Author Archives: Grace

Does an hour in the gym justify a 3-hour pig out at Ping Pong?

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Its funny that in my last entry I was mentioned Ping Pong and then today that’s where we ended up having a 3-hour pig out! Jenny and I planned a kind of girls day out with first a visit to the gym, a hair cut and then lunch/dinner, depending on how our day went, at Ping Pong.

We started the day off with a session at the gym though looking back I don’t remember working particularly hard. I spent some time on the rowing machine (which we used as a warm up but after 5 minutes on it I was nearly done in!), treadmill (I just can’t quite get used to how the whole thing shakes every time I land on it so I don’t find it very easy to run on) and the bike. Jenny worked particularly hard and I think managed over half an hour on the treadmill which bodes well for 10km run in July. My attempt, on the other hand, was pretty pathetic and I managed just about 11 minutes to jog 1.5km which is really really slow before I stumbled off the treadmill! I think I need to learn to push through the pain barrier because I must admit that once I hit that wall where breathing is even slightly uncomfortable I manage to convince myself that its too painful, and not good for me, to continue! I then proceeded to spend about half an hour on the bikes before Jenny took me over to try and teach me how to use that weird all over body elliptical machine which is supposed to be very good for you cardio-wise, good for an upper and lower body work out and all without having impact on your joints. I just couldn’t get the hang of it and though its supposed to be natural action it felt quite alien on it and I didn’t last long. This was followed by a bit of work on our butts (crucial) on the step machine and then a quick visit to do a leg press. We topped off our gym visit with some time in the sauna and steam room. Nice. Awfully relaxing but later I was to find seriously dehydrating and gave me one of those headaches bad enough to make me nauseous. Of course it probably wasn’t helped by the ginormous amount of food I consumed at Ping Pong!

Inspired by our gym session and feeling pretty good we headed off to walk the 1.5km down to Covent Garden to go to one of my favourite hairdressers in London. For £13 you can get a cut and wash. They are very quick, and give a lovely hair wash, though admittedly the hairdressers could probably afford to take a bit more time with their styling. But for £13 I guess you can’t really ask for too much. The guy who sits behind the desk, I think the owner, is very friendly and I’m not sure if he recognises me or not but he often has something nice to say to me.

Following the hair cut we decided to continue with our physical exertion for the day and walk to Ping Pong which actually happened to be located up near the gym we’d just visited (that is, another 1.5km walk.)

On Sundays Ping Pong have a Lazy Sum Days deal which for just over £17 you can have as much as you can eat from their regular dishes (no specials or desserts sadly.) Its fair to say that between Jenny and I we more than got our value for money. When we arrived at Ping Pong there didn’t appear to be any tables free for just two persons (there were a few four-person tables) so the waiter went to seat us at a communal table which was empty at the time we arrived. We wanted our own table and asked if we could sit at on of the four-person tables but the waiter insisted, as it was restaurant policy, that we couldn’t have one of the tables despite the fact it was about 3.00 in the afternoon and there were only two or three other groups in the restaurant at the time! Silly boy. At any rate this actually worked in our favour as we could then actually fit all our dishes on to the table (it would probably normally seat about eight people!) We ended up sampling nearly every available dish and had 20 (!!!) between us. To put this in perspective when I go to dim sum with my brother we normally have a main dish (some rice or noodles) and five or six dim sum dishes. Granted we had this food amongst a lot of talking and it was probably about three hours later when we stumbled out the door.

We had a few deep fried dishes but on the whole I think that dim sum food is generally quite healthy (mostly being steamed.) The biggest risk is the salt content of the food which comes from the dish itself plus the soy sauce or chilli oil that you dip your item into. However, I do think that perhaps we went a bit overboard in what we ate. Its only 7pm and with my giant headache (from the earlier dehydration) and pains in my stomach (from serious overeating) I’ve decided its time for bed!

Urban Turban

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Urban Turban is by twice Michelin starred Vineet Bhatia (if not the first Indian chef in Britain to receive a Michelin star one of the first few) and it is his attempt to bring “street food eateries” from his childhood to London.

