Craft Night with Nicki and Ed at Nottinghill Art Club. Picture this: walking into a night club with electronic music thumping in the background, animate chatter all around, people sitting on the various forms of seating available (comfortable couches, wooden crates, diner booth styles, bar stools) crouched over their pieces of art under the dim lights. After collecting our craft kits at the entrance (ooO excited kids we were), we ordered some drinks and made our way to the sofas and soon got busy playing with the colourful buttons, theads, felt paper, wool. I havent been creatively challenged in a long time. All in all it was a night of good music, good drinks and just some fun arts and craft. I will definitely be going back again.
Fortum & Mason store. It was my first time to visit this acclaimed British store and it didnt take long to realize prehaps why not; the ground floor is akin to Harrods food court and sells luxury foods and quality wines of all description. If you take a closer look, you'll notice the extravagant prices on the small tags. But an experience was to be had just walking along the aisles lined with jars of jam, pate, olive oil from various parts of the world and of varying levels of quality, the beautifully wrapped hampers overflowing of delectable goodies. For my mum, an epicure at heart, it was walking in euphoria :P For me, I was in a frazzled state of trying to expertly manoeuver around the hordes of people and avoiding knocking over the displays. While we couldnt afford to purchase the foods, the next best thing was to have the cream tea there. The scones were perfectly done, with the right texture, but the accompanying cream left little to be desired.
I seem to be writing a food blog. But what the heck? The great choice of foods is what makes London such a fantastic city to live in. Above is an array of photos taken while dining at a Maroush restaurant near Edgware St and at Paul Boulangerie & Pattiserie, this authenic traditional French bakery in Covent Garden. Ive gone at length about the fantastic Lebanese cuisine along Edgware Street. The famous Maroush chain of restaurants is known to serve reliable tasty food. Unfortunately, my parents taste buds werent so agreeable with the spices and the exotic mezzes of hommus, tabouleh etc. The following day, we had a lunch/tea at Paul. I cannot give enough praise for this place. In the rear is the tea room where we dined at. I would name the dishes but they were in French, but essentially we had this mushroom quiche, salmon on pototo rosti, and Pot au Feu (beef and vegetable) soup. For desserts, we had a plum tart and strawberry sponge cake. It didn't quite end there. We ordered an apple and plum tart and croissants for takeaway.
Covent Garden is one of those places I havent gotten my head around. I have been there no less than ten times over the last few months, and I still dont know the place well; only recently had I realized I had been taking the longer route to get to the main market square. We arrived when the Apple Market (no, there arent any apples on sale) was in full swing. There were stalls after stalls selling jewellery, clothing, accessories and so on. But after checking the prices, we were discouraged from looking further, and hurried on our way. For shopping, you wouldnt really consider CG because the prices there are among the highest marked up prices. Its no surprise since CG is firmly on the tourist trail. The highlight in CGwas the huge Christmas tree and the Grotto. I think it would have looked even more dazzling at night.
A visit to The National Gallery was long due. This gallery is situated right at Trafalgar square. It was dark by the time we went there but there was a real festive cheer to the place, with carol singers singing carols under a giant Christmas tree right at the centre of the square. I was surprised at the laxity of security at the Gallery. I anticipated our bags to be checked and/or stored away but there were no such measures. Inside, I was surprised at the number of paintings I recognized, considering how my ignorance of art in general; we saw The Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci, Sunflowers by Van Gogh, Venus and Mars by Botticelli, The Etombment by Michelangelo. The gallery is set up in way so that you progress through the rooms as though in a timeline. The paintings are displayed according to the period and place they were painted. I have an Italian friend who researches and prepares notes on a few paintings prior to each visit and spends the whole time at the gallery observing those select paintings. She has inspired me to do something similar. It makes a gallery visit so much more meaningful if I understood the context of the painting: when, where, why and how it was painted. So that is the first of my new years resolutions.
