In all my trips to the States I’ve never made it to Nevada, let alone Las Vegas. I’m off tomorrow for a few days staying in Las Vegas before I had to a work even, and I’m very excited about it since I’ve never been. I’m not a big gambler and I’m sure the commercialisation of everything is going to get to me after a while but I’ll enjoy the food opportunities at least. After that I’ll be heading to this year’s Retrospective Gathering in Phoenix which, although a work event, will be a great opportunity to meet with some of the best in the industry in this particular field.
It’s Official…
I’m now a member of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.
Being a member gives you access to their private tasting room located in the middle of Farringdon as well as invites to their tasting nights. It also gives you discount to rooms and suites available in Edinburgh. Better yet you get to sample a wide variety of whiskies from around the world at very reasonable prices. Let us know if you ever want to visit since it’s a pretty nice experience even if you’re not a big fan of whisky.
A Weekend in Edinburgh
This week has gone by so fast that I haven’t had a chance to write about my last weekend that was spent in Edinburgh. Although I had been briefly there before on my last trip to Scotland, we didn’t do any sight seeing, so this trip was going to resolve that. I flew via BMI and ended up with a very early flight out of Heathrow on Saturday with a very late return on Sunday. Although it meant catching one of the earliest tubes along with all the people heading home from places like Turnmills and Fabric, it also meant a full day of walking around by the time I got there.
Edinburgh’s airport is not very far from the centre of the city, and many buses constantly move between the two places for a very reasonable £5. It took no time for me to get into the city and start to orient myself as I made way to the famous Edinburgh Castle. Along the way I found out that on Saturday’s they hold a farmer’s market well worth visiting. Fresh local produce, lots of meat and seafood and surprisingly, a stall that only sold porridge in a dozen or more flavours. It was a nice change for breakfast and made much more appropriate since it Edinburgh was cold and had very windy conditions.
My touring around Edinburgh started off around the famous Royal Mile that runs through the heart of the old city in Edinburgh. At one end is Edinburgh Castle that sits a top a formidable lookout, offering a great view of the surrounding area as well as playing host to the Scottish Crown Jewels and Sceptre. Lots of other attractions line the Royal Mile and are admittedly a little bit too touristy for me. At the other end of the Royal Mile is the Queen’s Gallery, Holyrood Palace and the Scottish House of Parliament. I didn’t go inside the gallery but people who enjoy David Attenborough should go see his exhibition there that looked quite interesting.
Overlooking all of these attractions at the other end of the mile is Arthur’s Seat – a mountainous lookout that looks back up towards the castle and is worth the walk. I followed a bunch of people who decided to go straight up, and had quite the struggle at times to make progress due to the violent winds. Between the lush grass that covers this mountain, you can see the trails worn from both the hikers and bikers who make it up and down the mountain.
Eating well in Edinburgh is not hard to do given the fresh produce available to them. I ate at two places I can highly recommend. One of them, The Grain Store serves quality Scottish fare and do a two or three course menu at reasonable prices. My meal started with a thick Jerusalem Artichoke soup drizzled with a little thyme-infused oil and served with fresh crusty bread and butter. It continued with pan seared pork belly, curly kale and wholegrain mustard that smelled deliciously sweet and had a good balance of saltiness with it. The decadent meal finished off with a very thin slice of an espresso and chocolate tart with espresso sabayon rich enough to finish off the meal but not heavy enough to send you to sleep.
The other great restaruant sits in the middle of the pedestrain-friendly Rose Street – The Mussel Inn who also have an outlet in Glasgow. Other than having a fully booked out restaurant at night, the friendly place run by an Australian maitre de, offers a wide variety of seafood. My guide book recommended the 1kg of mussels and with the five or six different flavours how could I resist.
Edinburgh’s a great place to visit and offers enough to do for the weekend for a relaxing weekend visit. Weather turns very quickly and with plenty of rain, it doesn’t hurt for the visitor to bring their umbrella. The rest of the pictures from my weekend are available here.
TheKua.com Rating: 8 out of 10
Boeing Boeing
Last Monday I went along to see a comical theatre show called Boeing Boeing. The script is extremely old with a movie released in 1965 with actors such as Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis. The story is simple with a small cast of only six people based in a stunning apartment in the middle of Paris. It is set in a time when the aviation industry is starting to take off and revolves around the man that owns the apartment and his three flight hostess fiancés (one from America, one from Italy and one from Germany). Things get complicated when a mate of his comes to visit and is let in on the little secret and all while his maid is trying to keep up with everyone’s whims.
It’s got some great lines that just keep coming and coming and although some of them are admittedly a little cliché, it certainly kept the audience laughing throughout the entire night. It was so funny that some of the audience were randomly laughing even though the actors weren’t saying anything and it even got to a point where one of the actresses had to turn away because of a fit of giggles.
