Chowki

Patrick Food, Restaurants, UK Life

This Indian restaurant is tucked away on a small side street not to far from Piccadilly Circus, and serves modernised dishes from numerous regions around India. I believe the menu, or at least some of the regional specialities rotate quite frequently, and they also serve some classic dishes for those that are not as adventurous. This restaurant is owned by the Mela Group, of both Mela and Soho Spice fame, and though the food is not as cheap as many other restaurants around London, I think you get excellent quality for the price.

Tables are split into two main rooms, with each dining table being effectively one long bench and shared Wagamama style. Each night they offer two platters (a non-vegetarian and a vegetarian) that allow you to sample large amounts of different dishes. The main meals off the menu are also served with rice, naan and a daal-like dish so at least you are not forced to order additional sides to make a complete meal. Dishes are presented exceptionally well, with most of the dishes served in little crescent-shaped white plates that fit together perfectly to form an entire platter in front of you.

We had outstanding service the night we went. One of our dining members was taking a phone call when all of our meals arrived, and one of the waitresses insisted keeping the food warm until he came back. Even better was that despite being relatively busy that night, the waitress immediately noticed his return to the table, and promptly delivered his food still piping hot.

Details: Chowki
Found on: 2-3 Denman Street, London, W1D 7HA
Contactable on: 0871 3328062
Highlights: Wagamama-ish style dining tables, quality foods at reasonable prices. Great service on the night as well.
Room for improvement: The place becomes extremely noisy despite its high ceilings and fairly wide spaces so avoid if you want a little bit more personal space or a bit more of an intimate affair.
The Kua Rating: 8 out of 10

Muse @ Wembley Arena

Patrick Music, UK Life

My most memorable concert in Brisbane was most definitely Muse who played at the Riverstage. When I heard they were coming to perform in London again, I definitely had to see them and booked tickets for this Thursday just gone, way back in August. The venue for the night was Wembley Arena, a large, well lit modern looking building that looks dwarfish compared to the towering Wembley Stadium it stands next to.

I found Wembley Arena on par with the way that Earl’s Court is set up for concerts, with a wide rectangular standing area surrounded by seating on all sides. We had tickets for seats to the right of the stage, but as expected, no many people were sitting down once Muse started playing.

Muse at Wembley

Thursday’s performance was impressive, though I cannot say it outshone their performance in Brisbane. Their set drew upon a lot from their new album, Black Holes and Revelations, and included many popular ones from their previous albums. Their dark, electro rock easily filled the venue and band front man, Matthew Bellamy, really stood out on stage wearing a bright red suit. I found the visuals and lights spectacular, the videos perfectly timed and the balance between their heavier and lighter, but still as spine tingling songs was well maintained.

It was a great evening, made even by the fact that getting home from Wembley ended up a lot faster than I thought it was going to be.

TheKua.com Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Test Driving Stockholm

Patrick Agile, Travel, Work Related

Test Driving Swing Example in Stockholm SwedenThis weekend went by far too quickly with a quick trip to Stockholm. All of Saturday was pretty much talking shop with a great bunch of agile-enthusiasts that I met at XP2006, who invited me to run a full day session of my Test Driving Swing presentation. I’ve run this session at XP2006 and Javazone this year and because it fits tightly into an hour I found it refreshing to run through it at a much slower pace and in more detail.

The crowd was just the right size to be interactive. I found it effective first taking their objectives and tweaking parts of the presentation to focus on the detail where they wanted. I even had time to run a retrospective that was beneficial to both the audience and myself – I got some useful feedback and the audience participated in their first retrospective, a tool some mentioned that they were going to try on their own projects.

For future demonstrations, I think I’ll avoid typing *all* of the code myself, or at least practice many times since I made a few silly mistakes (and I know that being tired [BA was supremely late arriving in Sweden] is no excuse). I think it would also be good to have a much deeper and more complex system that was completely Test Driven to the extreme as an example, though I know I will have no time to write it on my own any time soon.

I do have to thank the Agical guys for giving me another opportunity to run my session. We had some fun discussions over some wonderful meals and drinks at both Mårten Trotzig and Gondolen, both very excellent restaurants.

Momix: Lunar Sea

Patrick Entertainment, Theatre, UK Life

Lunar Sea (Photo provided from the Peacock Theatre Website) Last year I saw Momix’s previous production and was so impressed by it (and gently encouraged by an offer from LastMinute.com) that I decided to see their current production, Lunar Sea. This production was once again held at the Peacock Theatre, a nice little intimate stage that tends to be very popular for acrobatic or rich visual movement performances.

Compared to last year’s production that included many more props and elaborate costumes, Tuesday’s performance was much simpler but much more evocative drawing upon large scenery projections, deep tribal like music and some impressive choreographed visualisations in costumes that lit up under a black light. The theme between the ocean and the moon flowed in and out throughout the performance with some exceptionally eye-boggling eye tricks.

Half the time I found myself wondering how they even accomplished some of the impressive stunts such as simulating a flock of seagulls flying, to simply sitting back and losing myself in the surreal world presented on stage. It’s definitely not a show that will whet everyone’s appetite, but it is distinctive enough to be well worth the ticket price.

TheKua.com Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Best of Broadway @ Royal Albert Hall

Patrick Entertainment, Theatre, UK Life

Royal Albert HallThis Sunday was my first time to visit the Royal Albert Hall, a large and majestic theatre with a capacity to hold an overwhelming number of people. It was here that I saw the musical bonanza titled ‘Best of Broadway’. This composition of this show was extremely simple – one song from the most popular Broadway shows ever all performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and a handful of West End musical stars. They performed a wide range of songs, from the more traditional shows such as Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and Evita to some more recent ones including Wicked, Mamma Mia, and The Lion King. I was expecting a little bit more of a well rounded audience, but perhaps it was the choice of performance and the Sunday afternoon show that meant well over 70% of the theatre was filled with bus loads of a much older crowd of sorts.

I can only recommend this show to big fans of people that enjoy the music from the most popular musicals as each song does not last too long, and the show seems a little bit disjoint moving from one theme to another so quickly. I was at least still impressed to be sitting inside an amazing venue and listening to the impressive Philharmonic Orchestra.

After this though, I am even more intrigued to see what the performance of Modest Mouse will be like in this venue next year (23 May to be exact).

TheKua.com Rating: 5 out of 10

What things in your day add value to the end product?

Patrick Agile, Coaching, Work Related

Something that add values…

Three people with different sets of skills (application developer, server administrator and release engineer) all looking at what could be causing an issue that manifested itself only in the production environment at release time.

In contrast with something that doesn’t…

A manager not involved in the release, sitting over everyone’s shoulders while they’re trying to understand the issue, reminding them to record the time spent against the estimated times in the plan and all the other paperwork.