Benefit's Puff Off

Hey All

L and I were lucky enough to try this product before it was released (you can read about that here). As soon as we tried it we both knew we had to have it when it was released, and not just for the pretty packaging!

Here's the blurb from Benefit:

Why we love it!

Iron on…puff off! Undereye puffiness and creases look “satiny smooth” with our innovative undereye gel. The custom “ironing” tip instantly helps smooth the look of undereye puffiness & fine lines. Iron away for a smoother day!

94% said eye area looks smoothed*

*Consumer panel survey on 31 women after 7 days

Essentially this product is a cooling eye gel with a small amount of concealer like product contained within it, the squeezy tube has an 'iron' shaped tip to it to dispense and apply the gel to skin.

This is also known as the 'custom “ironing” tip' and we think it looks pretty cool! Not only does it appear to 'iron' out the creases in your delicate undereye skin it's actually really comfortable to use on your skin, it's the perfect shape and it cools on contact with your skin making it feel like you're wearing a face mask.

All you need to do is apply a dot of the eye gel under each eye and spread the gel out using the iron, it's super simple and can be applied on bare skin and over make up - great for the morning puffy eyes that sometimes happens and also you can apply this throughout the day. I'd definitely apply this at my desk during the day when things have been a bit busy and I need a few minutes to relax!

The tube holds 10ml of product which is a similar size to any other eye products and costs £22.50

As you can probably tell, we're big fans of this product. I always think I don't need 'another' product to add to my make up bag but I've really enjoyed this one and frequently use it in the mornings to help my bags reduce and also in the evenings/Sundays as a cooling eye mask. It really works to reduce the bags under your eyes and give you a cooling feeling that relaxes you.

I wouldn't say this is an essential product but it is definitely a treat, and everyone needs treats right?!

Have you tried Puff Off? What did you think of it?

We love Benefit's new products - they've been bringing out some really good ones recently with this and Roller Lash!

L and M xxx

Travel: Places to Eat and Drink in Reykjavik and How to Save Money

Hey All

I love reading people's travel posts and travel blogs but as I've not been away much, there hasn't been the opportunity to write. With Iceland one thing we heard over and over again was how expensive it was so I thought I'd share some of the places we ate and tips we picked up. Some places were recommendations some places we found by chance.

One thing we did when booking was book an apartment over hotel. We did this so if we got there and it was mega expensive we could save a substantial amount of money and cook in the apartment.

For the days we went on excursions we cooked lunch in the apartment the night before to take with us and also bought in breakfast items. As we knew we were going to do this we took a little tupperware pot with us and a 1kg of pasta. This definitely saved us money. We popped to the local supermarket (find yourself one called Bonus! it's the cheapest one!) and grabbed chopped tomatoes, onions, peppers, cheese and cured meats to make up pasta. Meat like chicken was expensive but we found getting cured meats wasn't much more expensive than the uk and it went further. Things such as veg wasn't much more than the uk. We also grabbed lots of treats like crisp, chocolate and fizzy drinks to take on the coach with us. By doing this we saved loads of money and we weren't disapointed not to eat at the excursion places as most of them were overpriced and it was things like burger and chips. Think of alton tower type prices and level of food.

When we landed in Reykjavik it was about mid day by the time we got to the apartment so after a trip to bonus we went exploring and happened upon our first meal. This is one I don't actually have a photo of. It's on Skolavordustigur which is one street parallel to the main shopping street. They keep things simple, a massive bowl of noodles, veg and meat. I had beef and it was so tender and really tasty. A perfect lunch for a cold day and it worked out about £15 for food and free refill drinks for us both. We really wanted to go back here but decided there were too many other places to try.

Image from this trip advisor review!