When Urban Turban opened in Westbourne Grove I turned my nose down at what seemed to be an imitation “Ping Pong.” Mind you this was a judgement based purely on what I could see through the windows. The fact that a “Ping Pong” restaurant was just a bit down the street meant I couldn’t help but contrast the two in their looks.

“Street food eateries” at Urban Turban means encouraging tapas style dining. When you get the menu it may seem confusing as to how much and what to order. The standard suggestion seems to be that you order two dishes from the Desi Tapas section plus a (main) “Classic Helping” or have four dishes from the Desi Tapas. Its unclear if the suggestion was per person or per couple. To make things a little easier you also have the choice of sharing platters one of which involves a “volcanic grill” which basically means you get the raw ingredients to cook on a hot “volcanic” stone at your table.

Alongside the food menu is a not insubstantial cocktail and wine. I went for some sort of (virgin) banana and nutella colada which was quite interesting. It was extremely sweet, but balanced by the coconut, and had that additional hit of hazelnut chocolate. Probably not everyone’s cup of tea but I liked it.

For our food, not really trusting the standard ordering suggestions, we ended up choosing two Desi Tapas dishes and three “Classic Helpings” along with two naan. Let’s start with the Desi Tapas dishes. We went for the ‘Gun powder’ prawns with spring onion, herb chutney and Masala ‘crab & sweet corn cakes’ with spicy ketchup priced at a staggering £7.50 each. What we got were four prawns and four cakes. Taste-wise I couldn’t complain – both dishes were extremely full of flavour and cooked pretty much perfectly. However, value for money-wise both dishes were substantially overpriced. When you consider I can go to a decent Chinese restaurant and for the same price get, for example, an equally delicious prawn noodle dish that comes with eight or nine giant prawns I think someone is having a laugh … all the way to the bank!

Priced slightly better but still overpriced for the portion sizes we got were our main dishes of Salli-Murg (Parsi chicken with apricots and straw potatoes (£10) and Lamb biryani layered with aromatic basmati rice enclosed in a flaky crust (£12.) I wouldn’t say that either of these dishes were particularly memorable either though we had no problems finishing the dishes. One was sweet and the other one just blah (but considering I don’t really like lamb that’s not surprising!)

Star of the night had to be the ‘Baingan Bharta’ which was a smoked aubergine and pea masala (£6) which was not only a decent portion size for the price but extremely tasty. It was simply delish – the right balance of smokiness and bite! The naans were okay though I was disappointed to find that the Chilli garlic naan was basically a plain naan upon which had been slathered what tasted to us like Lee Kum Kee Chilli Garlic sauce out of the jar! This is a sauce that most Chinese have in their fridges I think!

By the time we’d finished our meal we were quite stuffed so had to pass on the £6 desserts. A shame because they did sound quite nice if a little over complicated. Take the Cardamom panacotta, fresh berries, rose infusion and basil for example.

Its clear that the credit crunch is having its impact on Urban Turban (in fact I’ve read reports that plans to expand into a second restaurant have now been shelved). Unlike reported in earlier reviews we had no need for a reservation and indeed the place, on a Saturday night no least, never really got full. The atmosphere was still quite nice, however, and it’s a place you could easily have an enjoyable evening. Service too seems to have improved from its teething problems when it first opened more than a year ago as we had delightful and friendly service that was pretty efficient too.

The last word relates to our bill. This was, to me, staggering at £65 considering we had no alcoholic drinks and the food is not quite fine dining. My best advice is to not come to Urban Turban hungry or thirsty – come to taste a few of the dishes and maybe have a drink or two in a fairly nice environment.

Lasagne a la Caroline

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Caro is just about nearly to give birth and she still has more energy than me to cook up a feast. Tonight her and Nate hosted Kia, Denise and I for a meal and she served up some delicious bruschetta and lasagne. Yummy!

Walkers Crisps – Chilli & Chocolate

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A new promotion by Walkers has the public choosing the next new flavour from a range of six: Builder’s Breakfast, Cripsy Duck & Hoi Sin, Onion Bhaji, Chilli & Chocolate, Fish & Chips and Cajun Squirrel. These six had been shortlisted from apparently “zillions” of entries submitted to Walkers in an earlier promotion. Even though the public get to vote on the eventually winning flavour the real winner is the person who suggested the flavour in the first place with £50,000 and 1% of future sales. Nice!