It’s a great show I can recommend to anyone even though the play is coming to an end of its season in London.
TheKua.com Rating: 9 out of 10
Andorran Skiing
My latest skiing adventure was only the third time I’ve gone skiing and it just seems to get better and better. I’m a little bit worried though that this time we were so spoilt that it might make skiing back home less enjoyable. Overall the trip was fantastic and made even more fun since we went in a nicely sized group of eight. You can check out Stickfly’s review and Gerrod’s discussion to find out some different views.
There are many reasons I think we were spoilt on this particular holiday. The hotel we stayed in, the Sports Village Hotel was extremely nice – the rooms were big, the bathrooms very nice and the whole place was in a perfect location with the ski lift gondola two floors directly below our hotel. As a result it was extremely easy getting up the mountain in the morning. Better yet, at the end of the day you can ski right down the mountain (as fast as you want) and ski directly underneath the Gondola a few more floors down, keeping your commute time down even more. Attached to the hotel was a three storied sports wellness centre full of saunas, pools, spas, heat beds all of different heats. It was a must for every single member of our party at some time during the week and well worth the €30 for the three hours to drain the aches and pains of the week.
On top of that, despite the “worst season Andorra has ever seen” we managed to get two days of fresh snow, giving us a few days skiing on some lovely powder snow. Admittedly a number of the other days were painfully windy and slightly icy, but I think we were lucky with the snow that we did get.
I was happy that on my first day I managed to survive a red run since on my second time skiing, it took a couple of days to get my ski legs back on. By the end of the week, other than the fact I was extremely physically exhausted, we even had a small go at a few jumps and tried learning how to spin around skiing backwards and failing dismally at turning around facing forward again.
Amazingly despite the adventurous nature of some of our party members, no one came away with any major injuries with the most a bruised inflamed rib, and maybe a few sore shoulders, arms or legs.
Andorra is a great blast for people skiing though I can’t recommend it for a cultural trip since it seems to cater mainly for English tourists given the number of pubs and perfect resemblance of a high street, and for the Spanish and French locals with all menus pretty much in their native languages.
Thanks to Ben for organising it all and everyone else (Michelle, Gerrod, Kristy, John, Kirsten and Matt) for the fabulous company and great skiing/boarding.
UK Site of the Week
You know when you think that there’s some store on a street somewhere you can’t remember but it sits between two other ones you can remember. Well if it’s on a major street in central London, then Street Sensation is the site for you. This website keeps a pictorial representation of many streets around London, and it is always somehow kept up to date (including stores being constructed, etc) and great if you want to check out what’s on a particular street or where a street is relative to other ones. I highly recommend it.
Cay Tre – The Vietnamese Kitchen
Surprisingly I haven’t eaten that much at Vietnamese restaurants in London. It was only recently that I found out that a plethora of them exist out east near the Old Street tube station. I ate at Cay Tre (also known as The Vietnamese Kitchen) most recently and was surprisingly impressed by it.
The restaurant was busy throughout our entire meal with many patrons cascading into the ground floor. Another good indicator of the quality of the food was the large number of Asian people that were dining. The menu offers a wide selection of starters and mains ranging from soups, noodles, stews, fried dishes and other speciality grilled things prepared on little portable grills at each table. The dishes are extremely affordable with most of the mains averaging £5 or £6.
Service throughout the night was non-intrusive and I didn’t feel at all rushed through our meal like you would in many Chinese restaurants. Better yet, if you find Cay Tre busy, it also has a sister restaurant just around the corner.
Details: Cay Tre
Found on: 301 Old Street, London, EC1V 9LA
Contactable on: 020 7729 8662
Highlights: Cheap, fresh Vietnamese food with a huge offering on their menu.
Room for improvement: Nothing too much to note here (for once).
The Kua Rating: 8 out of 10
Disturbia the Book
One of the good things about travelling somewhere is you can chill out for a bit and get down to reading or something a little bit less hectic. On my latest trip I borrowed Disturbia by Christopher Fowler – a bit of a thriller book set around London based around characters from two highly contrasting social classes meeting. Over time you find out one of the character is part of a mysterious society, and the main characters starts uncovering these activities of the society called the League of Promethius.
I enjoyed the book for some of the trivia of places around central London, though I’m yet to work out if any of it is true or not. If so, you could easily see a nice little tour around London based on the book (think the Da Vinci Code). I did find that sometimes the book wavered between moments that are completely believable and holds you in suspense to situations where you think it was a bit of an easy-out for the author to write and was just a little touch “lucky” for the main character. Overall though I think it was very well written and at least is easy to start off, building up very quickly. Best yet is the ending has a little bit of a twist that’s quite enjoyable.
TheKua.com Rating: 7 out of 10