Author Archives: Grace

Jamie’s Italian

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Jamie Oliver seems EVERYWHERE at the moment. His latest venture is a chain of “affordable” Italians. It started with an opening in Oxford, followed quickly by openings in Bath, Kingston, Brighton, Canary Wharf, and Guildford, Cardiff opens tomorrow and there are four more to follow in 2010: Cambridge, Reading, Leeds and Liverpool. The restaurants seem to be opening up quicker than Starbucks!

I met Nate, Caro little baby Gaspar and Caro’s Mum at their home in Earlsfield. Caro had hired a car for the day so that we could all go together to visit the Kingston Branch. It was nice to be able to go out with them all as a whole family! In Jamie’s Italian Jamie is trying to evoke the feel of rustic, simple, good genuine Italian food but alongside this he wanted to create an environment that was relaxed, “neighbourly”, accessible and affordable. As a result you won’t find any posh attitudes at Jamie’s Italian and you’re welcome to stay and relax as long as you want. You can’t book ahead, its first come first serve, though if you’re in a group of 8 or bigger they can attempt to reserve a space for you. We thought there might be queues out the door so we aimed for getting there rather early. Despite traffic we arrived at the perfect time and were seated pretty much straight away.

Inside the restaurants is very attractive and very welcoming. Great lighting especially in the room we were in with the sun roof. What I immediately loved about the restaurant, other than our extremely cute French waiter (heh heh), was the fact that it felt so warm inside. It’s a very family friendly restaurant and there was great buzz and atmosphere. What I loved second was the menu – no pizza in sight! Don’t get me wrong I love a good pizza but I love a good pasta or other Italian type dish more.

We started by sharing a meat antipasti (seasonal cured meat, italian cheeses, buffalo mozzarella, pecorino with amazing chilli jam, and pickles, curly green chillies, green and black olives) and a gorgeous selection of bread (focaccia, ciabatta, sourdough country bread, grissini sticks and ‘snappy music bread’ with lemon and rosemary gremolata) served with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The antipasti is presented on a wood plank served atop two giant tins of tomato. Nice touch of the rustic! Oh, we also couldn’t resist the “Post Truffle Chips” – chips served with truffle oil and parmesan. Really lovely, and loved the parmesan on top, though I couldn’t taste the truffle – I never can!

For mains everyone but me went for pasta. Its hardly Italian but I couldn’t resist the South Coast Fritto Misto – a fried selection of fresh seafood served with a healthy dose of Italian tartare sauce. I’ve read actually that it’s the pasta you should focus on when coming to Jamie’s – next time! The pasta was a pretty big hit – Nate, Caro and Caro’s Mum only had good things to say. On the other hand my fried fish dish was almost too much for me portion-wise. I could barely finish the combination of sardines, calamari, prawn and fish. It was good however had a bit of a sameness in each bit. Too much of one flavour for me.

However, someone was clearly still hungry 😉 :

I really wasn’t to have any dessert as I didn’t think I could fit any more in but Nate convinced me I had to (okay – I’ll be honest I didn’t take much convincing – heh heh.) Lemon ricotta cheesecake – yes please! The portion was pretty generous, though the spoon was even bigger!

Price-tag – Caro’s mum treated me, how nice!, so I don’t know what the total bill was but from what I saw on the menu I did expect prices to be a little cheaper. Though prices were about what you’d pay at Strada and a just a touch more than what you’d pay at Pizza Express. Still perfectly reasonable prices though I did expect the prices to be sub-London prices for some reason.

Overall I have to say that we had a really lovely experience today. Part of it I think was the fact our waiter was French and enjoyed talking to Caro and her Mum in French so he seemed extra friendly. The atmosphere was wonderful and there was never any pressure to rush with our meal. Food was pretty much as expected – nothing spectacular but good and hearty.

Lord Mayor’s Parade

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Its impossible to think that the weather today could have been any worse. It started off reasonably okay, perhaps a little on the chilly side but it was tolerable as we were still dry. However as the parade progressed the weather got worse and worse: wetter and windier (to the point of gale force winds.) Absolutely awful conditions to be outside standing in a press of people but we, and thousands of others, managed to preserve for most of the parade.

