Mr LTT’s parents gave us this totally amazing hamper for Christmas and it had some of this popcorn from a company called Joe & Seph’s in. I was instantly taken with the branding, I can’t help it, it’s my day job to appreciate beautifully designed things! I found this amazing organic popcorn company called Quinn before Christmas, they’re based in the US. They’re a startup who got seed funding by people pledging maybe $1 or $2. I wondered why no-one was doing something similar in the UK. After all, my experience of popcorn pretty much amounts to stale popcorn from the cinema. And we don’t go to the cinema nowadays. There’s one less than a mile away but we haven’t been for over a year. I think it’s expensive (unless you go on Orange Wednesdays when it’s packed out) and the seats are uncomfortable. At home (although obviously we have to wait to see films) we get the best seats in the house, toilet breaks without missing the action and regular cups of tea.

So anyway, back to this popcorn…I have NEVER asked for PR samples before, it’s just not my style. But when I tasted the popcorn from the hamper and saw like HOW MANY AMAZING FLAVOURS THERE ARE (salty caramel, goat’s cheese and black pepper, smooth caramel and almond), I knew I would have to ask for a little Samply McSample. Mr Joe was nice enough to send me three flavours: Toffe apple and cinnamon, Valentine’s flavour caramel, white chocolate and strawberry, and mirin, soy and sesame flavour.

The popcorn is “the finest air popped corn” by the way. The toffee apple and cinnamon is a really good wintery flavour. Bags of flavour, loved the cinnamon notes mixed with a little bit of apple and a sugary toffee high…

The caramel, white chocolate and strawberry is “seductively fruity” (according to the pack) and yes, I’d totally agree with that. The flavour was a lighter one, it reminded me of spring. The strawberry flavour mixed with the white chocolate was totally delicious. And because it’s a special Valentine’s popcorn, it does seem like quite a tempting option for the big day if you want to save a few pennies but still have a great foodie experience!

Finally, for those without a crazy sweet tooth, there’s some great savoury options. I was SO GLAD I was sent the mirin, soya and sesame flavour. I think you probably know how much I love asian food since I talk about it QUITE A LOT. They’re like rice crackers on speed. There’s black and white sesame seeds on, and each taste made me want to pop another piece in my mouth. They’ve got that wonderful salty sweet flavour.

So where can you get hold of these amazing popcorn delights? Well there’s quite a few stockists nationally, but the easiest way is to buy them online from Joe & Seph’s. You can get three pouches for £12 – shipping is free within the UK (BONUS) and they’ll also ship to Europe and the US!

PS Thanks Mr Joe for sending me the popcorn, you’re awesome

Yes so remember I mentioned my diet was going well? I think PRs must sense this and then want to send me treats. But these new Häagen-Dazs Secret Sensations icecreams are well worth being a bit naughty for.

I was sent these new Häagen-Dazs flavours to review through the Häagen-Dazs program. It’s pretty neat actually, when I joined the program they sent me a USB stick shaped like a Häagen-Dazs tub (it’s amazing, everyone at work is envious!) and a scoop plus some gorgeous Cowshed goodies! Last week I was sent these by courier and I was so worried because even though Mr LTT works at home, he was going to be out at meetings on the day they were going to arrive. This meant I had to have them delivered to work where there’s no freezer and I thought they’d be melted by the time I got home and have good light to photograph by. I needn’t have worried! It arrived on dry ice which I’d never seen before and although I cheekily ate one of the chocolate fondant ones at lunch and opened the box, they were still really really frozen by the time I got home and finally got them in the freezer!

So the new flavours…the first is chocolate fondant. The chocolate icecream is quite rich but the mini cup is just the perfect size portion to make sure you don’t overdo it.

There’s little brownie pieces sprinkled through the icecream and rich chocolate sauce centre. I liked working my way from the outside to the inside and getting lots of sauciness at the end.

The thing I really love about Häagen-Dazs ice cream is that it’s got such a smooth flavour, the chocolate is really good quality, exactly what you want and because it doesn’t melt quickly I had time to savour every mouthful!

