Monthly Archives: July 2010

Amsterdam, Holland

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Its been about seven years since I last visited Amsterdam so my memory of it has faded somewhat. I think we stayed in a different area last time, being closer to the museums etc., but this time around Laney and I stayed not too far from the red light district. Actually finding decent accommodation for a reasonable price was quite hard, I guess it has something to do with it being summer but we finally we ended up at this B&B which was quite nice, came complete with a towel swan, even if we were on the top floor at the top of some really scary narrow winding stairs (admittedly something that Amsterdam is known for …) Our room even had a split level area with separate bed up a rickety ladder but Laney and I both worried that we’d be too tired, or something else, after a night out for either of us to make it safely up the ladder so we didn’t venture upstairs …

We were pretty lucky with our weekend in Amsterdam, the sun was shining, the temperatures nice and warm and Holland had reached the final of the World Cup (which was played today) so there was a great buzz in the air.

Photos photos photos

The Experience

We arrived late on a Friday night after a hard day at work and decided that there wasn’t a better time for a stroll. We ended up touring around the red light district where to my surprise practically everyone walking the street was a dude! I know that there is a particular attraction that is mainly for the men but I was surprised there weren’t at least a few females around. They say you shouldn’t take photos of the ladies in the red light district and it’s a fair piece of advice. For a start the ladies in the red boxes are there to earn and living, and not to be a tourist attraction, so its only respectful not to take photos of them as if they were performing monkeys. Secondly if you do end up taking a photo the ladies are not backwards in coming forward to swear at you, spit at you and even throw water at you. This was something we witnessed first hand when a person in front of us decided to take a photo! I felt really bad for both of them actually!

Our visit to Amsterdam didn’t really have any sort of plan. We thought we’d just wake up and see what we felt like doing. First stop was somewhere for breakfast, or more like an early lunch. It was very nice not to be rushing around trying to fit everything in on a trip. After a breakfast/lunch of croquette for Laney and a hot dog for me (yummy) we were off walking the canals of Amsterdam. Amsterdam is really pretty though as I look at my self-photos again having them in their background every canal looked nearly exactly the same! Ha ha! I noticed there were hooks at the top of most buildings – apparently they used these hooks for moving big item stuff to the top floors rather than risking the narrow staircases they would move the furniture in through the windows. That’s pretty innovative.

After about half an hour of casual strolling we arrived at the House of Bols, but before we got there we saw this:

It didn’t click until a couple of house later that it wasn’t saying “I am sterdam” but rather “I amsterdam”! Derrr! Ha ha.

The House of Bols is a new museum, new in the sense I don’t recall it being there seven years ago, showcasing what Lucas Bols is all about. Basically its an alcohol museum but also filled with some interactive elements. The girl at the front desk was super friendly, even going so far as to help us with recommending one of her favourite local restaurants. Actually as a whole I’ve found that every Dutch person we ran into, in the service industry at least, was very friendly and always willing to have a long chat with us about anything and everything.

Lucas Bols is supposedly the oldest Dutch company still active and the oldest distillery brand in the world. Bols is one line from the company and produces vodkas, gins, genevers (where gin evolved from) and liquers. We spent quite a bit of time in the museum, mainly because the alcohol was so strong that I wasn’t confident about being able to walk for a bit after drinking it! We also spent time in the Hall of Taste where there were over 35 different “smells” which you could test. It was fun but some of the smell were a little shocking and unexpected. Its amazing how many smells you actually misinterpret when you can’t see where it is originating from. At end of the hall is this funny mirror. Laney took the funniest photo ever which had her nearly wetting her pants. I’m sure she’s shown me the photo at least 20 times since over the rest of the weekend …

Another room at Bols is this music video room which Laney decided to transform into our own private disco. Heh heh.

There are other exhibitions etc. in the House of Bols but that’s pretty much what we found interesting except for the alcohol. With your entry to House of Bols you get two free shots and a free cocktail – you redeem this at the end of your visit at the bar at the end. You get to choose your drink from a selection of cocktails, where you can also print out the recipes so you can make it at home. The bar was pretty cool and at the time of day we were there it wasn’t too busy which was nice – so we could take our time over drinks, take stupid photos etc. Its been a while since I’ve had alcohol and in combination with the fact it was very strong it really hit me for six. I could see all the other customers looking at me worriedly as with my glowing red face and bloodshot eyes they must have been worried I’d fall over or something. Heh heh.