The Next place we ate came from a recommendation from my other halfs work colleague, Tapas Barinn which is on Vesturgötu which is on a square not far from the main street. We were told we could get great food including trying the local delacies. My love of a bargain, meant before we went I did some googling and found a vistor guide online that you could download a printable version of and it gives you discount for restuarants so I really recommend printing those pages. Here's a link to the website where you can download it. By doing this we got 10-15% of meals. At Tapas Barinn we ordered two taster menus and shared everything. We were glad we did this as we wanted to try things like whale and puffin but each course was quite big so we were glad we didn't have one each to try. This meals worked out at just under £100 but included 14 courses, dessert, two shots of brennivin, a glass of processo and two beers. For the amazing food we got we were happy to pay it would recommend it to others at a heart beat. We ordered the Icelandic Gourmet Feast and A journey into the Unknown. Here's some of the food we had.

This is from A journey into the unknown and was a pulled pork burger, Serrano ham, teriyaki salmon and one I can't remember. This menu does change each night.

This is the puffin. It was a really dark meat with a slightly liver like texture. It came with a blueberry  brennivin compote.

The mink whale was served rare on  a sweet potato mash.

The lobster tails were amazing. They were so creamy!

and one of our desserts!

Also right by Tapas Barinn was an amazing bar called Stofan Cafe. We sat downstairs one evening for a drink and played board games. They had reasonable priced beers and a nice chilled atomosphere. Pints were also served in crystal esque glasses

Next up is Svarta Kaffi. Another recommendation. This is on the main shopping street Laugavegur. It serves the most amazing soup in a massive bread bowl. They have two different soups on a day. We had a chicken soup which was so tasty and it come in a bowl you can eat. What more can you eat. We really loved the food here. Other people around us had ordered salads which also looked good. This is definitely a great lunch place. With two pints of beer and a tip I think we paid around £20-£25. We liked that the bread that was torn out the middle was left on the side of the board to munch.

Kofinn Bar on Laugavegar next to Sushibarinn is somewhere we went to a few evenings for drinks. They were reasonably priced. When drinking in bars we choose pints most of the time which were around £5. Here we also sampled some cocktails which I think were about £9. We loved the atmosphere here everyone was friendly and we got chatting to other people. They also do a quiz in english some nights. We did it and it was actually quite good!

Another bar we really enjoyed was Dillion Whiskey Bar. We loved the music in here and the massive selection of whiskeys. We spent a few evenings drinking in here. It seemed busy most nights we were in there. Dillion had a variety of prices due to the fact there were 101 whiskeys. They also had whiskeys of the month which were up to half price. They had a barrel behind the bar which you can see which is called Floki. It's icelands first whiskeys and in bars Dillion's is one of the few places you can buy it. At just over £15 a shot we splashed out and shared this one!

Another reastaurnat we loved was Kitchen Eldhus, this is a Nepalese restaurant. The food here was amazing. We shared starters of popadoms and dumplings then had two mains to share. A lamb biryani and an amazing special which was spicy but sweetened with honey. We also shared naan breads and chapaitis. With two large beers and tips the meal cost around £60. All the food tasted amazing, the combinations of flavours were so good and the sweet and spicy mix was perfect. My other half commented on how fresh the ingredients like tomatoes tasted.

One bakery we loved was Bernhoftsbakari. We went here for breakfast and snacks a few times. We grabbed breakfast and teas and there were seats in the window to eat. We also popped back for cakes. They had amazing cinamons buns the size of your head!! We found it to be reasonably priced and a great selection here.

Other places to mention were Solon Bistro. We had amazing burger here and went for the full three courses! Primo Restaurente is somewhere we didn't discover until it was too late. We wished we'd gone here as the food looked amazing (a voucher for here is also in the book mentioned at the begining) and vegamot which serves american type food and massive portions! We also enjoyed pancakes and tea in Cafe Paris but the service wasn't great!

Most places we went we payed around £60 for either a bottle of wine or two beers and two courses. We didn't find it as expensive as we expected sort of London prices. We did also order local when it came to alcohol as we like to drink local beer and I assume this was cheaper.

Have you been to Iceland? Do you do your research before holidays? If you're going and want any advice just ask!

Love M

xxx

Street Food Warehouse Cardiff

Hello there!

Happy bank holiday weekend!

Hope you're enjoying the seemingly good weather, fingers crossed it lasts. We both went to the first night of the Street Food Warehouse event in Cardiff  on Friday night. You might have noticed that we are food enthusiasts, food is literally our favourite thing and we'll do anything to try out new food and eateries especially in our local area.

