Best Places To Eat In Cardiff

As I've only got a few months of my university life left (very very sad), I am desperately trying to make the most of all of the amazing places to eat in Cardiff. Therefore, I thought I would update you on a few recent trips to some great places that I've been to lately in Cardiff. Except more to follow in the next few months.

Bills, Cardiff 

I've always heard good things about Bills and it is really no surprise. I absolutely loved the style of the restaurant as it had a kind of shabby kitchen style to it with lots of wood furniture and bottles and things to look at. I had the nachos to start and they honestly were amazing, they were home cooked and very thin and crispy with a light spice flavoring which really nicely complimented the salsa, sour cream and guacamole. I then went for the halloumi and hummus burger which also did not disappoint. I also really like the presentation of the food on little boards as I think it's a bit different and has a nice feel to it. Overall, I was really pleased with Bills and will certainly be returning before I leave, I might even venture to the one that is in the bay. 

Stag Coffee, Cathays 

One of my regular little student areas in Cathays has to be Stag Coffee. It's a really nice vintage little cafe which has great decor and a mismatch of furniture. One of the downsides however is it is very very tiny inside and you often struggle to get a seat, although saying this on a lovely sunny day there is plenty of room to sit in the garden or outside the front. I enjoyed a cookie crumble milkshake which was delicious and a brie and caramelized onion chutney panini, it was amazing. I would recommend a quick visit if you are ever in the area! 

Coffee Barker, Cardiff 

An ultimate top cafe for me in Cardiff has got to be Coffee Barker. Again it embraces the vintage, mismatch theme with various types of lamps and mirrors hanging from the walls. It's a really nice place to sit and have a drink and a catch up or even to sit and get on with some work quietly. The tuna melt panini is so tasty, filled with cheese and tomato and it comes with a lovely flavored chutney as well. They also have a range of cake flavours such as parma violet however on this occasion I stick with the chocolate sponge, yum!  

Emma Jaynes Cupckaes, Cathays 

Probably my favourite place to go for a cup of tea and of course a cupcake is Emma Jaynes. This tiny little cupcake shop is just so cute and sweet and the sun is always shining in through the window. They have a different range of cupcakes each day such as; salted caramel, chocolate orange, lemon, cherry bakewell, vanilla and lots more. I also love the retro tables with old Beano covers and old chocolate bars. They also sell baguettes for a really good price and you can choose your own chocolate bar milkshake, what is not to like? 

  

Juno Lounge, Cathays

What an amazing breakfast selection, pancakes, bacon, maple syrup, egg, chips and a sausage patty. It makes me mouth water just looking at it. Juno Lounge is another shabby student style cafe with old picture frames and photographs covering the walls. They do a range of food all day but the breakfasts have got to be up in the top choices and a pretty good price too! 

Overall my favourite place which is listed above has to be Emma Jaynes Cupcakes, for a £2 cupcake you really can't get any better, I honestly aim to try every flavour before I leave Cardiff in July. 

Enjoy eating all the good food, I know I did. 

Alice May 

️Xxx 

University room year three

As I've finally had time to get round to it (yes, I've been very absent over summer) I thought I would do another blogpost showing you the ins and outs of my university bedroom. For the past three years I have done a post including pictures and bits and bobs inside my room to give anyone some inspiration  about how to style a uni room. Or, if you're just nosy, like me it's always nice to have a look inside people's bedrooms.

I put a lot of effort into decorating my room each September as I feel that it's nice to have a area where you can chill and feel relaxed when you are doing your work or just laying about. I like my room to feel cute and homely and just a sweet place to be so I am always collecting little trinkets and odd bits to put in it. 

This year my room is up in the attic, right at the top of the house. It's been weird having to get used to the sloped ceilings but I think they actually add to the cosiness of my room. 

Most of the items in my room will be mentioned in the previous years blogposts which I will leave below, anything that is new I will leave details about here. So this is my bed, I love how it is next to the sloped ceiling as it gives it a nice tucked in feel. I struggled to find space to hang too many pictures because of all the low walls but I hung a picture above my bed and a dream catcher which I bought when I was on holiday. I hung some bunting to the ceiling which I think gives the room a bit of a festival feel to it.

As I had a lot of floor space this year I got a rag rug from John Lewis for about £20 and I love it, it really fills out the room and adds lots of bright colours! 

When I first moved into my room I had too many bits and bobs which made my room look untidy and cluttered. I went to ikea and got this fab storage shelf for £20, it's great for shoving all those bits and bobs you have no where to put! 

