What I ate: Buffet at Jimmy's in Wimbledon

When going for a buffet I always imagine that I'll  be able to eat  4 or 5 plates of food yet I never manage more than 2 plates, 3 is pushing it. This is despite the fact that I've not eaten anything beforehand so am really quite hungry. I don't know if it's because I sometimes pile my plate with too much food and as a result get full quickly but it literally happens everytime I go for a buffet.

Moving onto Jimmy's, I went to see the the Hobbit: The Battle of The Five Armies with my friend yesterday and we ate at Jimmy's before seeing the film. Jimmy's is a buffet restaurant serving food from around the world: Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Italian. 

There was so much different food to choose from that I didn't know where to start. Did I feel like eating pizza or maybe sweet and sour chicken? In the end I went for both, so my first plate (see photo below) had sweet and sour chicken, spring rolls, rice, prawn crackers, beef in black bean sauce and pizza. The spring rolls were my favourite, I found myself eating all 4 and wanting more. 

Plate 1

Plate 2

I have been to Jimmy's once before and on that visit had been to the wok cooking station where fresh stir fry is made for you while you wait. How it works: you add noodles and vegetables onto a plate which you then hand to the chef who will ask you what meat you would like on the stir fry (you can choose from prawn, chicken or beef) as well as how spicy you would like the stir fry to be. I can't remember what I had on my first visit to Jimmy's but yesterday I chose peppers, mushrooms, bean sprouts, pak choi and chicken with medium spice. The chef took all the ingredients (noodles, vegetables and meat) and cooked everything in front of me. I couldn't wait to eat! 

Dessert

Moving onto the best thing about a meal: dessert! At Jimmy's you can choose desserts ranging from ice cream to cake to marshmallows and chocolate fondue (my favourite!) Although the meat at Jimmy's is halal some of the desserts at Jimmy's contain gelatine (this is labelled) so I wasn't able to try everything. I love ice cream so that was an obvious choice for me. You choose a flavour of ice cream (from chocolate, strawberry and vanilla, there were a few other flavours but I can't remember what they were now) and a range of toppings, I chose vanilla ice cream with mini egg chocolates. Mmm! Next, I obviously went for the chocolate fondue (I seriously need a chocolate fondue kit at home!) where I dipped two marshmallows (they are halal) into the chocolate. The melted chocolate was lovely, it tasted like melted galaxy! The other dessert I chose was red velvet cake but I was so full by this point I couldn't eat it.

Christmas prices apply from 1st December to 24th December, so the buffet on Saturday (we went around 1.30) was £12.99. I don't know how much the buffet usually is (outside Christmas prices) but here is the link to the website: http://jimmysrestaurants.com/restaurants/wimbledon/

Post written by Nabs

Atmosphere- 7/10

Service- 8/10

Food- 7/10

Chocolate Sushi Rating- 7/10

Coffee Max

Coffee Max is a Halal Italian restaurant on Tooting High Street. I've been going there for years, whether it be for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Over the years I've tried a lot of things, from pizza and panini to a full on English breakfast.

When I go to a restaurant on a regular basis and end up really liking a particular dish I'll begin to order that everytime I go (I'll never try anything new). For a long time it was the panini that was my favourite. My go to panini was the 'Melted Mozzarella' which is made from turkey rashers, cheese, tomato and basil. Delicious! There are a range of other fillings to choose from including a vegetarian option (vegetables, olives, and cheese) and a fish option (tuna, sweetcorn, tomato, lettuce, red onion, and mayonnaise). All the options excluding the vegetarian are priced at £5.95; the vegetarian option is priced at £5.25. All the panini come with chips.

For the last year or two when going to Coffee Max I've always ordered the 'Melanzane Alla Parmigiana' or as I like to call it, 'the aubergine dish' (see the photo below). On the menu it's listed as a starter but the first time I tried it I was so full afterwards that for me it's a lot more filling than a starter is. I usually have it with some bread and that is my meal complete. 

Melanzane Alla Parmigiana £4.75

Melanzane Alla Parmigiana is baked aubergine layered with tomato sauce, mozzarella and parmesan. I love aubergine (one of my favourite vegetables) so I could eat the aubergines on their own and still be satisfied but the tomato sauce and cheese add a beautiful flavour to the aubergine. The bread is perfect for mopping up the tomato sauce and there is a generous amount of bread given so I usually have enough for the entire dish. 

