meltin grilled cheese: mouthwatering artisan cheese sandwiches in the midlands.

Melted grilled cheese oozing between a couple of slices of great quality bread. Sounds good, right? It's almost impossible to say no to a cheese toastie. Switch up the flavours, create some delicious combinations that complement a whole host of cheese varieties... and that's what Meltin Grilled Cheese do.

Based in the East Midlands, Meltin are touring the counties in their rice truck, one grilled cheese sandwich at a time. I went along to their recent Derbyshire launch, to same the latest flavour combinations as well as their heavenly mobile raclette grill. For the purposes of reviewing, of course.

feast foodies festival 2014 at battersea park.

last weekend i headed over to london once more for a few foodie filled days with my old school pal grace. on the saturday, this involved checking out the feast foodies festival at battersea park. the weather was kind and the sun shone as we had a lovely walk across the river from south kensington tube station. we also managed to enter at the totally wrong end of the park, but that didn't seem to matter since it was sunny. besides, i needed the exercise.

london christmas markets: in pictures.

this weekend i paid a little visit to the big smoke to wander around the market stalls of festive food and generally soak up the christmas spirit. we headed to southbank christmas market as well as winter wonderland at hyde park - a great opportunity to try out my camera and eat lots of lovely food. there of course were lots of gift, craft and jewellery stalls but i was of course all about the grub!

bbc good food show winter 2013.

the pastries have been baked, the juices have been squeezed, the cupcakes have been iced and the speciality spirits have been stacked with precision. not to mention the hundreds of cheese entries lovingly laid out for the world cheese awards 2013. that's right... the stalls were all set for the bbc good food show of winter 2013! i couldn't wait for my first visit, let alone my first time on the press list :) so here are a few of my favourite producers and brands from the show, as well as the food we enjoyed throughout the day. 

hyper japan christmas event 2012.

when i was invited to the hyper japan and eat japan christmas event this year i just couldn't wait. let's face it - seafood, sushi and sake and i'm there. 

overwhelmed with all the brilliant stalls (and hunger from my two hour journey from leicester!), i spent the first half an hour deciding what i wanted for lunch. sadly around 20 minutes of that was in a cash point queue getting out money to buy... everything. more cash points please, earls court!

i'd remembered at hyper japan in summer 2011 i'd had some kind of noodles in a boat shaped bowl. i was determined to find what i called the boat bowl stall again. and i did... here i am loving life eating yakisoba noodles with a cheeky side of prawn tempura. delish! 

about five minutes after this photograph, i excitedly ran (ish) off in search of wasabi ice cream. it's so nice - the taste of wasabi but not the heat. there were also these things called snow cones which i saw afterwards (see picture below). i'm not too keen on overly icey things but they really intrigued me. has anyone ever tried them?

after a little mill round the stalls, taking in the atmosphere and, admittedly, looking for a little too long at all the incredible costumes, we headed over for the sake tasting experience. 

i actually hadn't tried sake before. like most people, i imagined it to be really potent, highly alcoholic and something i definitely couldn't try 10-15 shots of. the alcoholic part was pretty spot on as most of them were 16-18%. however, there were so many different flavours you wouldn't believe. we actually learnt loads about how they polish the rice and thee categories junmai, ginjo and daiginjo. the most premium sake is daiginjo with a 50% polishing ratio, whilst, ginjo is 60% and junmai is 70%. there were also snacks laid out to complement the sake - such as goats cheese, dried oyster, dried shrimps, wasabi peas and rice crackers.

a particular favourite was a sake made from yuzu, a japanese citrus fruit which i found to taste somewhere between a lemon and a grapefruit. this in was the cloudy yellow bottle in my pictures. i was so sad that they'd sold out and think i'm going to have to do some serious research to track down a japanese supermarket that sells it!

i also really enjoyed a cider style sake, which was in the white bottle. this was only 5% and was really fruity and sweet - just how i like my cider! kampai! after voting for our, favourite, sake we'd give as a gift and sake we'd drink with british cuisine, we got a free sake book and a go at a lucky dip. i won a wasabi fridge magnet... yess! 

all in a all yet another amazing j-culture event embraced by foodies, art lovers and fans of japanese gaming and pop culture. i can't wait to see what the next one brings!

www.hyperjapan.co.uk

follow on twitter at @hyperjapanevent