I also love the blue insert drawers which were £2.50 which add a pop of colour to your bedroom! On top of these shelves I love to put candles which make your room look really pretty at nighttime! 

Here is my very cluttered desk but you get the idea, I like to get lots of colourful bits to make a dull room seem a bit more lively. I also added some fairy lights  to my pin board to brighten it up.

I just have a very simple plain mirror which is hung up on the wall, and around it I have some sweet little flowers which were from Amazon just to add a more girly touch. 

I also added some more fairy lights which were £5 from tesco home. I got them in spaceships theme as I thought this would look super cute at night time with the sky window.

Lastly, my favourite part of the room is this little right hand corner where I just put lots of ornaments and bits and bobs. 

I love this turquoise blue colour as I think it's bright but calming at the same time. I have three little tea light holders from Tiger, and a cute teacup and teapot set from Marks and Spencer's. I also bought a vintage style clock from ikea and filled a Amazon jar with some fairy lights.

I think it looks very relaxing and cosy when I'm tucked up in bed with all my candles and lights on!

 Finally, I made a little display of polaroids hanging above the chest of drawers, I purchased some heart shaped pegs and just attached them with string to give it much more homely feel!

Thank you for taking a look inside my room, if you fancy looking at the other two years here they are; 

Year one; http://yayalicemay.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/little-uni-bedroom.html

Year two; http://yayalicemay.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/university-room-year-two.html

I would love to take a look at some of your bedrooms or some homeware items so leave me a comment. 

See you soon, 

Alice May 

Xxx

Food-a-holic

So lately I've been trying out a lot of good food/drinks. Typical student life, trying out all the local cafés, bars and places to eat in cardiff. Yes I'm supposed to be poor.

So if you are ever in the local area of Cardiff/Cathays here are some fabby places to try out! 

Firstly Face 11. Face 11 is a cute little bar/restaurant literally a road away from where I am living now, always so tempting. It is a really nice quirky and individual place where they serve lots of yummy cocktails, pizza and burgers. 

The cocktails are usually on a 2-4-1 offer which is even better and the pizza similarly is often but one and get one half price. 

I have a florentina which has a fried egg on the top and was really fresh and delicious they are all home made in the kitchen. So so good. 

Next cafe 37 is the local almost greasy spoon where you will find most hungover students on a Sunday morning. It's pretty cool as it has an American style theme and everything is so cheap. I had just some toast and a amazing malteaser milkshake! So so so good! They also do all of the traddional fry ups which looked very yummy. 

As soon as I heard my local pub served toffee apple cider of course I literally ran there. This Brothers cider flavoured with a hint of toffee apple was super delicious and it was nice to drink it in the chilled out atmosphere of the Woodville, I'm just a big sucker for fairy lights really. However, I did feel pretty sick after the whole bottle as it is very very sweet. 

Barker tea rooms in Cardiff town was spot on. It opened a few months ago and ever since I had been forever waiting to go. I am a typical British girl who loves nothing more than drinking tea in a cute little tea shop accompanied by some yummy cake or scones and some lovely people. What more could you want really? As the vintage tea room seems to be an ever growing thing I am eager to try as many as possible and this one was perfectly fitted with cosy chairs and mismatching crockey! 

I also discovered the wonder of Emma Jaynes cupcakes which is literally a five minute walk from my house in catahys. I've been twice so far and it's an absolute bargain. Tea and cake for £3!!! Why wouldn't you? As you can see I tasted the Oreo cupcake and the chocolate orange cupcake, both were amazing. I am always spoiled for choice, next time I think I might try the cherry bake well or the peanut butter!! 

Finally, I also recently stumbled across tucker on Sailsbury road. It is a recently open cafe/restaurant where they sell a variety of burgers, pizzas and snacks. Its a lovely place to go for a quick catch up with your friend but also in the evenings they have selective nights for a slection of live music and drinks etc. I enjoyed a gingerbread milkshake the last time I visited which was delicious.

So if you are ever visiting Cardiff, or in fact are living the student life in catahys these are for sure the best places (I've found so far) to grab a bite or two to eat. 

Alice May

Xxxx

Festive trip to Bristol

Hey guys,

So a couple of weekends ago me and my boyfriend took a little trip to Bristol for a visit. 

We just stayed in a little premier inn, which I actually loved because it was cheap, and right in the middle of the town which was perfect really. 