Last week I went to Coffee Max for dinner and ordered my usual 'Melanzane Alla Parmigiana'.

I don't always have dessert after a meal (it depends on how I'm feeling) but this time I really needed something sweet. I usually have the chocolate fudge cake (see photo below) which is lovely! I am a chocoholic but for some reason am not very fond of chocolate ice cream or chocolate cake (I know, I'm weird) but I've literally eaten this cake everytime I've gone to Coffee Max for either tea & cake or as a dessert after dinner and I've never gotten tired of it. It comes drizzled with chocolate sauce and accompanied by whipped cream. I usually have it warm and in the past I've sometimes had it with ice cream (instead of whipped cream). 

This time though I wanted to have something different for dessert and went for the Tiramisu instead. I've eaten Tiramisu in the past and although I'm not a huge fan I do like it. Tiramisu is made using sponge cake, coffee and mascarpone cheese. The last time I ordered it (which was probably years ago) it certainly didn't look as pretty as it did now. The tiramisu was presented in a dessert glass with two Italian biscuits on the top (see photo below). A perfect mix of cake, cream and coffee (perhaps a little heavy on the coffee, I know I know, Tiramisu is made with coffee, what am I talking about?!). I was unable to finish it though (not because of the taste but because there was quite a lot of it and around 3/4 of the way in I was full). 

The Tiramisu and Chocolate Cake are both priced at £3.95. 

Post written by Nabs.

Atmosphere- 8/10

Service- 8/10

Food- 9/10

Chocolate Sushi Rating- 8/10

Italian and Apple Pie

After working up an appetite from a morning of uni and work, we walked around Leicester Square looking at various menus along the way and finally settled on having a bit of Italian at Leicester Square Bella Italia. It turns out there were 3 Bella Italia's to choose from! All less than a minute's walk away from each other!! It was calling for us to eat there! haha.

 When we walked through the door we were greeted straight away and shown to our table. We chose one right at the back around the corner, very cosy!! 

There was a lot to choose from on the menu, the prices being fairly average at around £9-10 a dish! There was also a lunch menu available, but we chose to try something from the main menu. 

 This is the shared starter we ordered: 

Calamari £5.95

Lightly breaded and deep fried tender squid with lemon and caper mayonnaise

It took roughly 13mins for it to be brought out, so all in good time for a nice chat!

The dish was very nice! The batter was light and not too oily, however the squid pieces could have been more 'squidier' xD We would have liked to have bitten into a bigger piece of squid meat!!

For Samantha's main dish she ordered: 

Polle e Spinaci £9.45

Wholewheat riatoni with sliced chicken breast, field mushrooms and baby spinach in a creamy gorgonzola sauce

Samii: The dish was ok..... not as nice as it looked however! There was nothing wrong with it don't get me wrong! Guess it lacked a flavor I could say.. But I would not be ordering this dish again in the future. 

For Nabila's main dish she ordered: 

Gamberoni £9.95 

Eight succulent king prawns sauteed with garlic and chilli in a spicy pomodoro sauce, with spaghetti

Nabila: Now I'd like to start by telling you that I am a huge fan of prawns so this dish was a no brainer for me, especially since it said in the description 'succulent king prawns'! I mean what could be better?! Still it took me a while to select this dish as my final choice as there were just so many dishes on the menu to choose from! When the dish arrived I did oo and aah at the plate as it was nicely presented apart from the splattered chilli sauce on the side! 

The dish as a whole was very tasty, I especially liked the prawns as they were nice and juicy! And big too, which is very important as sometimes on the menu they say king prawns and when they arrive they are definitely not king sized! Also, there was a very generous helping of spaghetti but the dish did not fill me up. I am a person who usually gets full quite quickly but after cleaning my plate I was still hungry! So perhaps it wasn't value for price and the dish looked bigger than it actually was!

For both of our main course dishes we were given the option to have the dishes sprinkled with grated mozzarella cheese and pepper! Lovely!

Overall, our waiter was pleasant, the service was timed nicely and the waiter got the balance right between checking if we were ok and leaving us to enjoy our meal, which is always nice!