Fashion Rivals

Two old fashion houses, one more popular and associated with chavs and hooligans; the other more subtle and equally as chic.

Burn to death

QL and I were talking about random stuff:

QL: Didn't you hear the fire alarm earlier?
Me: Fire alarm? Huh? When?
QL: At seven!
Me: Hmmm? Ohh.. I must still have been at university then.
QL: In the morning!
Me: Huh? I didn't hear anything....
QL: *Incredulous look*

Some day I'll probably remain stuck in Dreamland during a fire and get burnt to death. Either that or my fire alarm needs fixing...

Old School Poem

I was sitting in the Underground recently, and out of boredom I was reading the advertisements which they have. One of them was a poem which was put up as part of some Underground campaign.

I read it, and for some reason, it was strangely familiar. The poem is as follows:

----------------
Silver

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in silver feathered sleep
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

Walter de la Mare
-----------------

Then it hit me: I had learnt that very poem several years ago during English Literature back in secondary school. I found it weird indeed, that I could recall such a detail.

Spanish Food Adventure

Cod croquette tapas, from some tapas restaurant, Barri Gotic, Barcelona.

In the same vein as the French Food Adventure, here we go:

One of the many places we ate at:


Tapas! Clockwise from top: Deep fried calamari topped with egg, deep fried green pimentos with salt, foie gras.

Deep fried small fish:


More foie gras:


More deep fried tapas. Octopus this time.


Even more octopus. Grilled instead :P


Some really really fresh grilled prawns:


It wasn't all tapas though. We just had to get some paella too! :)

Above: Damn I HATE peas in my food. Bloody tourist-oriented restaurant.

And another paella..


Mushroom risotto:


Soft cheese from Montserrat, topped with honey. Yummy stuff.


And down it all with some Sangria (in front: sangria vino, rear: sangria cava. Or is it the other way round? Bah. The red one is far superior.)


Overall, it was excellent; British food sucks in comparison. As you can imagine, back to the gym....

Oh before I go, here's a little something for Cheesie:


CheeseMe Restaurant (Bar? can't remember).

Coca-Cola World Cup Special Edition Mini Football Bottle

Guess what I came across a few days ago:


:O


A closer look at the 4 pack.


Special edition. Doesn't stop me from drinking it though.

It tastes like normal Coke, but with a slight tinge of football. Or maybe its simply World Cup fever...

People Statues: Barcelona

If you walk around the streets of Europe, you will notice a form of 'street entertainment' in the form of people resembling statues, usually in gold or silver. Their faces are painted in the appropriate colours, and they stay motionless - until you drop a coin into their basket, at which they burst to life for several seconds, and allow you to pose with them for pictures.

England, being the boring place it is, seems to limit itself to basically just gold and silver 'statues', as seen below, captured alongside the river Thames:

ZZZZzzz...

Yawn. Boring. Even more exciting is the street of La Rambla, Barcelona, where only creativity limits what you can find. Here are several examples:

The living tree:

The Roman statue

The Viking

The crowd puller: a man manipulating a hand puppet, which sprang to life at random intervals, literally scaring passers by who were caught unaware. It also did random motions such as licking its hand to comb its bald head et cetera. Absolute classic.

Che Guevara

Fruit man:

Flower man:

Mr. Big Boobies pushing the head of a tourist into 'her' oversized bosom.

One of two people who sat on bicycles and started cycling whenever someone donated coins.

Some random Darth Maul wannabe.

The weeping violin

The house renovation disaster:

There were many others such as Atlas carrying the globe (the guy's body however, was quite skint), the howling and weeping angel which body was transformed into stone, etc etc. British people statues seriously need to be more creative....

Gordon Ramsay @ Claridge's: Part II

Part I can be accessed here.

Let's see how the kitchen is like:

Absolutely clinically clean. Gordon was nowhere in sight - he's basically at the GR @ Royal Hospital Road (Chelsea) most of the time, popping in for a few minutes everyday to check if everything is running a-okay. I have no idea how he manages his other restaurants in Dubai, Tokyo & the upcoming one in New York....

The Chef's table, which is immediately behind the kitchen counter (there are several counters).

Back to the food. If you recall from the previous post the menu:

The six course French-inspired taster menu. Help!

First up: Chilled Charentais melon soup, garnished with crab vinaigrette. I've heard of these melon soups before, but until that day never really tried one. The addition of crab garnish was very interesting and made for an unusual and exciting pairing.

The soup starter.

Ballottine of foie gras marinated in Beaumes de Venise, pickled mushrooms, toasted brioche (not shown). Absolutely fantastic. We were given a generous portion of foie gras (I wonder if the addition of truffles could have been better?), with some pickled mushrooms, some spring onions (if I recall correctly) and something else which I cannot identify.

Starter number 2.

Roasted sea scallops on top of a bed of broccoli puree, topped with a poached quail egg and served with reduced Barolo wine. Not too shabby in my books.

Seafood dish.

Best end of new season Oxfordshire lamb served on top of a confit shoulder, spiced aubergine (and a piece of deep fried aubergine as garnish), green and white asparagus, and served with tarragon jus. A meat lover's dream come true! I found the spiced aubergine (chutney?) excellent and it complimented the food well.

Meat dish

Banana and coconut bavarois, passion fruit jelly (Served in the order of coconut, passion fruit, banana from the top). I confess that not being a dessert person, I did not think much of this dish or the next one.

Peanut butter parfait with milk mousse, cherry sauce. Peanut butter parfait topped with milk mousse and enclosed within a chocolate ring, layered on top of a bed of peanut crumbs.

The table next to us choosing some cheese (Cheese comes at £8 extra for the set menus)

Time for coffee

And some chocolate to finish off.

All in all, one of the best (and also the most expensive) meals I've ever had, and probably will remain to be in that position for a very long time. Fortunately (for the wallet), neither of us drinks (their wine list rivals some of my reference books), otherwise the cheque would have been even more astronomical.

Gordon Ramsay @ Claridge's: Part I

So we trudged down Mayfair towards Claridge's...


The rather unassuming entrance of Claridge's...


The entrance to the lobby.


A view of the lobby.


View of the lounge right outside GR.


View of the main dining hall.


Another view of a portion of the dining hall.



The menu we chose; we went for the tasting menu, basically the whole shebang. To be continued in part II...