Frills of Steel Valentine's Dessert Time

First meetup in lieu of Valentine’s Day has already taken place. I’m very much one of those people who dislikes it as a holiday, but I do like the aesthetic. Lots of reds? Yes please! Eating sweets? Every day (wish that wasn’t true though). Hearts? Cute af. And it’s been another hot minute since I went to a Sheffield meetup, so time was right to go.

Laziness and wind meant I opted for a wig instead. Here I'm thinking of those delicious desserts I'm about to have.

Brand new shoes yet to be spoiled by British weather.

Almost as soon as I confirmed that I could go, the coord idea has crystallised in my mind. I threw it the week before onto the bed to see if it’d work and on the day that same outfit worked when worn, except for one small barette clip. That’s a success! I’m also very pleased that I got to wear these Minnie Mouse shoes, which I bought last month. It’s great when you can be both cute and comfortable, and although breaking into the shoes at a meet may not have been the smartest idea, it was still infinitely more comfortable than wearing heels.

In another episode of Paulina being shocked by how much easier transport is now despite being further, I zoomed in to Sheffield in under an hour on a comfy, direct train. On the only stop between Manchester and Sheffield my train made I saw another lolita get on, so once we arrived, I stopped to the side to wait for them. Two others were already waiting when we got to the meeting point, and shortly afterwards all the frills had assembled, so we made our way to the venue.

Rassams Creamery serves pretty much only desserts, though of all kinds, from pancakes/crepes/waffles to ice cream, sundaes and cakes. Their offering also has vegan and dairy free options, although on the day it seemed like hardly any of it was in stock, which was not very cool. The place gave me some severe homesick vibes: dessert places like this are all over the place where my parents live. They’re all South Asian-owned businesses and it’s very common for people to go to one place for dinner, then go to a different one for desserts. As such, places like Rassams thrive at night, when they’ll be packed with people – in fact, I’m not sure if I can recall any even opening during the day (I’m sure some do, but they’ll be empty, which Rassams was).

The inside of Rassams. Photo taken from HappyCow.net, I do not own.

Now that I look at this dude, he kind of looks like he should be in The Simpsons.

On the way to Sheffield instinct told me to buy a savoury, filling lunch, since we were just going for desserts, and I’m glad I did. Although we weren’t the biggest group and the place was mostly empty, like I already said, they are busiest at night. As such I think there were only two or three members of staff working, who could only make our orders so fast. Mine was one of the last few to arrive, After a debate whether to get a Kiwi Kiwi Luxury Sundae or a Kinder Bueno Tower Sundae, I opted for the latter on the grounds of my lunch being quite light and healthy. And I have exactly zero regrets, this was delicious and actually way more filling than I had anticipated it to be. Give me Kinder Bueno anytime!

That was just one page of the menu. There was more, so much more...

Anything with Kinder Bueno is instantly better in my opinion. That hazelnut sauce was also great, I need to find some.

Time passed as we chatted about upcoming events and dished out community gossip. We even managed a group photo, which also went up on the official Frills of Steel Instagram page (you can follow them on @frillsofsteel). Big thank you to a kind stranger who offered to take one for us, after a couple of timer attempts resulting in not quite right photos.

Look how cute we are! Follow @frillsofsteel on Instagram, there's more where this came from.

To save money, I had booked myself onto a specific return train rather than getting an anytime ticket, and my train was pretty late. Luckily, a few others in our group were also keen on killing a bit of time by just mooching about town. We ended up in a charity shop, then hopped across a few high street ones (where we continued to both destroy fast fashion’s quality as lolitas and look for loliable items like blouses). I managed to stay good and not buy anything other than a shampoo bar once we made it to Lush towards the end. My aversion for crowds is so big that I would much rather wait until I’m in Sheffield and go to the quieter Lush there to shop in peace than to leave my house, hop on a tram to Manchester city centre and battle the weekend crowds, even when I genuinely need something.

My return home was rather uneventful. Although the train picked up a delay, it didn’t bother me too much since I had brought my tablet with me with Porco Rosso downloaded onto it, which I finished between the trip there and back. It was much better, much more enjoyable than I had anticipated it to be (I was worried that it’d end up being more problematic given when this was set and when this was made), and it certainly brightened up an otherwise boring journey.

Lastly, although this is stuff from the following day, let me quickly show off a tiny bit of crafting I did on that very lazy Sunday. I had bought these starry beads from Daiso when I was in Japan last year and finally got round to making the bracelets out of them. There were too many to use one pack per bracelet, but not enough to make two bracelets and a necklace entirely out of those, so I dug out some pearl ones I had from before for the elastic choker. Whilst this isn’t quite the classic jewellery I had in mind in my need list, my jewellery collection is lacking in navy pieces, so I’ve no doubt that I’ll get a fair use out of them.