Gordon Rates

Thinking about a beautiful night out? Read below about my latest experience at Lyaness, a London bar, that's also featured on The World's 50 Best Bars!

“55??? This is at least TOP 10!” - Gordon after his first drink It is well past due that I had to start exploring the list of The World's 50 Best Bars (and beyond), and thankfully I chose the right one as my first visit. On a very casual Friday night, we visited Lyaness, in South Bank, London, which is in 55th place on the list… The bar might be a bit differen...

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Gordon Says | Food Blog My name is Gordon, and I will be the one to tell you about the best places to eat and their food around the world!

Hello, my peeps!

I am back after a looong vacation (just kidding, I was super busy), where I got to enjoy many great restaurants and cafes around the world, so hopefully, you can bear with me on this storytelling wagon! In the upcoming weeks, I hope to tell you about lots and lots of different places and why you should or should not visit them! All aboard, the Gordon express leaves now!

A couple of weeks ago I had a very nice event coming up - my fiancee's birthday! We rarely can agree on a restaurant to go to and always try to go somewhere we haven't been. I mean, c'mon, we live in London, here you can have a different meal every time and you still wouldn't finish the list.

She had found a very nice restaurant not far from where we live, which looked good in the pictures, it had some intriguing looks, was expensive... Everything you need for a birthday meal! (Just joking, it doesn't have to look good in the pictures). So we booked Duddell's London 倫敦都爹利會館!

When we arrived we finally understood the beauty behind it and why it is actually so special. It is created within an old church! Yes, the whole restaurant is split into two levels, with some very nice interior design and even some of the attributes and artefacts are created to still have that church feeling.

I had booked a table upstairs, because, well, my colleague at work told me that he will never forgive me if I sit downstairs. He also told me that if I don't pick the whole Peking duck he would kill me (I did not and yet, here we are). Shoutout to Nick!

Before I tell you guys about what we picked for food, I have to tell you about our new friends. When we sat down, there was a lady downstairs who was sitting with her guy-friend, and started pointing fingers at us, and then waiving at my fiancee (jealousy alert). We thought that it might be my fiancee's dress that alerted her (yes, it was really sexy), but then we decided that it was probably because she thought I was Matt Damon...

Anyway, back to the food part. We chose the spicy almond soft shell crab, pan-fried chicken dumpling, and the truffle spring roll as appetisers. My fiancee went for a Monkfish with morel mushroom, garlic shoot
and crispy dough as an entree, while I had Cantonese roast duck with natural jus which we accompanied with Cantonese soya noodle.

A couple tens of minutes in waiting, drinking a very good white wine and ta-daaa! Our appetisers have arrived. One sentence for each appetiser:
1) Crab - not too spicy, but very soft and crunchy;
2) Dumpling - best one, good in size (there were 4), and very juicy;
3) Spring roll - the chef did not hesitate to put a lot of truffle oil, which is great, and you would not even think that it is a regular spring roll with truffle oil.

To be honest, I was very full after we ate the appetisers, which you normally would not expect when going to an expensive restaurant. You would think that the portions will be small and you will need a cheeseburger from Mickey D's afterwards... Not at this place!

When the entrees arrived, I smelled the duck and wanted to take it together with me to heaven. I am being completely honest and my mom might kill me because she makes a really great duck, but this was the best, the juiciest, the tastiest, the softest, the meatiest duck ever. When the waiter came after a moment to ask us how is the meal, I asked him can he do a magic trick where there is always one piece of that duck left on my plate. My fiancee's monkfish was also great, as it was soft and puffy and all around really tasty! Noodles - they were alright, I mean, you cannot really say anything good or bad about noodles.

After that, we even had a small surprise from the waiter, who had remembered my special occasion note when I booked the table and brought my fiancee a nice looking dessert! Kudos to that!

I think what created the best atmosphere in this restaurant was not the church feeling, the food or anything else. It was the service because we felt really welcome here and even though we go to this kind of restaurants on very special occasions, it really feels nice when people look like they are happy about what they are doing!

I hope to return to this restaurant very soon, even though as I am writing this right now, I pinch myself, because I made a promise to myself to not go to the same restaurant in London more than once!

P.S. Our new friends from downstairs said hello to us when we were going outside, and apparently, they thought that we had an engagement night... No - been there done that! It is nice to meet new and friendly people everywhere!

See you at the next place guys!