Sometimes I don’t know why I drink. I always look terrible!

We met this guy there who was visiting from Germany (he was actually an American working overseas) and he was nice enough. I’m mentioning him because we later saw him at a Bulldog Café! Some people come to Amsterdam to sightsee and some people come experience … shall we say out of body experiences – so that was next up on our itinerary. I have admit that I’ve never indulged in any sort of mind/body altering substances, not even a cigarette, so the experience for me this weekend was very different. We started with a space cake which looked to me like a small chocolate muffin – it sold for €6! The cake tasted really nice but, sadly, it didn’t have any effect on me at all. We had a good table at the Bulldog Café though which overlooked some of the red light district so it was very entertaining to watch the men go in and out of the rooms!

Not long after we’d finished our cakes the guy we met at the House of Bols came along and volunteered to get a packet of reefer. I wasn’t very sure about trying them but I’m glad I did because I know its definitely not for me. Once again they smokes had no effect on me at all, other than giving me a severe sore throat – perhaps I wasn’t smoking it right but it didn’t have any effect on Laney either. So, we decided we had to step it up.

The list of what to do and what not to do with these things goes for pages and seemed almost intimidating before you even start but I think it sums to not eating anything before (to prevent nauseau) or after (it will reduce the effects) and not to do them in combination with other products (or you’ll have flashbacks later on). You’re also supposed to enjoy it in a quiet place, like the park, or your room but basically you should be relaxing and not moving around. This was a mistake we made because for the first hour or so we were walking around town – Laney said she wasn’t feeling any effect but all I remember was feeling scared because I couldn’t tell the difference between a dream and reality. Walking around felt like I was in my head somewhere and I could have easily curled up in a ball in the middle of the street and not realised. Every time I blinked my eyes I would lose five minutes. It was so weird. Thankfully eventually we went back to our room where, as you can imagine, climbing the stairs was an interesting experience. For the rest of the evening I was giggly and apparently talking really loud. A big storm came over Amsterdam as well so that only added to the interesting experience. Fair to say I don’t think I’ll be indulging again in the near future – the lost of control, or really, the loss of the concept of reality was just overwhelming.

And that was Saturday! Sunday was a visit to the Heinekken Brewery. I remember going last time. Its quite a good attraction (did you know that they keep the DNA of the old brew alive!) and you get a couple of free drinks at the end. The funniest part is that when we got to the end of the visit and were going to get our drinks we found this very young Brazilian boy who was going around asking people who were leaving for their drinks if they hadn’t redeemed it. To say he was quite drunk was an understatement. Oh just a hint – there’s a room which has beds where you lay and watch a video above your head. This had the longest line ever for it but its not really worth it – all you get to watch is old adverts for Heinekken!

After Heinekken we went in search of the field which apparently was going to have the biggest outdoor screens in Europe where they would broadcast the World Cup final To our disappointment we would be leaving Amsterdam just as the game started so we couldn’t stay to enjoy the festivities. We were still able to enjoy the atmosphere though, scoring orange T-shirts, and join the flow of orange …

Oh, for a different kind of souvenir make sure you visit this shop:

Melur

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I only know about Melur because of a recent promotional campaign with the people at Groupon/Mycitydeals. A bunch of us Asian folk headed down tonight for a quick meal. I must say I was expecting a kind of cheap and cheerful place but when I walked into their restaurant on Edgware Road I was very surprised – inside it was fairly modern and new and it was relatively busy, even at 6pm in the evening! Checking out their website now its apparently Malaysian Cuisine with French Panache!

They were certainly French with the service which was impeccable. Even more impressively they got each and every one of our orders (there were eight of us) correct and served to the right person despite the fact we were all over the place with our orders!

Food is very reasonably priced, even without our discount, with starters around the £3-£6 range, mains/noodles averaging around £6-£10, and desserts about £4. My calamari which I had for starters was the best I have in some time – lightly fried (it was clear that new oil had been used), tender, full of flavour and there was a lot of it! My mee goreng noodles were a bit disappointing though its fair to say I’ve yet to find a good one in London. On the other hand the char kway teow, that a couple of the others had, looked pretty good.

I could resist a dessert to finish my meal. It was very very sweet.

Although none of us really went for it there are some great drinks on the cocktail menu (including non-alcoholic stuff).

And for any Muslims who want to try Malaysian food – its all Halal!

Finally, you gotta laugh at their toilet signs!