Street Food is getting more and more popular and why on earth not - festivals and events dedicated to food is just the ideal kind of evening for us. WE LOVE IT.

The first thing we did was a quick lap of the site, it's always good to check out your options and formulate a plan. We'd already decided we were going to buy one of everything and share it, but choosing the order was tough!

The site was fairly small but it had plenty of tables to stand at with outside heaters and a marquee with long bench tables to sit at with other people enjoying their food.

They also had a Warehouse Weekly newsletter with all of the food vendors named with information about each. Unfortunately Dough Boys weren't there when we were which was a massive disappointment, freshly made pizza is like gold dust and we were disappointed they weren't there.

That said we made our choice on our first meal and drinks choices and sat down in the marquee.

Passion and Smoke was the first vendor we saw and smelt - it was enough to make me want to jump behind their counter and just get stuck in with a fork. They had beautifully cooked pulled pork and beef brisket with burnt beans and mac n cheese - you could buy these separately or buy one meal - the special no less - and try them all.

Which of course we did!

The Big Betty special cost £9 and consisted of a bun containing the beef brisket, pulled pork, homemade slaw and gravy, plus a generous side of Somerset mature cheddar mac n cheese.

All of which had been cooked inside Big Betty herself, an authentic American pit smoker:

The Big Betty Special comes with a 100% recommendation - the mac and cheese is super creamy and just like your mums should be, and the meat is just out of this world, it falls apart in your mouth and the bread soaks up all of the gravy and its just WOW. Get it, you will not regret it!

We also made good use of the cocktail bar:

We both had a few each, needless to say we were fans of the fruity drinks as it was but the fact they came in chinese takeaway cartons was even better!
So cute and quirky, and also really delicious. Fully worth the £5 price tag.

Next on offer was Rad Burger, juicy burgers with grilled halloumi and a side of rosemary fries too if you want. 

We skipped the fries due to wanting to try more courses but seeing other people eating them I did want them, they looked perfectly cooked and the rosemary seasoning looked great!
Here's the burger, I always loved seeded buns so this was a good start.

Again the meat was really good, the halloumi was too but I would have liked more - can never say no to more cheese!

Next was M's favourite - Mr Churro!
Almost every food festival has churros and I am rather partial to the melted chocolate sauce that comes with it, yum!

Last on our food menu was one of the Pastel de Nata from Nata and Co Portuguese bakery. Having seen them on the StreetFood Warehouse Facebook page we both knew we had to try it, it was described as a custard cake, in pastry.

Their food all looked amazing and the chorizo bread would have been amazing if we had room!
There were so many more tarts and sweet pastries that we wanted to buy and take with us but we didn't have room in our bags either.

The Pastel de Nata did not disappoint, as someone who is not a fan of jelly and therefore not a fan of custard slices, I wasn't sure if this would be something I would like. I would buy these forever if I could! The custard wasn't jelly-ish at all and was perfectly formed, it was gorgeous.

One vendor we didn't manage to try was Meat in the Middle, who sold burgers, fries and hotdogs from a lovely red ice cream van.

They also had Pitch Eatery at the event but my photos have turned out so blurry they're unuseable! Nightmare. I've looked them up on Facebook though and will certainly be dropping in, the food looks amazing.

Unfortunately we didn't have any more room but also we didn't want another burger, the only downside we could see to the Street Food Warehouse so far was that a lot of the food was too similar, lots of meat in buns and a bit more variety would have been preferable.

Another thing we liked? The copious amount of kitchen roll available on the table, this is a place for eating and not worrying about what you look like!

We'd definitely recommend going to the Street Food Warehouse whilst it is running, you can reserve tickets if you require or turn up and queue at the time slot you want, it's £2 per person.

Hopefully we will go again and there will be a bit more variety there, Dough Boys would be a great addition as would a chicken or spicy food vendor, Thai or Indian would also break up the burger type foods.

Do you like going to food events like this? Are you a fan of slow cooked meats like pulled pork and beef brisket?
How cute are cocktails?!

L and M xxx