londonelicious: a london restaurant blog

June Blog Round-Up

June was okay. Despite my best efforts (which admittedly didn't amount to much), traffic stayed pretty flat. July though...I have some good feelings about July...

Here are my top five referring sites from June (not including search engines)...a lot of the usual suspects, although I have to tell you that the race for 5th place was TIGHT.
An American in London
London Review of Breakfasts 
Stonch's Beer Blog
Mmm Yoso
Cheese & Biscuits

And the top five sources (not search engines) of new visitors were...
Mmm Yoso
London Review of Breakfasts 
Chowhound
An American in London
Cheese & Biscuits

As I mentioned last month, I'm off to BlogHer this month. Meeting 1,000 bloggers from all around the world should be pretty interesting, to say the least. I might even try to live blog while I'm there.

In July, I want to be better about responding to user comments. And I really want to clean up the way I've tagged articles to appear in my drop-down lists. Otherwise, I'm going to hope the temperature hits 30, the wine stays cold, and that the 10k next weekend doesn't kick my butt too much.

Live Blogging Wine Blogging Wednesday

The Date: 10 June 2008

The Victims: Louise, Stacey, Feathers, Jen, Julie, Gerry

Exciting times...We're live blogging Wine Blogging Wednesday #46 from my living room (even though it's a Tuesday)...six wines (no, seven!) of the style of the Rhône...here we go...

E. Guigal. Côtes du Rhône. 2005. 13% alcohol. Our first wine is mine, bought at Waitrose for about a tenner. Chateau d'Ampuis. I'm probably getting the order of all the French names wrong, and for that you have my sincere apologies. Everyone is saying "Ew." Gerry says it has a bad aftertaste. Jen says it taste like pure alcohol. Julie says "Like Mad Dog 20/20" but she's not drinking so she doesn't count. Maybe a little oxidation.

Lou doesn't mind this one--she got here late so the wine has had a chance to breathe. (Then again, she also admits that maybe she just really needed a glass of wine.) Stacey just got here and says of her first sip "It's a bit alcohol-y." Her second sip "isn't AS bad." At the end of the night, this is the 2nd most full bottle, and I think that says something.

Le Versaut Viognier 2006. Vin de Pays D'Oc. 12.5% alcohol. I say it smells nice. Jen says it smells like nothing.  Light. Lou wonders if it has a bit of a fizz. Definitely crisp. A little citrusy. Bought for £5.95 from the guy next to Cay Tre on Old Street. (Who knew!) Old man at shop comes running outta nowhere when he hears their request for a white Rhône and is super-enthusiastic about helping them. (This proves to be a common theme in most shops.) He says that this one is very nice. Alas, this is the 3rd fullest bottle sitting in my refridgerator at the moment.

M. Chapoutier Côtes du Rhône Belleruche 2005. 13.5% alcohol. The label is in braille! Smooth and vanilla-y. But Jen says it's "grape-y." And "alcohol-y." (She also just said she doesn't want to be the "dumb friend" on the blog so I'm going to work on that.) Stacey "digs the aroma of the third one." Which is fascinating because Louise says it smells lke a boy's bedroom. We all seemed to lke this one though as it's the 3rd emptiest at the end of the night...

Gerry purchased the Belleruche for £9.49 at London's The Sampler on Upper Street, a great little wine shop with enomatic wine machines. This was after not being able to prove her age at Waitrose (she's 33!) and not realzing that Majestic only sells by the case. With a little sneering at the poor choices at Odd Bins in between. Like Feathers, Gerry may just not be a great fan of Rhône whites

Cuvee Pere Berard. Vin de Table de France. No year. 13% alcohol. Very dark. Tastes like sherry...Jen asks for some more so she can truly comment beyond "grape-y and alcohol-y." She thinks it has a little "apple note" at the end. (By the way in the middle of this, I've just won a trip to Disney World. They 'vejust called!) We're not drinking a lot of number four...it's still just sitting here in front of us. Last place.