National Dining Rooms, National Cafe and Cape Town Fish Market

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For our catch up tonight Jenny and I had planned on going to the National Dining Rooms. Unfortunately they were apparently not open evenings so we ended up in The National Café instead. The room is lovely but unfortunately the service was horrid. Jenny had made reservations for us but when we walked in no one paid attention to us so we weren’t sure if we should just sit ourselves down. We ended up walking to the back to the bar to ask one of the bar men what we needed to do!

Once we sat down our waiter took an age to come over and give us our menus, and then he took another age to come back to take our orders! This café has generally gotten good reviews so it must have been a terrible terrible blip in service for tonight. We got so tired of the lack of service that we decided to just pay for our drinks and leave (and even then it took an age for our bill to be brought to us.)

Very disappointed.

We headed over to Cape Town Fish Market where we were disappointed for another reason.

The service was excellent and friendly, even when I tipped all the pepper over my fish! I blame the last person who used the pepper …. but the food was very average. The sushi roll was okay but our shared main of the Kalk Bay Platter (prawns, mussels, fillet of fish, calamari and Robata baby squid) for £36.95 seemed quite overpriced for what we got. The fried stuff was a bit soggy, the prawns didn’t taste right, and the fillet of fish was on the warm rather than hot side (it tasted much better after I got a fresh hot fish …) The Robata baby squid was probably the best thing on the plate but I kind of felt ripped off anyway.

Dana Centre: The Science Behind Ice Cream

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The Dana Centre at the Science Museum is a pretty cool concept – an adult focused venue it hosts a variety of
evening events focusing on contemporary science. Tonight’s event, though still adult-only, would appeal to the child in all of us: The Science Behind Ice Cream.

We had two speakers, Dr Chris Clark, from R&D at Unilever to give us his perspective on ice cream and Christian Oddono, from the famed Oddono’s in South Kensington to give us his perspective on gelati. Both were compelling and charming speakers, though of course the topic was quite interesting of itself!

Dr Chris Clark went first and I tell you there is so much about ice cream that I don’t know. For example, ice cream is at least 50% air with the other half made up of ice (30%), fat (4.5%-15%) which is used to stabilise the air bubbles to increase creaminess in ice-cream and the balance a “matrix” – a sticky substance which is composed of milk, sugars and stabilisers. He also talked us through how you make ice cream including olden days when they used to “refrigerate” ice cream using salt and ice only. No one quite knows who or when ice cream was made but his favourite story is that ice cream was invented by Mongolian Horsemen. Ice cream really needs two basic elements – cold and movement, so the theory was that when the horsemen were taking cream in containers as provisions for long journies the horses galloping caused air bubbles/ice crystals to form in the cream and of course in Mongolia it was so cold that it froze thus the creation of ice cream. Whether its true or not the story seems quite a romantic story of the origins of ice cream.

Then the demonstration part of his talk. After donning all the necessary equipment (goggles and gloves) he took a tub of chocolate custard, a bottle of liquid nitrogen, a wooden spoon and stainless steel bowl and ta-da he had chocolate “ice cream”. It kind of looked a bit of a mess but we could see where he was going – cold and stirring (causing the air bubbles.)

So the secret to really fine velvety smooth ice cream is a lot of fat (so you’ll find that a Magnum ice cream probably has about 4x the amount of fat of regular ice cream), but of course that wouldn’t be very good for our long term health! Therefore Unilever are trying to develop a way to keep sugar and fat contents low but still allow them to produce this ice cream and one way is to make the fat droplets really really small. Let’s see how they go! At this point of the talk Christian made an observation that fat goes the pleasure zone of your head so that’s why sorbets are less pleasurable than ice cream – because they have limited fat. As in all things there is research going on in this area to make sorbet more pleasurable.

Another way you can compare ice cream is that a higher quality ice cream like Ben and Jerry’s is going to feel physically heavier than a cheaper ice cream – and that’s why ice creams are sold by volume not weight.

