An Indian Adventure - Here's what we ate!

Voyage to India Part 2: The South
When: Jan/Feb 2014

Where: London, Mumbai, Ooty, Kochi, Aleppey, Mamalapuram, Madurai

Introduction: London Quilon

We started this food trip with a birthday treat and a set lunch at Quilon in London.  Service was attentive and the food was simple, refined and stylishly plated.  Flavours were delicate and a great time was had.


We started off with poppadoms and home-made chutneys.

We then followed these with masala dosa and a salad.

 

Some Liberty Ale to wash down the food.  Part of an excellent selection of beers available.

A spicy tomato palate cleanser after our starters.

 A lamb biryani with yoghurt and naan bread.

Fish Curry

 Ice cream and a delicious pastry

 Masala chai, south Indian style

Espresso and chocolate.

The Real Masterchef

elBulli: Ferran Adrià and The Art of Food
When: July 2013
Where:Somerset House, London

This was an exhibition that had no right to work.  Who in their right mind would pay good money to look at small pictures of food, fake plastic food and read about a German couple opening a small hill side restaurant in Spain named after their dog?  I guess that is the pull of elBulli, the world's most famous restaurant for culinary excellence until it closed its doors to become the elBulli foundation to help inspire the next generation of chefs.

The exhibition starts with a celebration, the final dish served at elBulli, they team led be the maestro Ferran Adrià are celebrating like it's opening night.  This simple video really got me in the mood and sucked me in as we began the journey into how elBulli began.

Contrary to the way the world likes to present things elBulli  didn't just become the height of modern cuisine overnight.  In fact it had very humble beginnings as a sea side restaurant opened up by a German couple who named it after their dog.  There are some great early pictures of the couple and one that stood out to me was the sign next the restaurant from crazy golf.  Over the next 20-30 years the menu and the cooking became more refined and the restaurant was getting mentioned in guide books.  The food was influenced by French Nouveau Cuisine and they had the kind of menu that you;d see at many fine dining French restaurants around the world.  This probably explained why they hired the young Ferran Adrià to work at the restaurant thanks to a glowing recommendation from a famous French chef.

This is the point where the exhibition picks up pace and interest as we see how a love of new cuisines from France matched with a passion for seasonal and local transforms into the elBulli we became familiar with filled with foams, gels and various deconstructions.   These rules from French cooking are adapted as Ferran takes over the restaurant and gives it a philosophy and rules in order to better the food in the restaurant, make it more Spanish, fresher, seasonal.

The next part is when we see these rules come into effect and how the menu is suddenly transformed from classic French cooking to something altogether more modern.  Each dish is numbered and various experiments take place to further the food.  During this part of the exhibition you can view the various dishes via short videos and photos as well as sit at a virtual dining table and be served projected food.

The pen ultimate section of the exhibition puts elBulli  in a wider context, the influence of Japan, the furthering of the philophy and all of the equipment used to craft and serve these exquisite dishes.  We also learn about some of the more famous "regular" customers that visited the restaurant, including when elBulli turned Japanese for a week.

The final section of the exhibition dealt with the forthcoming elBulli foundation.  By the end of the exhibition  I felt truly enlightened and enthusiastic.  If you are someone that enjoys cooking or enjoys leading a team then this exhibition is fascinating, if you do both it is essential!

Would you?

Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
When: May 2014
Where: Coronet Notting Hill Gate

You'd think nothing of a white transit van driving round the streets at night, on it's way home after a day out delivering goods, transporting furniture, machinery, basically making the world go round.  Perhaps if it were driving erratically you'd be more suspicious, is it full of stolen goods, a drunk driver?  What if it was a young woman asking for directions, slightly flirtatious, would you get in?  If you were married with children you'd probably already be home eating dinner, watching TV, getting ready for bed.  If you had a significant other you'd certainly not want to risk her wrath if she saw you getting dropped off by a young lady driving a van, it really wouldn't look good at all.  How about if you were single, living alone with nothing to do?  Would you accept then?  After all it seems pretty harmless, young girl delivering antiques from a transit van, you couldn't get much safer than that?


She looks a little lost and she's quite attractive, why not?  With an accent like that she must be quite well to do, what should I say?  Not to worry she does most of the talking, where are we headed again?  Would you like to come over to my friend's place?  Ermm...  Sure why not, beats being home alone, freedom or otherwise.  Maybe I'm a good catch after all, perhaps she's after something a little different, maybe she's just saying thanks?  Okay, this is more than thanks, she's a little flirty, I like it but it can't be true, that's for sure.

We're here now, nothing to lose by going inside, it's a pretty dark in here but she's taking her clothes off and beckoning me over.  I know what I need to do now.  Oh no, she's out of reach, I feel like I'm in quick sand.  There she is, so near yet out of reach.  What?  There's someone else down here.  Too late now.  I'm confined to this place.  Nobody will come and find me, nobody knows I'm gone.

