Tayyabs
When: 21st July 2012
Another Saturday, another trip to
East London. Today however, would be
different as I was able to spend my time enjoying two of my favourite British
exports, the curry house and James Bond! For the second week in a row I
wanted to dodge the chains and thought we'd try the institutional curry house
Tayyabs.
A good old fashioned curry house
experience is one of my favourite things. It brings back memories from my
childhood and the novelty of being given a small chocolate at the end of the
meal which to me was the height of luxury fine dining. It was also
special being able to have a good meal out whilst being vegetarian.
Anyway, times change, tastes change but the curry house remains as good
as ever.
Tayyabs is famous for its tandoori
cuisine, which is one of my favourite cooking styles. We meet our friend
and make the short walk from Aldgate East to the restaurant which is hard to
miss from the large neon signs out front. We took the advice to book a
table as apparently it can get very busy so we were a little surprised to find
only 1-2 other tables in use when we arrived. Within five minutes of
being given our menus our side of the restaurant was full to bursting, it was a
good job we booked after all! We had a table near the kitchen where I
could take a good look at the action. Service was brisk and polite but
nothing to get excited about. We ordered some starters to share:
delicious giant cubes of Paneer Tikka and some Lamb Chops straight from
the tandoor in a lovely acidic marinade.
We also had some very tasty Pakoras. Our starters were accompanied
by some Popadoms and chutneys. There
wasn't much wait for the food and we were off to a great start with that
addictive acidic tang of the marinated meat, I was enjoying this meal.
Before we'd even finished our
starters our mains came along filling up the table. I had one of the
specialty curries, Karahi Lamb Tikka Masala, my partner also had an identical
looking, but totally different tasting lamb curry. We shared a couple of amazing buttery Tandoori
Naans and some Karahi Bhindi, which to my taste was the only imperfect item
we'd ordered. This was a really great meal let down only by the rushed
and less than perfect service. It seems they have only one pace of
working irrespective of how busy the restaurant is. I would come back
here to eat again, though not without trying one of the other local grills in
the area and as good as the food was I would not make a special journey to come
here when I have the good old Star of Bombay just a short bus ride away!
Though they did present the bill with two Union Jack chocolates (for the
three of us!) to complete that famous curry house experience.
Designing 007: 50 Years of Bond Style
Where: Barbican
Centre, London
As much as I
love a good curry, it's no match for anything to do with James Bond. So
after some gentle persuasion we attended this exhibition at the Barbican.
There were 14 separate areas of the exhibition, a perfectly themed
entrance and the opportunity to have your photo taken with the classic Aston
Martin from Goldfinger. The
exhibition was divided into the various themes that has made Bond iconic over
the last 50 years and each was filled with film props including gadgets, guns
and the various outfits worn by Bond, the villains and the many Bond girls from
the 23 films.
The first room
of the exhibition was themed around gold and included the original Ken Adam
sketches for Fort Knox from Goldfinger, Oddjob's steel-brimmed hat as
well as Scaramanga's golden gun. So far so good as we squeezed into a
small room documenting the colourful life of James Bond's creator, Ian
Flemming. Flemming is just as interesting if not more so than the
character he created. He was a key
influence in the cinematic appearance of James Bond in terms of his dress and
background. Also a number of the characters that appear in the
books/films were named after Flemming's friends. The idea of James Bond
came from Flemming's time in the military and has passion for travel writing
and journalism.
The next section
was one that I particularly enjoyed, M's Office. This section contained a
number of Bond artefacts including passports, ID cards, credit cards, dossiers
as well as a bit about the characters of M and Moneypenny. The level of
detail in these props are one of the things I love about Bond films.
Despite all the fantastic and often ridiculous elements to these films
there is always a strong authenticity to the props used. Of course once
you have been briefed it's time to pick up your supplies from the Quartermaster
or Q Branch as we know it. Here we are treated to a selection of
briefcases, watches and other "ordinary" items that can be
transformed into lethal weapons, listening devices and escape routes at the
flick of a switch. There was also an extended section on the boat used in
the opening sequence of The Wold is Not Enough.
After this was
another James Bond staple, the casino. In this section there was a full
scale mock-up of the table and gamblers from Casino Royale forming the
centre piece of the room. In addition there were numerous mock ups of the
various casino outfits and clips projected of many of the famous Bond casino
scenes. There was also a dress from the forthcoming Skyfall which
was exciting to see. After the excitement of the casino there was a
section on the various countries and exotic places that Bond has visited over
the years and how the look of these places was created. The main focus
here was on India as seen in Octopussy and the fabulous space base from Moonraker.
There were two
main sections left after this, the next being Villains. This room was
filled with the costumes and props of many of the Bond villains, such as Rosa
Klebb's spiked shoe, Jaws' teeth, the "bomb surprise" and Boris from Goldeneye frozen solid with liquid nitrogen. There was also a section on the Bond
girls that help Bond out in the films including Solitaire with her card table
and Jinx in her bikini. Alas it was time to move downstairs in the Bond
lifts to visit the final room, the Ice Palace which celebrated Bond and all
things snowy from the famous ski stunts to the magnificent Ice Palace from The
World is Not Enough. There was also the famous cello (with skis
attached!) that Bond and Kara use to escape in The Living Daylights.
If I had one
complaint about this exhibition it would be the lack of any interactive display
areas, it would have been amazing to have been able to go hands on with some of
the Bond gear as well as take some photos of it, though from reading about the
lack of available items it is perhaps understandable. This exhibition is
clearly a must for suckers like me who can't wait till Skyfall later this year! After finishing up at the Ice Place it was
time to go home and reflect on a wonderful day of famous British exports, the
curry house and James Bond.
Designing 007:50 Years of Bond Style - Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS Until
5th September 2012