My favourite of the two (and that doesn’t mean that the chocolate fondant wasn’t delicious because IT TOTALLY WAS) is the Crème Brûlée.

It’s vanilla flavour with crunchy bits of caramel just like the crispy top on a traditional Crème Brûlée and then, just like the chocolate fondant one, there’s a saucy centre which in this one is caramel sauce.

Both flavours are sexy-licious. Yeah I just made that word up, but when you try them you’ll completely agree with me! They’re available now and you can buy them in packs of two x 100ml (RRP £3.29) or single 100ml tubs (RRP £1.99).

However, as soon as I arrived, everything that I had assumed proved to be incorrect. The pop up restaurant, based in Granary Wharf was exactly like a swanky restaurant. There was a doorman who greeted me when I arrived and attentive service by the waitresses. In the waiting area there were gorgeous white Barcelona chairs too which Mr Lay the table dreams of owning alongside an Eames chair. The decor in general made the high ceiling building look stylish and elegant without the dreaded Versace look that some restaurants seem to go for. It was light and airy and luckily I got seated directly opposite the window fortunately, so I got some great light for my photos.

I was given a glass of champagne and some green olives alongside so fresh warm bread and butter whilst I read the menu. There was a bit too much for just one so I had to try and resist filling up before I started my meal! The menu was varied but I knew what a lot of it was as I’d see it in our local Morrisons, so when I spied that there was scallops for starter on the menu AND steak for main, I knew that these wouldn’t come fresh from the microwave.

The starter of scallops and peas arrived and took me totally by surprise as to how pretty it looked – again, nothing like I expected. The king scallops were presented on a base of broad beans and peas topped with pea shoots. I’ve never tried scallops before but always wanted to and one I cut off a piece, I closed my eyes and tasted heaven. The slightly browned top and bottom (perhaps cooked in butter) just added an edge. Part of the broad bean and pea mix with blended so they were slightly saucy too and the sweet flavour of the scallop was perfectly complimented by bean and pea sauce. The only thing that really let it down was that the broad beans had not been shelled, so there’s that slightly weird texture of the outer. I would also have done away with the peas and broad beans as whole and just served them puréed them; the meaty texture of the scallop would have been enough of a contrast to make it work.

Next up was the fillet steak, with “jus” on a bed of mashed potato. Not just any mashed potato, a beautifully cream mash with a tiny hint of garlic in it. The steak was 21 day dry-aged which means it’s actually been air dried rather than shoved in a vacuum pack. The flavour is more developed in dry-aged meat and I have to agree that the flavour was deep and I had soon gobbled up the lot. I forgot to add it was also beautifully cooked, although it was a little rarer than I’d asked for I was actually glad it was cooked like it was. I’d actually sitting her almost drooling about the flavour of that steak. I know supermarket steak has the worst reputation and I never buy steak from the supermarket unless it’s for deep-frying (in which case the quality issue isn’t really at the forefront). But this piece of steak was enough to make me reconsider.

Onto the dessert. There was a good choice, but I was unsure about chocolate mousse as I often find it too rich, I nearly always order cheesecake and so fancied something a bit different so I requested the tarte tatin. It was ok, but pretty sickly towards the end, perhaps because I was so full and the portion was quite large. I haven’t got anything to compare this tatin to as I’ve never tried it before, but I reckon a homemade one would probably taste a little better.

All in all, I thought the meal was pretty darn good – the ingredients and food are all available in Morrisons, whether as a prepared dish (like the mashed potato and the tarte tatin) or uncooked like the scallops and steak. I’m very happy that I haven’t become so snobbish about food that I overlooked this opportunity – I guess you should never judge a book by its cover! The staff were also excellent – attentive, informative but never annoying! I was also very glad to meet Chris Wildman of Yorkshire Chorizo fame. I’ve been following on him on twitter for a while, so it was nice to meet him in the flesh!