The Lord Mayor’s Parade is an annual event which has the newly elected Mayor making his way to the Royal Courts of Justice to pledge allegiance to the Crown. The parade is over three miles long so there are plenty of spots to take a spot and watch. The first part the parade takes the Lord Mayor from Mansion House to the Royal Courts of Justice (where he/she takes his/her oath) which takes about 100 mins. There the Lord Mayor spends about 75 minutes before commencing again from Temple Place to return to Mansion House. If you followed it from start to end it would take just under three hours.

I wanted us to get a spot outside St Paul’s Cathedral as it’s a good backdrop and also the Lord Mayor stops there to get a blessing. Sandra and I arranged to meet at just about 10am and considering the Lord Mayor wasn’t scheduled to arrive until about 12.20 (with the front of the processing passing by at 11.20) it was just about perfect timing to get a front position.

The day started off so brilliantly weather-wise but it wasn’t long before the rain and the wind started.

People were putting up their umbrellas left right and centre which made things awkward as the rain would then drop on to Sandra and I plus they get in the way of everyone else’s view so people were pushing and moving around. Sandra at least was smart enough to bring a rain parker … not me. I had a hoodie and a coat – neither of which was waterproof. What a genius.

All sorts of people participate in the parade including Band of the Scots Guards, Worshipful Company of Butchers, Clarissa Dickson of Two Fat Ladies fame, Actuaries, a Pea Harverster, the Royal Airforce, City of London Solicitors’ Company (who had a weird jungle animal concept – great costumes though), Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office, and dogs! By this point Sandra and I were getting really really cold and me very very wet.

Finally the Lord Mayor arrived in his golden carriage. To be fair he was on time but it felt like we had waited forever because we were so cold, wet and miserable!

By then we’d had enough. We walked back into Chinatown and had …. Crispy Duck!

We had planned on occupying ourselves until the fireworks started at 5.30 but we made a call that the wild winds (strong enough to pick a person up and fly them away) would mean they’d be cancelled, plus we still hadn’t really dried off and it really hadn’t gotten any warmer so we decided to call it quits after lunch.

It was a good call – I got home and found out the fireworks had indeed been cancelled.

Jennifer’s Body

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Friday the 13th. What could be more appropriate than going to see a horror flick. The lucky winner: Jennifer’s Body.

I could tell from the first five minutes of the movie that this was going to be one of those movies that critics love to hate. Don’t be fooled that this movie has been promoted as coming from the writer of Juno because no further a departure could be made.

The premise of Jennifer’s Body is that Jennifer, played by Megan Fox, is the stereotypical hottie at school who does not appear to have any thoughts beyond what is on the surface in her mind. One horrible night a demon possesses her body and after this becomes hungry for human flesh to keep her body trim, young, and beautiful. She turns to eating the boys at school as they are easy prey. Amanda Seyfried plays Needy Lesnicky, her “best” friend, until Megan goes for Needy’s boyfriend. Then, bets are all off.

As a side note much has been said of the on-screen chemistry between these two and in particular the scene of The Kiss. I have to admit it was hot. Very very hot. A scene that the boys will like. Very much. I loved this quote:

Needy Lesnicky: I thought you only murdered boys.
Jennifer Check: I go both ways.

Heh heh.

The movie treads a confusing line between horror (there are some magnificently gory scenes) and parody/comedy so perhaps that is why it won’t sit well with many in the audience who prefer one or the other but not both. I for one absolutely loved it. Perhaps it was the memorable lines, mostly between Jennifer and Needy, and though this is not exactly a women’s lib movie we have at least in Jennifer’s Body two very strong female leads.

Some other memorable lines:

Needy Lesnicky: Jennifer’s evil.
Chip Dove: I know.
Needy Lesnicky: No. I mean, she’s actually evil. Not high school evil.