I could have listened to Chris speak on ice cream all day but he wrapped it up and we got into our taste testing session! Crazy flavours of gelati that were home produced so to speak by Christian at his gelati store. The flavours were:

1. Salmon. This really tasted like a cold salmon mousse. Taste was much improved when eaten with the lovely waffle cone.
2. Mustard (Wholegrain Yellow Mustard). Though I probably wouldn’t eat too much of this one the heat in this ice cream was strangely refreshing in a way that say a chilli or wasabi flavour gelati wouldn’t be. Really strong flavours but like the Salmon the taste was much improved when combined with the waffle cone it came in.
3. Banana, Parmesan and Garlic. In a toasted sandwich this is actually exactly the kind of thing I’d eat (though I’d probably also through in bacon or ham ….) but in a gelati? Odd! Apparently this came from some ice cream creation contest that Heston Blumenthal was judging at some food fair a few years ago. He awarded it second place … behind a bombay mix flavour! Taste-wise this gelati really grew on me – the sweetness of the banana followed by the sharpness of the parmesan and garlic. But I suspect its not for everyone …

4. Chilli chocolate. Then we moved on to more regular and dessert like gelati. I wouldn’t normally go for a chocolate ice cream/gelati but this one was divine. Probably because the chocolate was very rich.
5. Honey and Lavendar. The best flavour of the evening I think it terms of actual palatability. Very very sweet though.
6. Green Tea. A refreshing flavour to have as the last.

Interestingly like a wine tasting the others at our table disposed of their ice creams after having a bit of a taste … but I wasn’t going to waste any part of them. 😉

Whilst we were being served our gelati poor Christian had the difficult task of talking! Clearly the audience attention was split between the tasting and his talk. He was quite a compelling speaker and told us of how he started his business (his background is actually in finance), speaking of the time his shop was featured in an episode of “Out of the Frying Pan”, and then describing the differences between gelati and ice cream. In essence gelati is focused more on using fresh ingredients, use of a different machine, and the fact it has a greater overrun than ice cream (that is, you can make more in volume) so it freezes a lot harder. He mentioned a few good gelati shops in London including Marine Ices (which has been on my to do list for a few years now!) Christian also spoke of the impact on the environment, e.g. sourcing fresh ingredients, and even psychology – he avoids colouring in his gelati as it impacts the behaviour of children.

Here are some fun facts:
– The top 3 flavours in England (according to Unilever) are: Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry!
– The worst flavours made by Oddono’s and Unilever were Guiness and a Pink Grape Fruit Ice Lolly respectively
– The Unilever Holy Grail is Fresh Strawberry ice cream. The problem being that as soon as you crush strawberry it loses its flavour.

It was an enthralling evening … even if my belly is aching a bit from all that ice cream! Heh heh!

The Mercedes-Benz World Summer Concert Series

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Since I haven’t been to any of the other music festivals this summer, and I didn’t have any on the calendar, when the email for discount tickets to the Mercedes-Benz World Summer Concert Series came into my inbox I thought why not. The line-up didn’t sound too bad with Will Young, The Saturdays, Scouting for Girls, Alexandra Burke and Olly Murs though if I’m honest the only reason I wanted to go was to see Alexandra Burke! and I guess maybe a little part of me wanted to see Will Young, who was the headlining act, too.

It was kind of weird to be going to a car factory/showroom/museum to attend a concert but hey for the most part it worked. There is heaps of space out there and all they really need was stage, lots of porta loos and lots of chairs!

Unfortunately the planning wasn’t that great in terms of placement. We were towards the back and side and we had okay views … when the booze line wasn’t in our way! The alcohol shack was right behind us and because they were so slow the lines often went all the way down the aisles to at least halfway to the stage! Frustrating but at that stage people were up on their chairs and moving around and standing in the aisles to see the performers anyway!

First up on stage was Olly Murs

Then Alexandra Burke

Scouting for Girls proved popular with the young teen girls

A small break for the self-photos

Rather randomly, as they weren’t on the bill, we had special guests The Wanted. Apparently to make up for the fact that the concert was late starting they had called up to say they were happy to go on and do a couple of numbers!

The Saturdays were full of high energy though a dude with a giant yellow poster kept getting in our way!

And finally Will Young, who was good but unfortunately our concentration was suffering at that stage and we left before he completed his set!

The concert today was a looong afternoon and evening but we had a good time. The crowd was a totally random mix of people from really little kids to really old adults. It was fairly relaxed though queues were ridiculous first for the drink, then for snacks and then for ice cream! Ah well!

Automat

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Good brunch places are strangely not easy to find in London which is a place which has so many restaurants that you could eat out every day and every meal for a year and still you wouldn’t have been to every restaurant. Every time it comes to finding a brunch venue I’m on google looking for something – you’d think I’d know the places to go after over six years here!