Probably the best bit about these pop ups is that they’re not exclusive events for bloggers – in fact most of the people there are the general public. And it’s free, for everyone! There’s pop ups coming to Birmingham and Manchester so I’d really recommend going. You can find out more at The M Kitchen website.

I was due to write this post later this week until Mr Lay the table informed me that he’d wiped the camera memory and had therefore lost all the photos for the other post I was going to write. He is currently in the dog house! Luckily I still have lovely stuff to write about! On Thursday I will be on BBC Radio Leeds with the lovely Lynn from Clandestine Cake Club and My Secret Team Room, so if you have a chance, please listen in from around 9am I think! It’s all about National Cake Week so please bake a cake and donate some money to Marie Curie Cancer Care.

It’s always nice to get the gift of chocolates but it’s really super lucky to receive Lucky’s chocolates.

Lucky’s chocolates are like a halfway house between chocolate and cake. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, the “Mad Hatter” chocolates I was sent to review are brownie based inside, mixed with a special filling then cased in chocolate.

Look how beautiful the box is! There’s a little peep hole to let you have a sneak peek and see the surprise inside…

There’s dark, milk and white chocolates in my selection with names like “Salty Insanity” (a salted caramel chocolate), “Coco rush” (creamy coconut filling) and “Hurry Bunny” (blueberry compote). Oh, I didn’t mention it before but they’re all covered Valrhona chocolate, it’s like totes the best quality chocolate. And they’re hand made too (I do love a bit of handicraft).

They are truly some of the most unique chocolates I’ve come across. They taste divine too – honestly I had a job to keep a hold of them at work when they arrived and was sure I wouldn’t have enough to photograph! I think my favourite was the Looney Raspberry – raspberry and pistachio pieces. The only problem was I had to keep checking on the website to find out what each one had in them as there was no information card inside!

These are luxury chocolates and so they do come with a luxury price tag – the Mad Hatter 12 piece box is priced at £35 but there is free delivery. I definitely think I’d order a few of these for Christmas gifts because they’re so unusual. Who knows, maybe Mr Lay the table might get one in his stocking!

Get your Lucky’s chocolate at Lucky’s online shop

I was sent these lovely loose teas by Squeeze me juice. When I opened the parcel and saw the pretty foil-sealed packaging I knew I was in for a treat! In the pack I had two teas: Good Morning Sunshine which is Golden Monkey King tea and sunflower petals, and Simply The Zest which a fruit tea which is zesty citrus with hibiscus and rosehip.

I opened the Good Morning Sunshine. It had a very nostalgic effect on me as it smelt of a little hay and it reminded me of summers spent horse riding. I brewed up the Good Morning Sunshine and had a try. When it’s brewing it turns a lovely chestnut colour. I did add a splosh of milk but not too much, but it would also be nice with a slice of lemon and some honey. It’s wonderful – a breakfast tea with a tiny hint of flower that isn’t too overpowering (no hay taste when brewed!). I’ll be honest, I’m actually drinking this a lot at the moment instead of a full on builders brew. It’s light and yet still packs a good taste punch. Mr Lay the table described it as ‘like earl grey without the strong flower taste’.

Next I got out the Simply The Zest. On opening the bag there’s the wonderful aroma of berries, it feels very comforting and relaxing and it’s great to see all the bits, rather than them being ground up.

What a pretty colour my brew was! This was a great fruity flavour and even though I’m not normally a fan of fruit teas, with a bit of sugar for my sweet tooth it was quite delectable. You could taste the rosehip but it accentuated the other zesty flavours rather than overpowering them. A great taste for those looking for a caffeine free refreshment or you just love fruit tea.

You can buy these lovely Squeeze Me Teas Me teas for £3.99 a pack (100g) from the Squeeze Me Juice shop

Last week I was lucky enough to go to a blogger event at the recently opened Cattle Grid restaurant in Leeds. My colleague had been here where it opened and I heard they had wagyu beef on the menu…how could I resist?