Needy Lesnicky: You’re a terrible best friend. You stole my toys when we were little. You poured lemonade on my bed.
Jennifer Check: And now I’m eating your boyfriend. At least I’m consistent.

Needy Lesnicky: Are you PMS’ing or something?
Jennifer Check: PMS isn’t real Needy, it was invented by the boy-run media to make us seem like we’re crazy.

Chas: It’s true. It’s on the Wikipedia.

There are so many more lines but they are so very not PG!

Rasa Sayang

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We (Su Yin, Leo, Kelly and I) dropped in to Rasa Sayang for a quick bite before our movie. And quick it was if the restaurant could help it along any! Rasa Sayana is a Malaysian restaurant located in the China Town Mall (well, its up that middle bit opposite my favourite Chinese bakery Golden Gate.) It was clear from the get go that the trade mark of Rasa Sayang is HIGH TURNOVER!

Food at Rasa Sayang is very reasonably priced with decent portion sizes. Taste-wise it is pretty damn fantastic. The only problem was that we didn’t feel we could sit back and relax because at any moment it felt like the waitress was going to swoop in and clear our dishes! At one stage Su Yin was still trying to finish off her main meal, put down her chopsticks for a second and the next thing we knew and before we could really protest the whole ensemble was whipped away. It was almost funny.

This brusque service is the only real negative to this bustling restaurant. Always fully packed when I walk by with sometimes lines out the door – the food here is good and cheap enough that it will always have return customers. Me included!

Plum Valley II

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It has been less than a month since my first visit to Plum Valley however when Caro said that she has hardly eaten Chinese in her life she jumped at the chance to try Plum Valley for our catch up tonight. I didn’t mind as there are plenty of other items on the menu that I’m still keen to check out.

This time we were brought upstairs and like last time we started as the diners up there (in fact they had to switch on the lights still!) but by the middle of our meal had been joined by many other diners until the floor was full (there was room for about 15 or so other people.)

Our menu choices tonight were gratifyingly mostly different from what Sandra and I tried last time.

For our first starter we tried a 1/4 Crispy Duck. Entertainingly, unlike other Chinese restaurants, the waitress makes your first pancake for you. Now that is service. Everyone I know who is new to Chinese duck and has had Crispy duck pancake has immediately fallen in love with and developed an addiction to Crispy duck and I suspect that Caro has fallen under the same spell. She absolutely loved the duck!

For our middle dishes (ha ha!) we tried the dim sum platter (attractively delivered in a square steam box) and, I couldn’t resit, we had to have the smoked jasmine rib again. Loved both dishes!

For mains I chose the King Prawn Curry and the Mongolian Fillet Steak. The King Prawn Curry was delicious and we were given quite a few very large prawns. The prawns were cooked to perfection. However the star of the night for me was the Mongolian Fillet Steak. I don’t know what they did to it but it was mouth-wateringly tasty and I could have eaten it all if good manners hadn’t stopped me. LOL.

Another successful night at Plum Valley (and another convert to Crispy Duck – I should buy shares …) I wonder if I can make it three times in one year?

PS No mention of dessert coz we didn’t have any. Too full!

Hell Pizza

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There is a secret restaurant that antipodeans, or really the Kiwis, have kept secret from the London public – and its called Hell Pizza. Was it Heaven or Hell? It was a bit of both.

This is not an ordinary pizza place with pizzas such as Brimstone, Damned, Cursed, Envy you know you’re going to have a devilish time. The venue is dark, cozy and very very informal. Greed, ironically one of the pizzas on the menu, motivated a group of us to attend Hell Pizza’s Tuesday all you can eat night. For £6 they promise you can eat all you want between the hours of 6pm-9pm.

My tip? If you go on a Tuesday get there early to nab a seat near the kitchen. We got there for about 6.15 and nearly all the limited seating had already been taken. We had to find a spot for about nine of us which wasn’t easy. We squeezed on to a table right near the front door and, unfortunately, very far from the kitchen. By the time 7 rolled around the place was packed with people desperate enough for Hell Pizza to stand.