If Under the Skin ended with that it would be too simplistic, if you are a young, single and slightly lonely man not used to female attention the odds of you jumping into a transit van with a beautiful woman followed by the promise of sex you'd do exactly what the men in this film did.  You'd not worry about the aftermath, about the man on the motorbike removing all traces of your existence from the planet.

But the film asks us more, what lies under the skin?  When our alien hiding in human skin needs help a lonely man takes her in, reversing the roles, she wants to leave without a trace for fear of him discovering the truth about her, after a night of passion (well not exactly!).  Walking in the woods emotionally unsure after the kindness shown to her in an hour of need our alien is stalked and set upon by a man who tries to rape her.  There is a child like innocence to adulthood from our alien, much like the men she trapped.  There are mixed emotions as whilst nobody truly wishes rape on another, we are not talking about an innocent victim, though our rapist perhaps thinks otherwise until her human skin is damaged and left behind.

The isolated people in an isolated atmosphere become easier to empathise with, the novelty of the nudity has worn off.  The sense of feeling trapped increases and I feel worse inside, I don't know if I feel proud to be a man or even human but then is that really our fault?  Ignore the scenery, the beauty, if she drove past right now would you get in, knowing what you know?  If you were vulnerable would you help someone else or hope they went away?  Could you just wipe their memory away, make them no longer exist and move on?  Do you understand why they don't say no?  Do you understand why you don't say no?  This is no Tarantino death/rebirth of the modern man under threat by a smarter stronger woman, more a simple desire to get under our skin and see what is really underneath.

David Lynch Land

The Drowned Man
When: July 2013

Where: Temple Studios (Old Paddington Sorting Office)

I think I just visited the best theme park ever, or was it a cinema, the theatre or a real life open world game?  My three hours of The Drowned Man felt like I'd entered David Lynch Land.  One of our group said that it felt like queuing for a ride as we went in, they were not far wrong.  I originally thought that the lack of imagineering as Disney might call it was missing from the queue area, in retrospect I was wrong as going past the BBC watching people queue outside in the rain was far less glamorous than the metal walkway that led to Temple Studios.  Once it was our groups turn to go in we were sent down a serious of poorly lit corridors that were designed to disorientate us until we reached an induction room where we were given our masks.  After we were fully masked and slightly confused the real events began.


We entered a lift, it was like something out of Disney World complete with a uniformed, American accented guide telling us about the studio, the stars and the rather shady town that lay outside the studio gates.  The lift stops and our group begins to depart before the lift operator slams the door shut and takes us up a little further into that shady town.  We walked out of the lift feeling somewhat disorientated into the misty air filled with the smell of a dry ice induced fog.  There was a church to the right and a set of small caravans to the left where most people headed and not having been to one of these Punchdrunk events before I thought I'd follow the crowd around and began to explore the trailer homes, not feeling overly interested in the fight that had broken out in front of the church.

It was pretty obvious that the level of detail put into the sets was frighteningly good, newspapers, notes, magazines, artefacts, cigarette butts, posters warn out furniture, you really felt like you had stepped back in time and were invading somebody's home.  The other important thing became clear that music and lighting would act as our guide to focus our attention on to the performances.   The scenes we were witnessing were part of two parallel stories of man meets woman, who has an affair with another man and is caught in the act at a party.  The man becomes irreconcilably jealous and murders the woman.  One of the stories takes place in the studio, the other in the town outside, though many of the scenes, back story and incidents go between the two locations.

The best and worst things about the performance is that you have an almost free reign to wander anywhere you want, shops, buildings, restaurants as well as through the studios, offices and back rooms of Temple Studios.  It's great to explore in your own time, being free to examine props, enter the cinema and sit down, sit at the bar.  The downfall of this is that you can easily miss the performances that drive the story, or lose track of the story or character you were following.  I found it much easier to keep track of goings on in the town area (The William and Mary story) which was a lot less crowded than the studio story (Wendy and Marshall).  


I enjoyed most of the set piece dance performances, though there was a little too much theatrical rolling on the floor for my liking.  Possibly the most exciting part of the William and Mary story was chasing the two of them up to the sandy wastelands where Mary is strangled to death.  The Wendy and Marshall story seemed to fly past me.  I got caught up in the back story of casting and picking the star and following one actress to a sad death and another to the wrap party where she takes part in a rather fun magic trick.

One thing that I couldn't ignore was the Lynchian styling of The Drowned Man.  From the mysterious cowboys, the Americana, 50s and 60s pop music to the ambient noise that fills the air when a scene is about to climax it's hard to ignore.  Not only that, there was a room complete with a black and white checked floor, a man in front of a red curtain lit with a spot light who over sees a strange initiation ritual of the new star carried out by small men with deformed faces wielding baseball bats, all that was missing was the dwarf talking backwards!

