Rail House Cafe

We met up with Mel, Rigel, Ben, Corey & Lynsey for brunch at the Rail House Cafe. It's been a while since we've been on a brunch date, so I'd forgotten that brunch in London involves booze and lasts all day long.

We had Rail Marys, which we assumed were just Bloody Marys as the waiter refused to call them by their on-brand name, and Tom ordered a quinoa burger.

And though it was technically on the dessert menu, I had the green tea waffles which were delicious and topped with creme friache, mint, coconut and berries.

Everyone got chatting about New Years resolutions over brunch and about how a few of us have started keeping journals. Corey has a page in hers dedicated to local slang, so we added a few Scottish sayings for her.

We headed to the Bag O Nails afterwards for a drink and I was secretly hoping it would be a cat pub like the pub of the same name in Bristol.

There were no cats but we were reminded about the song that Dave had written for Mel complete with video by the So Sandwich Crew.

Mel suggested going for drinks at Vagabond wine bar afterwards.

At Vagabond, you pre-pay for a card which you use to pour your own glasses of wine, choosing from dozens of bottles dotted all over the bar.

I really liked the way you could buy a sample of the wines, rather than a whole glass, giving you a chance to try lots of different types.

We ended our evening with dinner across the road in Hai Cenato.

It was Happy Hour when we arrived, so we ordered the Ballroom Spritz and Amalfi 75 cocktails.

Tom and I shared a Pizza Rossa with grilled onion, kabucha squash, goats curd, oregano, truffle honey and parmesan which would have made it the best pizza I'd ever had apart from the burning hot areas with chilli on them.

We also tucked into a tasty side of cracked potatoes with garlic aioli and rosemary sea salt.