Automat, recommended to me by my brother, is an American Brasserie in Mayfair. I was expecting it to be quite posh – instead it seemed quite down to earth with lots of little separate areas for dining. The front area, with the warm brown wooden panels was packed, but the rear area, more light and area was relatively unoccupied though by the time Laney and I finished with our meal it was nearly full.

Actually, today’s meal was less brunch and more linner (we ended up eating at 2pm!) but the concept still holds since the brunch menu at Automat applies 10-4 on weekends. Yum! Laney and I were looking for a big meal as we were heading off to the Mercedes World concert later that afternoon and as we were not really expecting to have any dinner we wanted to make sure the meal was substantial.

Laney’s meal was a gorgeous Eggs Benedict with a side of Home Fries which were simply delicious and I couldn’t resist the Mac and Cheese with Bacon AND spinach. I went large and large it certainly was! I could barely get to the end of it though taste-wise I would have happily eaten it all day – American comfort food at its best.

If there is one downer at Automat it is that prices are a touch on the high side. Guess they have to pay their rent somehow 🙂

iphone 4: would you give up your soul for it?

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Just over a week ago, the day I went to Wimbledon actually, the world saw the new iphone4 released. It created mass hysteria and some people had even lined up at the apple store at Regent Street days in advance, camping overnight, of the release.

I’ve never been an apple supporter mainly because I guess I don’t really like to be a follower in terms of trends. However, there’s no doubt that apple products are innovative, smart and a steps ahead of many of its competitors in the market. 2010 is the year that the pull on the iphone4 proved too much for me to resist.

So how to get one?

Next to buying the phone outright from an apple store, o2 pretty much had the exclusive market on the iphone4 availability. They are making it available to o2 customers only for the first month. Hence last week on the morning of the 24th June I rather impulsively found myself in line at my local o2 store at 6.40am in the morning waiting for the 8am opening. I’d actually woken at 5 that morning and just lay in bed waiting thinking that no one would be in line at that time. What a fool I was – when I got to o2 there were at least 30 people in front of me already!

Where I was in the line I was actually guaranteed a phone but unfortunately o2 took forever to process everyone (I think they kept trying to up-sell and, worst of all, people were going in with no idea of what tariff they wanted to go on, which phone they wanted etc.!) The first 4-5 people took over 1.5 hours to process … and considering there were 4-5 serves in the store that was ridiculous.

Four hours later, at 10.30, I had to leave the line to meet my brother to get to Wimbledon. Hilariously everyone around me, even those in line behind me, was like, “No, don’t go”, “You’ve waited so long” etc. It was really nice of everyone – I love the way we all bonded in the queue! Actually, o2 were rather good at keeping us, if not entertained, occupied with free tea/coffee/water from Pret, draws for free tickets to concerts, constant updates on stock etc.

Sadly at the end of that day at least it didn’t result in me getting an iphone 🙁

But there was good-sh news.

o2 were apparently getting stock every day. They’d set up an online live stock system which let you know which stores had stock for the day. To say that I was on it every day every hour would be an understatement. Even though I could have probably waited for the phone after lining up for 4 hours I had a taste for it and I wanted it NOW! Ha ha!

Luckily I had a lot of good o2 stores around me, in particular the store at Westfield which proved to be a minefield for stock. The next day, the Friday, I saw there was stock so, with my manager’s permission I had an early lunch, and headed over. Clearly I wasn’t the only one monitoring the o2 website as when I got there, only 20 or so minutes after the o2 store opened, there was already a long snaking line inside! There were an additional 25 or 30 of us outside (in front of me!) Entertainingly “the bouncer” wouldn’t let us who were outside form a queue – he wanted us to mill around and pretend we weren’t in the queue. So strange!

After about half an hour or 45 minutes a rep came out to tell us that they had run out of 32GB iphones so I cut my losses and left the line .

What followed was a week of checking the o2 website and anxiousness when I was away from the internet. Ha ha! Finally my persistence was awarded and stock came in again today at Westfield. When I got to Westfield it was nearly noon and I was probably about 60th in the line? I guess I should be happy that I was even that, about ten minutes later and another 50 people had joined the line behind me! Thankfully o2 had stepped up their speed of processing and after just under 2.5 hours, and my pocket a whole lot lighter!, I had my hot little iphone4 in my hands.

Ironically I’m not going to get the phone out until I can find an appropriate case for it … heh heh.

14 July 2010 Update

Here is it! My baby!