 I chose to wear my little denim dress which I love, from primark, teamed with my tartan scarf also a primark bargain for £5. Then I studded topshop necklace, tights and boots. I also straightened my hair which is kind of rare for me as I prefer my hair naturally wavy and with a bit more volume. 

We grabbed some lunch at Bella Italia and just looked around the shops and such. I love going to visit different places just to have a look around at all the different shops. Bristol is pretty good for shopping too. We mainly stayed in Cabot Circus where they have most of the high street shops. We managed to also meet my friend and I had a delicious Christmas costa, a white hot chocolate which was lovely and we also grabbed a festive Krispy Kreme. 

We then checked into our hotel, here is a picture of our Christmas jumpers we got ready for the holidays. EXCITING!!! The Christmas pudding one actually plays a musical tune, again these were both from primark which is absolutely massive in Bristol!! 

In the evening we went to the Bristol student union to watch Crystal Fighters who we both love and they were amazing. Although a bit weird as one of them did have his top off.

If you haven't listened to them before I really recommend you to go check them out. They play pretty chilled songs but at the same time they make you want to get up and dance. 

We then went back to the lovely and festive decorated premier inn, couldn't resist a picture by the tree!!!

Next day we got up (not so early) and strolled into town for some lunch/late late breakfast. We found a little cafe and had some baguettes.

 We then did the usual stroll through the town etc and took a look at the Christmas market. German markets always make me feel so warm and Christmassy as they look so cute.

Later on we went to the cinema where we saw Saving Mr Banks, although we were the youngest in the cinema by miles it was such a lovely film about the story behind Mary Poppins. I honestly thought it was amazing and really can't wait for it to be out on DVD.

After that we just grabbed a GBK, yum and again had a walk around the shops with all the pretty lights before we both headed home. It was a super lovely two days and pretty cheap as well so well worth going :). 

Oh and we also had these yummy yummy Christmas drinks. They were caramel hot chocolates with gingerbread and whipped cream, mmmmmmm.

Love love 

Alice May 

Xxxx

Easter blogging (kind of late)

Hey guys,

So its a Saturday night and I figured it was time to do some blogging as its been a little while.
I've been having a fabulously busy Easter back at home in Southampton and I really am loving every little minute of it! It's so nice to be back home and to just be able to relax and see my friends and family!

Looking back, my Easter seems to have consisted on many trips to tearooms, which I do love, especially in the cold weather a cute little tearoom is always a nice thing to perk you up!
The first tearoom I visited was called Teatray in the sky, in Southsea, it was so lovely in there very quirky and almost Alice in Wonderland tea party style which I thought was dead cute.
We also took my little cousins and even though not really designed for children they still loved it and enjoyed lots of yummy home made cakes and hot chocolates before a nice walk along the sea front!

 Here were just a few little bits on sale in this tearoom, all looking very vintage and mismatch very much matching the style on the tearoom itself :)!

 A few days later I took another trip to a little cafe in Southsea (maybe its the place to be).
This time I went to The Pie and Vinyl. Which is in fact exactly as it says in the title. This little cafe serves a wide variety of pies to eat in or to take out. A meal option is also available with the pie coming with mushy peas, mash and gravy.

I love love loved the Pie and Vinyl, again it was very quirky and different and out the back holds a small record store holding records from old and new bands, and also a few other types of band merchandise. As you can see with the picture on the left, this cafe again used very mismatch plates and cups to drink out of. From this little house/stable kettle I had a lovely rhubarb and rose hip cordial.

It even looks mega cute from the outside and is actually really nice to walk along the sea front right outside! I will most certainly be returning again in the summer!

Now because it was Easter of course I just had to try out the new craze of the creme egg brownies and yes they were amazing! They tasted very sickly so one was enough for me but where the creme egg was baked in the oven it had an almost crispy texture to it and it was heavenly! They were pretty easy to make and I had some help from two very special helpers so it was fun fun fun!

However I do apologie for my lack of appearance! They tasted good and that's all that mattered!

Finally, me and my family took a little Easter weekend vacation to Devon to see some more family! It was actually really lovely to spend a few days with the family as I don't see them that much like we did then and I had fun with my brother and sister (that's us above rocking the nikes) of course I taught them well ;)!

Sorry this post has been a bit late, rushed and pretty manic! It's been a very busy few weeks but now that I'm back at Uni I hope to be blogging a little bit more! Hope you are all awesomely well my lovlies and thank you so much for reading! 

Ask me anything below, I love to hear from you! 

Much Love, 

Alice May

xxxx