For so me reason the Chilli & Chocolate crisps caught my eye today as I was doing my grocery shop so I couldn’t resist giving them a taste. What a surprise! The crisps did really taste like Chilli & Chocolate. That’s not to say it’s a particularly great flavour in a crisp but I’m impressed in how Walkers have managed to capture the essence of this combination.

Closing date for the vote is 1 May so get chomping!

Ferrari’s Balham

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Ferraris in Balham has been on my to do list for probably over the last two years but for some reason I haven’t really found myself in South London to go there. Something about that North/South London divide. Heh heh. Finally, Sandra arranged for Jules, Fatkins, herself and I to have dinner there and it was worth the trip. Serving Italian cuisine Ferraris is a pleasant restaurant for its atmosphere, service and of course quality of food. The only disappointment? Not seeing an actual Ferrari anywhere. LOL.

The four of us decided to take advantage of the set meal which was very good value (£17) for three courses. This set menu deal changes weekly, presumably from the items on the a la carte menu, so there’s no point describing the options however with four options offered for each course we had more than enough choices to choose from. Strangely enough we all seemed to have similar tastes and had more than one common dish between us!

The food was extremely delicious and ingredients of very high quality. I couldn’t fault the service which was responsive, efficient and extremely friendly. We didn’t have to wait very long for our food (though admittedly being a Monday night it wasn’t extremely busy.) Nice atmosphere in the restaurant as well with the low music playing in the background and the pleasant interior decoration. Actually it was just nice to be in a dining venue which didn’t require us to shout at each other!

Worth a visit if you’re looking for pleasant Italian in South London.

Golden Harvest

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Golden Harvest is a relatively new entrant on to the Chinatown dim sum scene. Unlike many of the other Chinese restaurants in the mall it seems quite spacious which was made it even more baffling that we were seated in a strange position behind a pole with one of the seats seemingly in the way of another table set around another side of the pole. Service today at Golden Harvest was not the greatest. It was slow and, in a first for a Chinese restaurant, weren’t even offered tea.

Quality-wise I wouldn’t say that the food at Golden Harvest was particularly redeeming either, though prices were okay, and for some reason and the restaurant had a line out the door.

I’m unlikely to visit Golden Harvest again in the near future when there are better yum cha places in Chinatown however should you have a craving for Brined Vegetables with Pig Bag then Golden Harvest is the place to be. 🙂

Anvil! The Story of Anvil!

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Its probably not a good sign when you can’t remember the title of a movie when getting your ticket at the ticket desk. I’m sure the fellow at the desk was thinking what kind of idiot I was! In fact, I’d “won” the tickets to see Anvil! The Story of Anvil! entering some online competition (which I honestly can’t even remember doing) but you know a freebie is a freebie and its always good to expand your boundaries. I dragged Sandra along with me though I think after about five minutes into the movie I’m not sure she was thinking why on earth she agreed!

The movie opens with a concert – the music is loud (as you would expect for a metal band) and there’s headbanging and crazy goings on and then “Anvil.” Not have really appreciated heavy metal before I was at a lost as to whether this was a movie about an actual heavy metal band or some sort of Spinal Tap (a movie that I haven’t actually seen!) The characters and the story was so over the top and strange that it felt quite surreal but slowly it hit home that this was the true, and sad, story of an actual real Canadian heavy metal band.

The band is lead by a guy called “Lips” who is the sweetest guy you can imagine. Together with good buddy Robb Reinder, drummer, they paint a picture of a band desperate to make their dream come true. For 30 years the band has been striving to reach their goal. This passion and one-mindedness is admirable but in the end heart-breaking when it just doesn’t work out. The documentary (set in the year 2006) follows them as they embark first on a disastrous European tour which is set up by one of their biggest fans and second on a quest to get signed to a label at long last. I think the whole movie is summed up by one of the scenes where the band turn up for a gig in a stadium that could have fit tens of thousands but only forty people turn up. Truly heartbreaking. However, that is not to say that the movie doesn’t have moments of humour (let’s face it – without such moments I think the movie would have been truly dire!) Its lucky that all the members have extremely supportive and understanding friends and family.