Steve Novak, one of the restaurant partners gave us a talk on the idea for the brand and about the food itself. Cattle Grid is aiming to hit the restaurant middle-market – a chain of restaurants where people go and eat good steak on regular basis: in his words “The Pizza Express of steakhouses”. With this in mind, you can buy a fillet steak and chips for under £20 – this does mean you probably won’t get locally sourced meat (some of the steaks at the Leeds restaurant are currently locally sourced) and they buy vacuum packed in bulk. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it’s wet ageing the meat. One thing that is local is the bread which is made at Anthony’s, which is pretty much right next door!

I was sitting with Katie from Leeds Grub, Ellie from The Magic Square Foundation and Leanne who I had followed on twitter thinking she was someone else! They don’t have starters on the menu but Steve had recommended the ribs so we ordered ½ rack of normal ribs and ½ peri peri. Seriously, if there’s one thing you need to do, it’s order the ribs here! I’m somewhat of a rib connoisseur – my infamous slow cooked ribs fall off the bone, but Cattle Grid’s ribs are an extremely viable competitor and if any of my friends find out about them, I think my rib crown will be taken away. The baby back ribs were so tender and the sauce was amazing, I think it had honey in it and a good kick of spice – and that was just the normal ones! The peri peri one’s had more of a kick and some of the ladies weren’t so keen on them, but if you love spice as much as I do then they are definitely for you.

For my main I ordered fillet steak done medium with peppercorn sauce. Steve also recommended that we ordered onion strings – their version of onion rings. Due to one of the fryers having issues our onion strings were a little delayed getting to the table so we didn’t eat much of them – but oh my god. They are just AMAZING. So amazing that I took the leftovers him a box and had them the next day. Basically the onions are coated in a tempura-like batter and don’t feel greasy like other onion rings. You really must order these when you visit – one bowl is enough for two!

So to the steak – it was very good. The signs of a well hung steak were all there: the flavour was excellent and the texture had just the amount of chew and softness, despite my previous reservations about vacuum packing and bulk buying. The steak my mum buys from Howells of Wells-Next-The-Sea still tops it though. Mine was cooked perfectly and sauce was pretty good too – I do think peppercorn sauce really adds to the flavour of the steak.

For pudding I had a brownie although it was a little too crunchy and a little less squidgy than I prefer. I’m not sure the pudding list here is anything to write home about but fortunately the decent main meal portions and choice should be enough to make you return visit here.

Would I recommend it to people? Yes definitely, if you’re looking for a a decent steak in town then you’ve come to the right place, but what really makes the place different from other steakhouses are the ribs and the side dishes which come with your steak.

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Just a quick post really to tell you about the fabulous event that is Clandestine Cake. It’s a monthly event and there’s load of Clandestine Cake Clubs springing up all over the country (and even New Zealand!).

This month I invited the Leeds event to be hosted at my house – we’re very fortunate to have a large kitchen to put all the cakes and also receive all the lovely cake enthusiasts. The theme was “You are what you eat” encouraging us to make cakes that held special memories for us. To be honest, there are only two cakes I remember eating from our childhood: Cartoonies buns (Looney Tunes edition strawberry fairy cakes) and Victoria Sponge. My mum’s Victoria wasn’t the traditional kind, it had apricot jam in and buttercream. I grew up with a hatred for anything but apricot jam until recently, when I tried strawberry jam again a year ago I actually liked it.

As one of the rules of Clandestine Cake is to only make a full size cake, Victoria Sponge was the only option. I made it my way and you can find the recipe for my Summer fruits Victoria sponge. I said I made it, but actually a I had a fair bit of help from the lovely Hayley from Ceriselle.org who I’ve known pretty much since I joined Twitter. I invited her to come and stay at my house as I was holding a blogger event at work and knowing she’s as keen on tea and cake as I am, I knew she’d like to partake of some cake at the club. SO yeah, we make it together and she made all the fruit look way prettier on the top than I ever could.

I seemed to only manage about 3 slices before I felt completely stuffed, even though we’d only had brunch. I had to prostrate myself on the sofa for several hours afterwards to recover! Luckily there’s always loads of cake left over so had some over the next couple of days.