To sum up, The Drowned Man offered an experience like nothing else, I didn't know where I was or what I was doing and the freedom to explore and see different things made for great discussion afterwards.  None of us saw both the murders or both the parties and we all saw scenes that the other three had not.  However, with the freedom comes frustration, it would have been nice to have been able to see all the scenes and all of the stories or for a little more guidance.  At times the only way to follow a story tranche was to run after the actors pushing past anyone that didn't step aside before they lost you through a serious of unmarked doors, corridors and stairways.  By the end of the performance I felt a mix of relief and disappointment and was left with one question that I could not answer, if I saw this again with the knowledge and experience of the first viewing would it be improved with repetition like a favourite film where the backgrounds, back story and references add layers of meaning and enjoyment, or would it all feel flat, boring and predictable once the secrets were uncovered?

Provencal Highlights

Living the Good Life
when: June 2013
where: St Remy, Aix en Provence, Cassis

You can read the full report here on Flyertalk.  Here are some highlights.

La Begude de Mazenc

This was a beautiful little town where we wondered the back streets and encountered some cute little cygnets

Gorge du Doux Velorail

The amazing views coming out of the tunnels towards the end of the route were well worth it despite the pouring rain.

Aix en Provence

A beautiful old town with lots of atmosphere and tourists to match.

Cassis and the Calanques

A beautiful day at the sea side.  Magnificent scenery from the boat tour and an amazing dinner to round it off.

St Remy and the Roman Ruins at Glanum

A stunning end to the trip.  Much quieter than Aix en Provence, a delicious lunch and the surprise of the Roman ruins made for one amazing and slightly sun burnt day!

Columbia Road Flower Market

Flowers and Food
When: May 2012
Where: Song Que Café

This was my second visit to Columbia Road, the first was on a miserable November night to eat at Brawn, home of the slightly too cool for school service but absolutely delicious French food.  That night didn't make me want to go back in a hurry.  One sunny Sunday in May Columbia Road changed my mind, as on a sunny Sunday with the flower market in full swing Columbia Road takes on a new life.  Colours, smells and shouting traders cut through the crowded street as people precariously balance their purchases with the hope of getting out alive (them and their flowers!)

After all that action we needed somewhere to eat.  We had planned to go for some Vietnamese food after the great experience we'd had in San Francisco at the Bodega Bistro a year earlier.  We knew the area was famous for Vietnamese food and had noted down some choices...  Well, that was the plan.  Unfortunately I had noted down the names and addresses for restaurants in a totally different part of London.  After a quick search on Chowhound we ended up at the Song Que Café not far from the Overground station.

Sometimes you have to get over first impressions.  Looking in through the windows the restaurant looks like the décor has been untouched for twenty years, however the place was pretty full.  I took another look at the reviews and we bravely entered the green dining room and were shown to our seats.

Service was fast and efficient and we placed our orders not long after sitting down.  We started with spring rolls and chicken satay.  The décor and brisk service was soon forgiven when the giant and delicious portions turned up.

For mains we took the rice with pork chop and shredded pork and the prawns with ginger and spring onions.  The meat was tasty but the vegetable garnish tasted like it had seen better days.  My partners battered prawns went down well.  Again the portions were huge.

 After our plates were cleared we then tried to pay the bill but nobody was interested.  Instead we queued up to pay at the counter.  All in all a real bargain of a meal and somewhere I'd love to return to and sample some of the other menu items.

Song Que Café 134 Kingsland Rd, London, London E2 8DY - 020 7613 3222

Arbutus

Amazing Arbutus
When: May 2013
Where: Arbutus

I really enjoyed our meal at Arbutus. It was a great place for a special occasion.  We arrived with a slight feeling of trepidation as the reviews are quite mixed, hopefully this evening would turn out like the majority of the good reviews we'd read rather than the negative ones.  There was a small queue when we got to the door including a polite couple that had either messed up their reservation or were trying it on.  Thankfully they were accommodated and it was our turn to have our coats taken and get shown to our seats.  The dining room is laid out in a "U" shape and we made our way round the "U" to our table not far from the window.  We were given menus and it was time to decide.

For starters I picked the asparagus, which went perfectly with the tangy Caesar dressing.


For the main I went with the rabbit.  The carrot and cumin purée really brought out the flavour of the meat.  Whilst I was initially sceptical of the cottage pie it proved to be delicious and light, banishing the ready meal nightmares from my head.





Finally my favourite part of the of always choosing chocolate, I went with the pistachio cake which was soft, moist and delicious.  The fresh strawberries and strawberry sorbet server with it made an excellent and refreshing palate cleanser.

All in all this was a really nice meal.  The ambiance of the restaurant was good and service was polished without being over fussy.  We felt that we could relax without a dozen pairs of eyes watching our every bite.  I would be more than happy to return to Arbutus again and perhaps try something a touch more adventurous next time.

Arbutus 63-64 Frith St London W1D 3JW 020 7734 4545