If I had to sum up this movie I guess I would call it the unexpected feel good movie of the year. But don’t think that means the movie has any sort of Hollywood ending. It doesn’t. It is, however, moving, touching and heart-felt. I cried.

Café in the Crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields

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It must have been a couple of years ago that Pat told me about Café in the Crypt but due to bad timing on my part and an insatiable hunger for dim sum I hadn’t been to the Café until just this past weekend. Bad timing because not long after Pat told me about the café, St Martin-in-the-Fields then embarked on to what turned out to be an over two year refurbishment programme. The £36m refurbishment was finally completed in November last year and though a visit to the café was high on my agenda opportunities since then have seen me going for dim sum instead. Darn that insatiable hunger! But finally last Saturday I ventured in.

Café in the Crypt is a canteen-style café located underneath St Martin-in-the-Fields serving mainly British food from full English Breakfasts to lunch to afternoon teas. The floor is apparently lined with gravestones (hence the crypt) and with the brick-vaulted ceiling above you it certainly makes for a quite an attractive, atmospheric and unique meal venue. Strangely considering you’re dining with dead people around you its not creepy at all! Its a surprising hidden gem that is somewhat of an oasis in the buzzing West End. However, that’s not to say its quiet and tranquil like the church next door. Enough people know about the Café to make it quite a buzzing venue itself though I do have to note that today most of the clientele seemed to be of, shall we say, the more elderly persuasion!

At lunch today the Café offered a selection of hot lunch dishes (veg, chicken, beef, pasta options) but there are also sandwiches and baps (fresh and also some packed), salads, soups (which seemed to be the popular choice of the day) and a whole hosts of desserts. Think a brasserie and that’s what you have at the Café. The Café also provide you all the condiments you could imagine (free of charge) plus there is a large tabled filled with jug of water if you want to skip buying a drink. The desserts looked very good and included pudding and custard, crumble, chocolate cakes and crème brulee. I succumbed to temptation and for £3.50 picked up a large fantastic-tasting crème brulee. It was more than enough to share between two. For my main meal I had a beef stew which, for about £7, was quite good value and came with potatoes and leek. Tasty and filling.

As the Café is buffe-style, if there is a negative to Café in the Crypt is that you have to fend for yourself in finding a seat to enjoy your meal. With a partner as least you can “reserve” the seat but if you’re on your own you will have to gamble that you will eventually find a seat to sit down. However, most diners here don’t tend to linger too long so turnover is pretty quick and the staff in the Café seemed quite good at clearing the tables. Also, what better way is there to make friends than to share a meal? 🙂

If you’re after something basic (think meat and two veg) but filling and wholesome and decent value for money then the Crypt is something for you. Be warned, however, that more and more people are finding out every day about this little gem so don’t be surprised if when you next venture down that the line snakes out the door! Try the crème brulee – you won’t regret it!

L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon

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I’d always had the perception that the Michelin-star rating system was kind of like the rating system for hotels – the more stars a restaurant had the more amenities and services you should expect. Jenny and my experience tonight at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon prompted me to come home and look up exactly what Michelin-stars meant because in all honesty I could not see why this restaurant in particular had been awarded two stars.

This is what I found:
– One-Michelin-star: A very good restaurant or pub in its category. The star indicates a good place to stop on your journey.
– Two-Michelin-star: Excellent cooking, worth a detour. Specialities and wines of first class quality. This will be reflected in the price.
– Three-Michelin-star: Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey. One always eats here extremely well, sometimes superbly. Fine wines, faultless service, elegant surroundings. One will pay accordingly!

To date I’ve been to four One-Michelin-star restaurants and one Three-Michelin-star restaurants so I had something against which to measure the Two-Michelin-starred L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon.

Excellent cooking, worth a detour? Well it was hard to judge on our three-course pre-theatre menu but I think on the balance in combination with what we ate and what we saw being plated and delivered to other diners I believe L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon demonstrated excellent cooking that was worth a detour.

