of these. 
Thinly-cut pork belly with cucumber slices
Sorry for the darkness… but the dip was good!

Yummy!!!!
Finally Miss Posh arrived. We moved seats to be closer to the window and I managed to break a wine glass with my bag. Oh dear. Thankfully I didn’t need to pay for the glass! Phew. And she ordered some more food.
Here’s the rest of the food we had…
This is Hutong’s Spicy Fried Rice. For Northern Chinese food, this is quite spicy! But I did like it as it tasted like sticky rice, something what my dad would make in Hakka style.
Hutong’s Spicy Fried Rice

Fried noodles with Seasonal Vegetables was unusual. It tasted like udon or thick spaghetti. Tasted like it was cooked in a light tomato sauce but not sure. Wish there a bit more seasonal vegetables in there but nevermind.

Fried noodles with Seasonal Vegetables

Spicy Minced Pork Dumplings were great! I think it didn’t need to be dipped into any sauces and eating it plain was good. I couldn’t taste the spiciness but it was good stuff. I recommend this!

Spicy Minced Pork Dumplings

 Here’s our food…

Our food

In the end we ordered Jasmine tea. Good stuff. It gets quite strong when brewed for too long. Not sure if they are allowed to top this up with hot water.

Having jasmine tea

Jasmine Tea

Total cost came to £75.38 including water and a pineapple juice. I think they forgot to charge for the tea. But that might just be a Christmas gift for us (I hope that was the case!). Expensive but worth it! I’ve heard some people have spent more than this! Well, it does cost around £30 to go to the top of The Shard anyway. 

The bill
Went to the Ladies afterwards, and I was amazed!! I took some pictures of the view as well as the sink area… I love the tap. Looks like they really took great care of the design of the restaurant and toilet area. 
View from the Ladies

Sorry for wasting water

They provide towels to wipe your hands!! Wow
Might not be a posh geek but at least I tried to be. ^_^ LOL!!

My geeky rating: 4.5/5
Good points: 
– Great night view from the window
– Service is polite and good
– Dumplings taste good
– Beautiful Ladies room!! You can get a view from there if you don’t sit by the window
Bad points:
– A bit expensive – but of course this place is for top diners and for those who can afford it!!
– Reserving a table will take forever
– Service charge

Address: Level 33, The Shard, 31 St Thomas Street, London SE1 9RY
Telephone: 020 3011 1257

The Shard

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Question: What’s 1004 feet high, has 87 floors, costs approximately £435 million pounds to build and lives by London Bridge?
Answer: The Shard.
Once again I have become a London Tourist XD… Miss Pinky and Mr Picky were supposed to go together and had invited me, but Mr Picky didn’t go in the end, and I hadn’t seen Miss Pinky for a month!!

This is an expensive London attraction that even Londoners like me want to experience. For me, I’ll only do this once, just like with the London Eye when it was my 21st birthday… (a very long time ago ¬,¬ when the economy was doing ok)…

The Shard experience is definitely something to share on this blog, not just for the tourists but also for the Londoners and people around the UK!
I say it is expensive because if you didn’t buy a ticket online, it costs £29.95 on the day. That’s just the adult price. Online it costs £24.95. It’s only a few pounds difference, but it’s still expensive. Miss Pinky was complaining how she could have bought loads of groceries with that money… (I think Mr Picky has infiltrated her brain on spending as she never would have said that!! Wow!!). I wonder how much profit they have made so far… Will they ever get the cost back from building this tall building? And not forgetting that this is a hotel as well… I think they will…

Pricing is shown on the screen outside 

So what do you get for £29.95…


1. You need to go through security, so take your jacket off

Going through security… it’s like going through airport security!

2. A photo shoot (£30 for the picture which comes in a leather bounded like frame, and you can’t take a picture of it!)… So evil… It’s not worth it really. So make sure you take a lot of pictures upstairs. Miss Pinky and I took a lot of selfies thankfully. 😀

3. A trip up a couple of lifts… It feels like you’re going through a very, very posh and technological lift. I thought I was in a Star Trek movie! XD… Each lift went up in less than a minute! Felt dizzy because it went so fast…

Waiting by the lifts

At Floor 33

In the second lift

Arrived on floor 68!!!

4. A look around of London from the top of The Shard on two floors
View from the first viewing floor…

A view from the top

This is the south part of the river… The sun was in my way!

North part of the river

East Central London… that’s the building that melted that Ferrari in the summer!!

East Side of London

The tracks at London Bridge

Tower Bridge

Miss Pinky looking through a monitor

You can look and spy on people close up!!

View from the second viewing floor…

It’s airy on the second floor

The south side again

It was a bit cloudy last Sunday!

The ceiling

A big gap… Is it even finished up there?

Tower Bridge and Tower of London

Trying to find my home in the distance XD
People viewing and observing

Tower of London

Construction on a rooftop

5. There is a restaurant and a bar somewhere, but I think it was closed off when we were there… I heard the restaurant is a bit on the bland side, maybe it’s because you’re so high up your taste buds tend to change. I think the chefs need to change tactic… It happens when you’re flying!!

6. The Shard’s mini shop when you go down…

Going down to the Sky Boutique

The mini shop

Nothing much here…

And that’s it really!!

Here’s the view from the bottom. See how high up we were!!

A view from the bottom XD

Afterwards Miss Pinky and I were a little hungry so we went to one of those old ancient pubs for Sunday dinner… 😀

Miss Pinky’s Beef Sunday Roast

My Chicken Sunday Roast

My advice. If you want to see London from the highest point then go for it. For a tourist it is spectacular, but for a Londoner it probably isn’t worth it for that price. I lost interest after a few minutes and after a few pictures… It was an EXPENSIVE Sunday. I also recommend going on a sunny day… You will see more that way…

Address: Joiner St, London, Greater London SE1 9SP
Telephone: 0844 499 7111 MAKE SURE YOU BOOK ONLINE!!

Website: http://www.theviewfromtheshard.com/ AND http://the-shard.com/