I’d REALLY love you to go and have a look over at Clandestine Cake Club and find out what it’s all about! I shall leave you with a few photos…

A huge butterfly cake

Pineapple upside down cake

Giant lemon french fancy

A beautiful battenburg

Date and walnut loaf

Whipped cream cake

Orange cake

Vanilla and coconut cake

The cake spread!

I’ve heard of the Saucy Fish Co before but as we don’t really go to Tesco where their product is stocked (it’s the other side of the city for us) I’ve never really thought about buying their stuff. As some of you may be aware, I’ve also never really been into fish (a horrific memory of Lowestoft fish market aged 10) but have got into it more recently since Mr Lay the table demanded I stop being so fussy and also thanks to the fabulous fish business Fish&, I’m not eating all sorts of tasty fish combinations. But anyway, back to Saucy Fish Co…They sent me an email asking if I wanted to try their fish and I thought to myself, why not? I had a look on their website and there were lots of tasty fish meals and I wanted in.

Considering how huge our Tesco’s Extra is up here they had a surprisingly poor selection of Saucy Fish Co products. I don’t want to get all monay about how we never get any good stuff in the North because that’s simply not true. I did manage to buy two different types of fish cakes (2 for a fiver) AND some salmon fillets AND extra sauce all for just over a tenner.

We try not to buy too many ready meals here. It’s not that we’re THAT food snobby in the house, it’s usually because we can make it better than what we buy. Fishcakes are a bit more challenging and time consuming though. We tried the smoked haddock and Davidstow cheddar fishcakes with some potatoes from Daddy Lay the table’s veg patch and some peas. A simple fish supper by all accounts but it was a Monday! The outside of the fishcake had a great crunch to it – a good layer of crunch too. Whenever I’ve seen fishcakes before they’ve always got that horrid artificial orange hue to it but not these ones. The cheddar and smoked haddock worked wonderfully together – there was a good amount of cheese sauce, I think I might’ve liked a tiny bit more but at least we didn’t lose out on a load of fish to make way for the sauce. I was quite disappinted we only had one each. I would’ve easily traded in the veg on my plate for another one!

Later in the week we tried the salmon and hollandaise fish cakes – also great because it nice big chunks of salmon in it. Perhaps it’s just that salmon has a more meaty texture anyway. We weren’t sure which one we liked more, they both have their merits. We popped the salmon fillets in the freezer for a later date.

I love all the Saucy Fish Co branding and their website is pretty awesome too (particularly with my web designer hat on!) – that’s where you find out about all their products too. Check out Saucy Fish Co online or stop by Tesco to pick some up!

Let me give a little insight into my life at the moment: HECTIC. Life as a food blogger seems to either move at 0mph or 100mph! I’m also excited to be running my own blogger event at work which has taken over both my waking and sleeping life – it’s this Friday and hopefully things will all go swimmingly! Luckily amid all this hubbub, I found time to go to the opening of the new Cafe 164.

Katie from Leeds Grub and I sat down to a special blogger’s sample lunch: some delicious focaccia sandwiches. The focaccia is baked fresh every day and all the fillings too. The bread’s baked in-house overnight and made straight into sandwiches. All the fillings are Mediterranean inspired – totally delicious, even the one with the goat’s cheese which I’m not normally keen on! You really get a taste for the freshness and the love that gets put into the not-run-of-the-mill sandwiches.

The whole place feels really warm and friendly. It’s an art bar but doesn’t have that exclusive feel of some of the more traditional art cafes. This is contemporary and I think it’ll bring good lunchtime grub to that side of the city. There’s some great art work in there, plus some gorgeous t-shirt designs and some beautiful lampshades. There’s also a couple of gorgeous comfy leather chairs to sink into and have a good read of a book with a cup of coffee.

Just before I left, I spotted these beautiful pearlescent meringues/macarons out for sampling (sorry pic’s a bit blurry!), aren’t they beautiful? Get down to Cafe 164 on Duke Street (just opposite the bus station)!