Tonight for starters we had a choice between a rabbit terrine and a French onion soup. Jenny went for the former and I went for the latter. We were pleased to see that the rabbit terrine was in fact a terrine and not a pate as we’ve had in other restaurants. The terrine was served simply sliced (about 1.5cm thick) with a small side salad. I could see that the terrine was very meaty and I’m sure tasted quite lovely, though Jenny was happy to leave the lard that surrounded it behind. My French onion soup was presented to me in one of those soup bowls with a large outer rim. The waiter first placed an empty bowl down in front of me with only three little fried croutons topped with cheese and onion and chopped chives sitting it in. He then proceeded to pour in the soup from a small tiny bottle. The soup was admittedly very tasty but only filled the bowl, which was about 20cm in diameter, about 1cm high. You know that I’m already starting to talk about portion sizes. Nice but not really anything here that separates it from other good French restaurant.

Our choice for mains was between fried pollock and suckling pig. Of course both Jenny and I went for the pig. Again, what we received was very simple. A slice of the suckling pig about 2cm thick and perhaps 15cm in diameter plated. It was covered in some sort of brown gravy and topped with some green (I think a fifth of a gem lettuce.) On the side, in a separate dish, we were served with some attractive looking polenta. The pig was extremely tender though it was extremely fatty around the edges. The flavour of the meat itself, though, was gorgeous but I would have been much happier with a more generous portion. The polenta was extremely delicious though I’m not quite sure what went into it. Again, nice food but again I didn’t think anything that separated it from any other good French restaurant.

Still feeling quite empty we headed to desserts where we had a choice of sweet of the day or cheese. The French waiters had twice explained to us what the dessert was but we only caught that it was chocolate something or other. The cheese was Roquefort. Cheese as a dessert is not really my thing and even though I don’t generally like chocolate dessert I still preferred it over the cheese. I was not disappointed. The dessert had quite complex layering: on the plate was a mound of cocoa/sugar, then we had a bowl within which lay from bottom to top chocolate liquid, mini maltesers (think of those things you get in muller corners), chocolate mouse, chocolate late crumbles (fantastic!) and white chocolate ice cream. I’m sure there was also something else in amongst the layers but I couldn’t identify it. This was then topped with a chocolate “lid” (with sprinkles of gold dusting) and a mini chocolate disk with the name L’Atelier stamped on it. Considering I’m not a chocolate dessert fan I really enjoyed our finale and probably for this it deserves some recognition. Like Jenny I was seriously tempted to lick my bowl and plate clean but restrained myself in favour of good taste. 🙂 The dessert (le chocolate sensation) lives up to its name.

The pre-theatre menu didn’t not have a wide variety offering only two choices for starters, mains and desserts (for desserts it was dessert of the day or cheese…) so probably on that alone I would say its excellent cooking though not worth the detour (except for the chocolate dessert above.) On the other hand the food from the a la carte we saw being prepared looked fabulous and it is clear that great attention to detail is paid to not only the plating but the production of the individual ingredients making up the dishes. If you’ve seen the website you know just how attractive some of the dishes are so for that I have to give it to the restaurant for the “worth a detour.”

Specialities and wines of first class quality? We didn’t drink any wine so can’t specifically comment on that but I’m sure the restaurant delivered. As for specialities. Again difficult to judge on this but from the looks of some of the dishes coming out from the kitchen I’m sure there were quite a few of those dishes. The dessert was pretty special in my opinion.

This will be reflected in the price? Definitely yes. Our three-course meal was £25 which, around London, is pretty reasonable I guess for a restaurant of this class and establishment. I do protest, however, to paying that much for the quantity of food that we got. A little bit over-priced in my opinion. However, the measure is not value for money but that the excellent food etc. is reflected in the price so a most resounding yes for this criteria. Just as a side note starters ranged, from what I could see, from £12-£19 and mains from £15-£44 and desserts were a flat £10.