Viognier de Jean-Michel Gerin 2005. 12.5% alcohol. Despite a less-than-glowing recommendation for the whites of the Rhône from Louise's local off-license, we love this one. "It's apricot-y," says Jen. (The shopkeeper tried to talk her into a Rhône red, but what he really wanted was for her to come to his wine tasting on the 26th of June.) Gerry says, "Yes, yes, all the books say Viognier is supposed to taste like peaches," at which point Jen announces, "Peaches, peaches! Yes it's peaches." Which is it, Jen? First place in that it's the only empty bottle sitting on my counter at the moment.

Les Portes du Castelas 2006 Côtes du Rhône 14% alcohol. Louise says her first whiff is of cannibis, but I think it might just be my neighbors. The wines are starting to all taste the same, according to Feathers and Gerry. Gerry is adding, "It tastes like a Brut champagne that's gone flat." 2nd place. We very nearly emptied this one and I'm finishing it up as I polish up this very random post that isn't turnng out to be anywhere as sophisticated as I thought it would be.

Sylla Viognier Vin de Pays de Vaucluse 2006. 13%. This is lovely. Stacey's salesperson from Bedales in Spitalfields said it was "sexy." Gerry says "it goes down easy" and Feathers says "maybe that's what sexy means." "Maybe it's just because it's the last one we've drank," says Jen. 4th place. But don't worry. We'll bring sexy back at some point. God knows I've got enough whites of the Rhone in my fridge to make it happen.

I will add pictures and maybe some other supporting detail soon...and I promise if I do this again, it will be co-ed.

May Blog Round-Up

Let's put it bluntly. May sucked. The two bank holidays really ate into traffic to my London restaurant blog. I'm going to see if I can't try to recover some of that traffic in June--and then some. Watch out!

So here are my top five sources of referring traffic in May...
An American in London
Stonch's Beer Blog (Thanks Stonch for the shout out!)
Ripe London (Still accepting applications on my behalf)
Mmm-Yoso (Love these guys!)
Chowhound (Mainly from various board posts)

Then, there are the top five sources of traffic that's new to me...
Stonch's Beer Blog
Mmm-Yoso
Chowhound
London Review of Breakfasts
An American in London

At the end of May, Sarah and I hung out with some bloggers over at Bloggers' Delight. I met some interesting souls. Firstly, there was Zoe from Shaman UK. A shaman who blogs! I love it. Then, there was Lisa from u-handbag. Lisa has my dream job! But I can't sew, so it's a pretty big dream. I love the work of Peter from My London Diary and although I can't say the same of the Naked Chicks on Post It Notes guy (Sorry! Your name escapes me!), you gotta admire his single-mindedness.

There was also Tom Phillips from Flashboy who also writes for The Metro, and lastly but not leastly, there was my fellow countryman, Marshall from On Tap Blog. I need to get to more of these Blogger type things. I'm going to BlogHer '08 in Sanfrancisco next month, which I'm excited about. It's hard to tell who the food/drink/travel bloggers are among the attendee list, so if you know of any going, please let me know. The two food bloggers I've found so far are Andrea's Recipes and Kalyn's Kitchen.

Update: My Attempt to Create a Master List of Food & Travel Bloggers Going to BlogHer...

Mostly Recipes
Andrea's Recipes
Kalyn's Kitchen
Perfect Pantry
Ms. Adventures in Italy
Cookie Madness

Recipes and More
Cooking with Amy

Anyhow...no big plans for June. It's just a simple goal: Beat April.

Have You Met My Friend Txakoli Yet?

Let me present my new favorite wine. Txakoli! Not only is it delicious, it's fun to say. (It's pronounced something like CHA-kol-ee.) Txakoli is white. It's sparkling. You pour it from up high. And it's Basque. I predict it will be the new hot thing. That assumes it's not already the new hot thing because, well, I have been living under a rock these last few months. I've found a couple of blogs that have written about the delights of Txakoli already--not too many, which suggests that the tipping point has not yet been reached...
Drink the Good Stuff
Elm City Wino
A Passionate Foodie
Thirst for Rioja
La Fromagette

Have you seen Txacoli in London? If so, where? And when? And did you drink it?