Alternatively get a group of 8 of you and you can have an all you can eat night to yourself.

This is the way all you can eat night worked for us tonight: our one waiter for the night emerged from the kitchen with around three pizzas on his or her stand every half hour or so. He would make his way around the tables so if you’re unlucky enough, like us, to be by the door then you are likely to get served last which we did. However, he does make an effort to then start from a different spot the next time so sometimes we did get first pickings of the pizzas. Be warned you can only get one piece at a time (though vegetarians are sometimes pitied and given up to three slices at once and if you know the waiter you’re likely to get a couple of bonus pieces too.)

Early on in the evening the wait between pizzas was about 20 minutes? However the later it got the less crowded it got in the joint and the more quickly pizza started arriving. And then eventually towards 9pm the pizzas change to dessert pizzas. We probably all ended up with the equivalent of one whole pizza each by the end of the session.

Drinks are buy at your own pace from the bar. Bottled drinks and pints only I think.

The heaven was that the pizzas that we got were pretty tasty and I love the combinations (such as camembert, chicken, bacon, pineapple and salami – Trouble, or chicken, smoked cheddar, bacon, gherkins, ham, onions, honey mustard – Cursed, or chicken, bacon, chorizo, green pepper, onions, smokey bbq – Morder.) Pizzas were also clearly baked fresh and it was a cheap cheap cheap night out. The hell was that pizza came around way too slowly, there is not enough seating area in the joint and you didn’t get to choose the pizza flavour that you liked.

I think I’d like to go to hell again. If just to see what its like on a more normal night.

Arturo Brachetti: Changes

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Rache and I really had idea what to expect from this show. For a start we didn’t expect that it would be a one-man show. Impressively, however, that didn’t stop Arturo from delivering what was a charming and engaging show because in fact we must have seen easily hundreds of “cast members.” What do I mean by this? Well, a quick-change artist is literally that: an artist who can change his or her clothes (and consequently character) rather … well … quickly. For example, in the space of about ten seconds and with the use of a disc shaped object he was able to create ten different characters. It was amazing and something to be witnessed first-hand.

That’s not to say it was 80 minutes watching Arturo changing from one costume to another. Spun into the background of this talent is his story which takes us from his current self, to you his younger self, to his older self and all around. For this he takes advantage of a lot of hi-tech stuff – all seemingly contained in this giant box which rotates around on stage and also with the aid of multi-media projects. Its almost indescribable.

Next to his quick changing skills he also demonstrates his hand at being a magician, his puppetry skills, his comedic skills, his story-telling skills and even his skills as a ventriloquist (I suspect it was harder for me to work out the spelling than for Arturo to throw his voice …). Its clear that this is an act that means a lot to him and it showed in every energetic presentation he brought to the stage.

The whole show went so quickly its difficult to remember everything he did. The first thing I recall is that there is a splash zone. So consider yourself warned!

One of the pieces involved his moving through the seasons: autumn, winter, sprint and summer. Another, and favourite of mine, was when he did finger puppetry on to the back wall. Simple but the shapes he formed, like this really cool elephant, were very imaginative. The Hollywood scene where he morphed into one Hollywood legend, such as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, into another, King Kong. Featured also are characters from Star Wars, Jaws, Titanic, Lord of the Rings, E.T, Shrek, Bond movies, Spiderman and Harry Potter even dropped in. The soundtrack was very good in particular for this part of the performance.

All of the whole show revolved around Arturo’s character being nervous about the “final transformation” and as such it was a little self-indulgent. Sadly too such a big deal is made of the “final transformation” that when the time comes for it, and I won’t ruin it too much, I could note nothing too remarkable about it though it was moving and beautiful to see.

It was a truly remarkable show and if there is one thing that really grated on me about the show, and Rache agrees with me, was the fact that we spent the entire show trying to work out how he managed his tricks – and we are still none the wiser. Damn! LOL.

A fabulous and unique show.