So on those criteria I think the Two-Michelin-star is totally justified. However! Yes there is a however. I don’t know how service is measured in the criteria. For a Three-Michelin-star the service should be faultless and I think this is definitely where L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon is let down and why probably it has not been given that next star. Front of desk were good, the maitre d’ was good, and at first our head waiter was okay. He did that thing I absolutely hate – asking what drink we wanted before we’d even had a chance to settle in and look at the menu. In fact, we hadn’t even been given a menu at that stage!! so I asked for a drinks menu. At first he simply gave us the wine menu which required me to further ask for a non-alcoholic drinks listing. After about ten minutes he finally supplied this after giving us the excuse that the bar man was going to come over and explain what he could do for us. What the? So, first bad mark for service. Bread was brought to us soon after that which was fine. But no butter! We asked for the butter and again that took about ten minutes to produce. By then our starters had arrived so it was a bit awkward – do we eat the bread do we start on our starters. Second bad mark for service. Finally, the third bad mark for service was the lack of attention that we received. In a place like this you expect that there will be a waiter or waitress hovering around waiting to either sweep up your plate as soon as it was clear you’d finished or at least hovering around in case you need their assistance. Neither of these things happened so that when our mains were delivered, they had to be placed down near other diners, and our starters cleared before they could serve us our suckling pig! Also, getting the attention of any of the wait staff proved almost impossible. It wasn’t like they were being rude, because when they did serve us they were perfectly friendly and ready to answer our questions, its just that for the most part they just weren’t there. On the plus side no one fussed about me taking photos. Heh heh.

From an aesthetic perspective I found the restaurant very attractive but as one review has pointed out its like you’re in a bento box! I wholeheartedly agree because it was all kind of black laquer with minor splashes of colour (mainly red.) I loved all the plastic fruit around especially the giant apple at the front. We were sat on the ground floor around the kitchen so it was actually pretty cool to see what the chefs were up to and also to see what everyone else had ordered. One of the chefs in particular was highly energetic – and he only looked about 17 years old!

The bill for the two of us came to £63 which included the 12.5% service and one diet coke, one diet beer and two three-course meals (set menu) and with both Jenny and I actually considering going to get something else to eat to top-up so to speak so its hardly cheap. I’m tempted to come again to try one of the découverte menus to explore some of the more creative dishes L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon has to offer however it may take me a while to save up my pennies to get there.

Traces

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We knew we were in for something different when we heard the pre-show announcement. Instead of the usual make sure you turn of your phones, no photography or video, no eating inside the hall we were instead given this delivered in the most dead pan tone a person can manage:

“Please keep mobiles on as you never know who might be trying to call you.. Please feel free to use flash photography. You will only permanently blind the performers. Food and drink may be consumed in the theatre. Ushers will only spend an hour after the show cleaning up. Exits are everywhere because something terrible could happen during the show. Please use the restrooms at any time because you’ll never really know what you have missed. Video photography is allowed so you can share the beautiful memories with your family and friends forever.”

When we turned up at the Peacock theatre we were surprised at just how many little kids were there. The theatre must have been at least 50% filled with tots under 5. It made for quite an energetic environment that’s for sure with the kids running loose up and down the aisles before the start of the show!

So, on to the show! Traces is brought to the Peacock theatre by the performance troupe Les 7 Doigts de la Main whose members include performers who have come from the Cirque du Soleil stable. The only thing I really knew about Traces before booking tickets was that it was a dance/circus thing and that any show I’d ever seen at the Peacock theatre has always been interesting.

The show only has five performers who bring a mix of dance, acrobatics, skateboarding, basketball skills, chair juggling, musical skills (including playing the piano and guitar), and drawing skills (projected on to the back screen and also using chalk on the floor and on each other.) Admittedly many of the “tricks” I’d seen before however what makes the show different is the delivery of the tricks. Somehow all the performances are intertwined between each other and spun into a sort of story which includes individual (and real) profiles of each of the performers (including a slideshow of their kiddie pics.) All the performers play themselves so the sense of reality is heightened. For the most part the formula works though there are some awkward moments which clearly were used just to demonstrate the amazing skills of the performers but just couldn’t be worked into the story-line.

The most impressive aspect of the show was the fact that each trick depended on the last trick being performed exactly and on time. The sense of timing and co-ordination required to pull off the show was crucial and happily the troupe on stage were able to deliver – perfectly.