The Man Who Ate the World by Jay Rayner

Can you tell I've been on holiday? Yes, I did  a little bit of reading. The Man Who Ate the World by Jay Rayner was the last of the stack...I read it on the Eurostar to and from Paris, which I thought was very apropos.

I really enjoyed this. Immensely. I sorta want to read it again. I was so engrossed in this that two different Eurostar staff members stopped me to ask what I was reading. (Love Eurostar Leisure Select.)

Rayner has a fantastic ability to use the richest, fattest, most lovely words in describing dining and restaurants and food.  And he's funny. I laughed out loud when I got to the Tokyo chapter and he talks about trying to find a restaurant..."It looks like the kind of place where a woman with too many cats might lead a life of quiet desperation." (For the record, I am allergic to cats.) I loved that he flew all the way to Geneva to find the white wine vinegar his mother-in-law favors, only to fnd that Genf is closed down for a bank holiday. What I want to do now is re-read and see if I can rank the restaurants by Jay's loveliness of experience. He spends a lot of money on a lot of food in The Man Who Ate the World, but the funny (but perhaps not surprising) part is that he doesn't always get bang for his buck. You, however, will not have that problem if you head out and buy this now. It's really very very good.

Toast by Nigel Slater

It's not that I didn't like this book. I did. Nigel has a fantastic memory and a wonderous way of connecting food to childhood events. But he sure likes to talk about--for lack of a better term--ding dongs. That was sorta weird. But I get it now.

This was a quick and easy read. It's a lot of short vingettes that you can (for the most part) easily connect with because of the universal nature of growing up and alternatively loving and hating your parents and siblings and schoolmates. And ding dongs, apparently.

Vote for Best Guest Blog, Plus April Stats

So, who was the best guest London restaurant blogger while I took a few days off? You choose! Vote by 12 noon on Sunday, May 11th. I'll treat the winner to a Michelin-starred dinner somewhere in London!

Was it Douglas from Intoxicating Prose with his review of Galvin at Windows? Or was it Bombay Beauty with his review of Italian Giusto? Or Jon from Oishii Oishii with his review of Japanese restaurant Matsuri? Use the cool little voting widget from Poll Daddy

In other news...In April, I turned 34. I also lost both the A and the I on my keyboard, which had a dramatic impact on productivity. And clarity. Losing keys sucks. You do not want to type. Typing becomes a chore. Do I buy a new laptop? Hmmm.

I digress. Here's April. It was a good month.

6382 visits, up 11% from the month before. 13,128 page impressions, up 14% from the month before.

My top five non-search engine sources of new visitors were...
Mmm Yoso
London Review of Breakfasts
Cupcakes Take The Cake (a cupcake blog that linked to my cupcake series)
Chowhound.com (My profile)
pistonheads.com (A board about cars!)

My top five non-search engine referring sites were...
Ripe London
An American in London
London Review of Breakfasts
Mmm Yoso
London a la Mode

Exciting happenings...
Mike twittered my write-up of Coffee@ which helped me discover new readers. Also, I noticed that my RSS feed subscriptions jumped up after that.
San Pelligrino offered me some free samples of my absolute favorite beverages...San Pelligrino Limonata and Aranciata. More to come on that in a bit.
I ran my first competition!

Last Chance to Win Michelin-Starred Dinner

This is your last chance to win a Michelin-starred dinner with me! That's right, submit your guest London restaurant review by tonight at midnight Sunday at Noon (London time)! I will pick the finalists by Friday, April 25th and those reviews will run the week of April 28th. E-mail your review to kristainlondon at gmail dot com.

Starting at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, May 6th, I'm going to let you guys vote for your favorite guest review. Voting will be open until Sunday, May 11. The review with the most votes will get dinner with me at a Michelin-starred London restaurant of my choosing. For the absence of doubt, here is the small print:

I'll pick the restaurant. We'll agree on a date. I'll pay for food and service. I will not pay for beverages. ("Beverages" includes bottled water, which I will not pay for because you know I'm against it. Unless it's Belu.) I will pay for your food...not your friend's food, and not your friend's friend's food or the food of anyone else who is not me and not you. Also, this all assumes you eat like a normal person...i.e., that you're not going to order 12 starters and six mains or something.

