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

Inman Aligner

This is a bit of a different post today but I thought it might be interesting for quite a few people.

It's about the Inman Aligner which is a removable brace which straightens your teeth in several months time. 

I never really thought my teeth were that bad until I actually got my Inman Aligner. I mean I didn't really love my teeth but I honestly was not that bothered by them at all. My mum however was always saying that we should try and do something about them. When I was at school I had been to several author dentists however all of them said I wasn't applicable for a brace as my teeth weren't bad enough, etc etc. Anyway if I did want a brace (train tracks) I would have been looking at between £4,000 to £6,000 which obviously was not even considered. 

Several years later my mum started looking up on the Internet several types of braces especially more discreet ones used my celebrities and such. When we found out there was a local dentist near me who did Inman Aligners we thought we might as well give it a shot. 

The price of an Inman Aligner is £1,500 for one set (top or bottom). Luckily my bottom teeth are pretty straight so I was only interested in getting my top set done. It was pretty quick the whole process, after my first consultation I had a mould and things taken so they could see if I was applicable for the Inman Aligner. After this my brace was made and I was shown how to apply it. At first I found it really hard to attach to my teeth, I just couldn't seem to get it in and my mouth got really sore but after a week or so I got the hang of it and the rest was fine!

I personally only had to have my Inman Aligner on for about 3 months but obviously this can depend on how often you wear it and how bad your teeth are etc. 

Basically the Inman Aligner clips onto your teeth and pushes them into place. You also have some small sections of composite stuck onto your teeth for about a month of your treatment which are then later removed as they to help attach the brace. 

The Inman Aligner works, like I said, by pushing your teeth together. Every two weeks you have an appointment with your dentist in which he will check how your teeth are moving you will also have some IPR. 

This is a lot more scary then it sounds, basically your dentist will file between your teeth with some metal to create a tiny gap (which you can't even see) this allows your teeth to move into place when they are pushed by the brace. This happens about every two weeks or so. It doesn't hurt, it's just one of those cringey and uncomfortable feelings and trust me this is coming from me and I can't stand the dentist. That is literally all it is, no injections or anything. 

Here is my teeth before I started the treatment;

I find it really odd to look back at my teeth because it makes me notice how different they are now. I am actually so so glad that I decided to get the Inman Aligner. Obviously the brace isn't for everyone. You are supposed to wear the brace 24/7 and only take it out to eat. Of course, being a full time uni student this was not always possible for me. I didn't really want to wear my brace out in public because I didn't want to be embarrassed as it does make your mouth quite full and clumpy and it is hard to speak, especially at first. I tried to wear it as much as possible and usually still managed a good 15-20 hours wearing the brace per day and my results were still complete in about 3 months.

Several weeks on I already began to see changes in my teeth. Although at first the Inman Aligner creates a lot of pressure on your teeth as it is always pushing you begin to get used to this feeling. The first few weeks my teeth were quite tender and sore however the pain was not unbearable, it was just a dull ache and quite painful to chew on tough food. My speech when I first got the brace was also very lispy and all of my uni friends had a good laugh at me spitting everywhere but you mouth does quickly adjust to this new thing in your mouth.

I really was impressed with how my teeth were moving, it was hard to see it in person but when I looked back at my previous photo's the change was amazing when so little work was actually being done on my teeth. 

Here is a picture of what the brace actually looks like in your mouth, although a clear plastic it is still noticeable in your mouth and people would know it was there when you are wearing it. Also these photos were taken at a later stage when my teeth were more straight as it was easier to show how the brace actually looked.

One of the final stages of treatment is to get two bits of composite stuck onto your two front teeth to help anchor the brace and straighten out your front teeth. I was quite worried about this as I really did not want two bits of hard tooth material sticking out from my front teeth. However, as in the pictures they really are not that noticeable and are actually covered by your lip a lot of the time.

These final pictures are the finished product of my teeth. I only had to wear my inman aligner for about 3 months and I can not promote it any more. I am so so pleased with my teeth now and just looking back at the pictures shows a massive difference. I now only wear a retainer at night like any other person who has already had a brace. I also decided to have my teeth filed slightly as my canines reminded me of fangs and when straightening my teeth I found one of my front teeth was slightly longer than the other. This is again a quick and pain free process which just adds a finishing touch.

I hope this helps anyone who is considering getting and Inman Aligner. I know I read and watched lots of blog and videos before fully committing to mine.
Any questions are welcome.
Lots of love and straight smiles

Alice May

xxx