Afternoon Tea at Brown’s

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After the unusual experience that was Prêt-à-Portea at The Berkeley today Akhlaq, Batool and I rocked up to experience a more traditional afternoon tea at Brown’s Hotel. The Tea Guild awarded The English Team Room at Brown’s Hotel as the best place in London to enjoy afternoon tea in 2009. Did it live up to these expectations?

The Room is apparently steeped in history (with Brown’s being London’s first ever hotel, the site of where Alexander Graham Bell made the UK’s first telephone call in 1876 and also where Rudyard Kipling apparently wrote The Jungle Book). Opened in 1837 its probably fair to say that the Room, and the Hotel, has changed significantly since then, especially after a £24m restoration in 2005.

Apparently they can seat 70+ people in the room but they have split the room so it doesn’t seem like one giant space and therefore seems a fair bit more intimate. Having said that the room was still quite buzzy. Ratio of Ladies to Men: 12:1. Heh heh.

We were led to a corner seat in the first room which was more like sitting on a lounge than a regular table and chair. The seating was a bit awkward as it felt like the table was quite low so we were leaning over it a bit. Our seating location was good as we could look out on the room but unfortunately it somehow meant that service was a little on the slow and absent side (throughout and when we were wanting to get the bill.) I was actually surprised as I thought that would be the top priority. At least it didn’t feel stuffy.

Tea selection is as varied as any other afternoon tea place including traditional blends as well as several infusions. You’re also welcome to try several blends if you’re of the mind – which I was. Heh heh. I like the fact that you are also given an extra pot of hot water to water down your tea when it starts to steep too much.

Our cake stand had the traditional sandwiches on the lower tier, warm scones (covered in a tea towel to maintain warmth) and pastries on the top tier. All tiers are replaceable if you can fit it in. You should also make room for cake because after you’re done with your cake stand you get to try slices of that day’s baked cakes. Its almost too much!

So did Brown’s Afternoon Tea live up to expectations? I felt not although I think that’s because of the service. When we got it the service was fantastic but getting it proved to be extremely difficult. I would like to say that the reason for that was because it was slightly awkward to get to our table but then its not like they always have that problem. I just think our waitress wasn’t doing the rounds she should have been doing. Otherwise it was a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. Atmosphere-wise it was nice with the baby grand piping music softly in the background, the relaxed feel of the lounged seating around the border of the room and it did feel at all stuffy. The tea and food was as expected and whilst not as exciting to the eye or palette as other places I’ve been to ticked all the boxes it needed to. I also liked the added touch of the sample tea you’re given at the end to take away with you.

Oh, look how posh the toilets are!

Ravenscourt Park Fireworks

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Love Guy Fawkes because it means fire, fire fire, and fireworks, fireworks, fireworks.

This year my fireworks buddy Sandra was out of town but the show must go on as they say and James was willing to go see them with me. Who can resist fireworks!

We decided to check out the Ravenscourt Park fireworks this year because not only have neither of us been there before it was also conveniently located not far from my favourite Iranian restaurant, Mahdi. Heh heh.

Ravenscourt Park is one of the fireworks nights which requires people to pay for entry – and even then it was pretty popular (if the lines to get in was anything to go by.) Entering the park you are first greeted by the loads of fair rides, carni games and then further on the food stalls and the field with the bonfire.

We were expecting something spectacular from the fireworks (as it wasn’t a free event.) To be honest it wasn’t the greatest fireworks I’ve seen however it wasn’t the worst. It could be that we were standing too far back from, say, the music, if any was even playing to hear, the soundtrack to the fireworks. Without a soundtrack it felt like just a whole heap of fireworks being flung into the sky with no discernable theme. Additionally, and this not the organisers fault, for some reason people were constantly moving around during the show and they kept bumping into us or shoving us.

At any rate I always enjoy fireworks in whatever shape or form.

The benefit of fireworks at Ravenscourt Park is that its relatively easy to get out of the park and get home for me, unlike previous jaunts to places such as Alexandra Palace or Battersea.

Well, it would have been if we hadn’t stopped at a pub afterward and stayed until after tubes closed. I’ve never waited for a night bus for so long in my life!