OK, now that I've got that bit out of the way...
Now personally, I think it's sorta weird if you submit a review that you've already published on your own blog, or that you've published on another Web site. I didn't state this as a rule up-front, so in all fairness, if you've already submitted a review that's run elsewhere, it will be entered into the contest. That being said, I won't accept any other reviews that have already run elsewhere once this post is up and running.

Deadline extended..
I've decided to extend the deadline to noon on Sunday, London time. Submit your London Restaurant Review to me by then, along with a photo of the restaurant and/or food that's less than 60k in size. If you don't know how to resize photos, that's okay...I can do it for you. But it would be great if you could give it a shot.

March Blog Report + Exciting Contest

Holy crap, I kicked ass in March! My little blog of London restaurant reviews got 5750 visits (that's the yellow bar) and 11,505 page impressions (the orange bar). Wow.

Here were my top five sources of non-search engine traffic in March.
An American in London
Ripe London (Specifically because of one post where she's raffling me off to eligible bachelors.)
Cheese & Biscuits
London Review of Breakfasts
London a la Mode

However, a lot of the visitors through those sites are repeat visitors...that is, they're not necessarilly new to me. And what I really want to do is discover new readers. So I thought I would also look at the five sites that are delivering the most new traffic to me...
London Review of Breakfasts
Mmm-Yoso
Inkblots (the site of the gal behind my facelift)
The AOL Message Boards
Ripe London

Mistakes, Mistakes
I made a couple of mistakes earlier this year. I cut my RSS feed down to just a summary of posts, thinking that more people would come to the site and read my full London restaurant reviews. That might have happened, but I can't really tell. What I can tell is that I lost a lot of RSS feed subscribers, which sorta sucks. The RSS feed is now back to deliverying articles in their entirety. Sorry for any inconvenience. I made some other mistakes, but I forget now what they are.

New Additions
I'm part of the new latest craze, Twitter. You can follow my London dining adventures in laborious details now by following me. And the Blogs of April over there on the right...they're five fun San Francisco restaurant blogs. (I've been thinking of going to BlogHer.)

Exciting Contest
OK, now for the exciting bit...I'm going to take a break from the blog in April for a bit. I want you guys to cover for me while I'm away. That's right...if you've ever wanted to try food blogging and/or being a London restaurant critic, now's your chance. Submit a review of your favorite London restaurant by Friday, April 18th. (To keep things interesting, you are of course also welcome to review your not-so-favorite London restaurant. Any London restaurant, really.) Include a photo that is less than 60k in size. I'll read through all your reviews and announce the finalists on Friday, April 25th, and then I'll post the winning London restaurant reviews starting on Monday, April 28th.

But wait...it gets even better...Then, starting Tuesday, May 6th, I'm going to let you guys vote on the best guest post. The winner gets dinner with--hold your breath--ME at a great restaurant of my choosing. (I know I know...I should really let you choose. I might eat out a lot, but a girl's gotta watch her wallet, you know?) I'll foot the bill, even. (Within reason.) Think about it, and then send your stuff to kristainlondon at gmail dot com. I'll be waiting...

London Restaurant Week: Booking Opens Today!

I should seriously get paid for this...Book your table for London Restaurant Week on LastMinute.com starting today! (Actually, I'm just giving this post one last go-over Sunday evening, and London Restaurant Week booking is open now.)

There will be 150 restaurants participating.
10+ Michelin starred venues.
2 course lunches for £15
3 course dinners for £25
Restaurant week runs April 14th through the 28th.
This article about London Restaurant Week reports that Lindsay House, Babylon at the Roof Gardens, Almeida, Tamarind and Quilon are on the list of bookable restaurants.

Random Note: Today is the fourth anniversary of my arrival into the UK. Time flies...