Its been a few months since I last visited Portabello market, and I didn't realize how much I had missed the market. I had never been on a busier Saturday. We literally got swept up by the waves of people. My parents, well my mum especially, was charmed by the antiques. Aside from the exorbiant prices, Portabello is such an attractive market because it appeals to all ages. The market starts with the antiques and jewellery and then progresses to fruits and vegtables (which are prehaps the only competitively priced items in the whole of the market) and home-cooked cakes and pastries, and then you come across the budget homeware stores which sell basic practical essentials like buckets, plugs etc., and then its the vintage goods (clothes, furniture, shoes) and lastly and my favourite part of the market are the stalls selling unique clothes and accessories, many of which are hand-made/sewn.
I had planned, rather ambitiously, in the afternoon between a late lunch and a dinner reservation at 7pm, a visit to the Frost Fair at Shakespeare Globe, St. Pauls Cathedral and the Tate Modern. We managed all three, but didnt do the exhibition at the Tate Modern any real justice. I have made a note to make a day of galleries and musuems. All these landmarks are situated along the river Thames and a stone throw away from each other. The cathedral and the Tate Modern are practically opposite each other, separated by the Millenium Bridge. It was my first time to St Pauls Cathedral upclose. It was dark already and the pillars were brilliantly illuminated by the night lights.
I enjoy dining out in London because of the seemingly endless choices of cafes/bars/gastropubs/restaurants. However, the corollary to this infinite choice of foods is that finding a good restaurant is a hit and miss task. I can safely generalize that any restaurants on or near Oxford Street is to be avoided. Actually, I can probably make the same remark about any restaurants around Piccadilly Circus and Leceister Square. The common thread between them, as you can guess, is they are tourist hotspots. Normally (in London that is), I dine out for the main purpose of trying new resturants or foods; so while, it is a hit and miss sometimes, more often than not, its a hit. Since my parents were in London for just three days, I wanted to ensure we visited a good (reliable) restaurant, so it was Mem & Laz again - the Mediterranean restaurant in Angel. Did it live up to its reputation? Yes. We ordered for entrees spinach filo pastry, turkish bread and olives, avocado and mozzrella salad; for mains, seafood casserole, moussaka and roasted lamb knuckle and sauvignon blanc (because of Jaime, Im starting to enjoy white wine more than red). My parents and Jaime loved the food and the decor. We had the table only till 9pm (yes, the place is that busy), so we went to a nearby cafe for coffee and Christmas cake that Jaime had baked.
Sunday was a quality day spent with mum. We spent the most part of the day in Shoreditch, visiting the various indoors and outdoors markets. It was fun because we both like markets and food. We started the day at Columbia Road Flower Market. It was exciting because it was my first time there as well. I didnt know exactly where the market was, but we sort of followed the road where we saw people coming out with armfuls of plants and flowers, and the men carrying christmas trees on their shoulders. I was agaped at the vivid colours of flowers. I wanted to bring them all home!
A short walk from Columbia Rd was Brick Lane, our next destination. We first hit up the famous beigel bakery, which is open 24 hours. True to its reputation, the beigel was as delicious as I had envisaged. Imagine this: diving your teeth into a crusty outer crust and chewing the soft and moist interior. The queue ran outside, although the wait wasnt so long. We ordered a salt beef bagel with hot mustard and a salmon with cream cheese bagel; both were equally good. My mum was quite impressed with them. After devouring the two bagels, we visited Sunday Up Market just off Brick Lane. What I like about this market, despite the unappealing name, is the prices. Its not cheap, but its definitely more price-friendly than the other markets. Later, we headed to the last but not least market in Shoreditch, the Old Spitalfields Market which is an indoors market in a converted warehouse. There was a bling bling Christmas tree (the background photo above) that rose above the stalls. On the way out of the market, we brought a cup of warm mulled wine. I had never tried this before London and I am now officially addicted to this concotion of red wine, brandy, cloves, cinnamon sticks, sugar and orange peel brewed together. And you know what, it is the perfect complement to mince pies. I love this holiday season.
