Pret-a-por-tea

... a few green (yes, my favorite colour!) sugary treats directly from the "cakewalk":

Mint and Strawberry tart with a cup of Tie Guan Yin tea at Yauatcha


Vanilla Rooibos tea and Green tea & chocolate cupcake from the Hummingbird Bakery at home...


...accessorized with vintage "crinoline lady" china

East meets West

Credit crunch compliant patisseries at Yauatcha

How to spend a day eating only at Alan Yau's restaurants whilst ensuring, at the same time, total gourmet diversity and a balanced budget:

Breakfast - Princi
(Cheap)

Yau's collaboration with upmarket baker Rocco Princi has resulted in the first London branch of this Milanese bakery chain. Pop into Princi for a lovely brioche, pastry, a gourmet loaf, or for a coffee and cake. This place kicks the mass market asses of Boulangerie Paul and Le Pain Quotidien. During our visit (on a Sunday evening), while munching on the yummy sample pizzas that were being handed out to the crowds, we spotted the man Yau himself - or was it a Yau clone?

Lunch - Cha Cha Moon
(Cheap)

This Chinese noodle canteen follows on from Yau's Wagamama days, though I do sincerely hope Cha Cha moon does not go for the "expand till explode" concept, which invariably leads downhill. At least for now, Cha Cha Moon offers a lot more style, quality and far better value for money than the bland Wagamama. Lunch here can cost as little as a fiver (try the Taiwanese beef noodle soup for GBP 3,50 with a pot of Oolong tea at GBP 1,50). Avoid peak times as queues can be horrendous.

Tea - Yauatcha
(Moderate)

This dim sum/tea house is pricier than the two spots above - but totally worth it! GBP 27 will buy you a complete afternoon tea set which includes all the trimmings and more: a hot drink, sandwiches, scones, exotic fruits, cakes, cookies, chocolates and mini patisseries. Alternatively you can save GBP20 (blame it on the credit crunch...) and have a pot of tea and a patisserie for around GBP 7.

Dinner - Sake No Hana
(Expensive)

"Sake No Hana" is Yau's version of a Japanese Izakaya (a Japanese "tapas bar" of sorts). In winter go straight for the slowly cooked "pork ribs with sugar snap", a melt in your mouth casserole that's perfect for sharing. The usual suspects score very highly too: sashimi is delicious, the tempura is perfect and crispy.

My only worry is the eventual phasing out of some of the more authentic Japanese menu items, given that the last time I visited the sea bream "Chazuke" - a type of savoury rice porridge - was unavailable. That would be a shame because authenticity (and excellent sake!) is what puts Sake no Hana on a level above its competitors (Zuma, Nobu). Say no to boring "black cod" and "chocolate fondant & green tea ice cream" and yes to "Chazuke" and "mochi"!

Adieu Shipp's Tearooms

I had not returned to Shipp's Tearooms since that post about good value, informal tea houses a while ago, so last Thursday, finding myself in the vicinity of Borough Market and with a couple of hours to spare, I decided to treat myself to a cuppa and a cupcake. But once I got there I discovered they had ceased to trade because of problems with their lease. Nooooooo!!!

It is a great loss for the London tea circuit as I can't think of another establishment that is half as pretty and unique. The owners told me the idea for these tea rooms came out of a desire to put their extensive collection of antique tea sets and tea things in to good use. As they are now unable to continue trading, this entire collection of amazing hand painted tea sets, and all sorts of fine bone china and glass tableware must go. If you are into collecting teapots and tea cups, forget the Portobello market and head straight into this place. You won't be able to resist taking home a vintage tea cup or two.

For more information visit: www.shippstearooms.co.uk

101th Post, 101 References...

Kenneth MacMillan's Rite of Spring (Picture source: The Telegraph)

... from the first 101 pages of Alejo Carpentier's swansong novel: The Rite of Spring.

Yep, that's one cultural reference per page. There are many more in fact but I daren't refer to the more obscure or double citations (Luisa Miller anyone? I googled and found it's an early Verdi Opera based on a Schiller play), some of which have surely passed me by.

Coping with the overwhelming amount of name dropping in this 500 page novel in part explains my reduced blogging mode these days. Why so many you ask? Apparently, Carpentier's idea was to write a truly "baroque" novel, full of twists and turns, highly ornate and equal parts fiction/essay/autobiography.

Whether he also intended to leave his readers with a "Dummies Guide to the Intelligentsia" is unclear, but hemorrhaging one name after the other does make us lose focus from the central plot: a love story between a Cuban architect and a Russian dancer who meet during the Spanish civil war and end up playing a central role in the Cuban Revolution. But "The Rite of Spring" is also a story about obsessions written by an obsessive mind. And that's why I simply must finish reading this book one day...

Lewis Carroll
Igor Stravinsky
Tchaikovsky
Goya
Robespierre
Paul Eluard
Picasso
Van Gogh
Duke Ellington
Louis Armstrong
King Vidor
Hubert Robert
Tolstoy
Tomas de Torquemada
Toulouse Lautrec
Maurice Chevalier
Cecil B. de Mille
Julio Antonio Mella
Nikolay Gogol
Ortega y Gasset
Marcel Prevost
Marcel Proust
Marcel Duchamp
Holbein
Leonardo da Vinci
Diego Velazquez
Diego Rivera
Beethoven
Mondrian
Georges Braque
Cezanne
Chardin
Juan Gris
Napoleon Bonaparte
Guillaume Apollinaire
Duke of Berry
Carpeaux
Prokofiev
Georges Balanchine
Sergey Diaghilev
Salvador Dali
Jean Cocteau
Brancusi
Le Corbusier
Robert Desnos (not to be confused with Robert Doisneau)
Chopin
Watteau
Wagner
Mahler
Ivan Goll
Rimbaud
Comte de Lautreamont
Marquis de Sade
Victor Hugo
Hyeronimus Bosch
Edgar Allan Poe
Baudelaire
Jules Verne
Giacometti
Gustave Moreau
Hegel
Marlene Dietrich
Luis Bunuel
Josephine Baker
Andre Breton
Serge Lifar
Lenin
Man Ray
Rabelais
Tristan Tzara
Shakespeare
Julien Brenda
Rodolphe Berger
Karl Marx
Django Reinhardt
Benito Mussolini
Camille Claudel
Anton Webern
Fritz Lang
Franco
Gabriel Garcia Lorca
Cervantes
Goethe
Franz Liszt
Lucas Cranach
Walter Gropius
Paul Klee
Kandinsky
Schiller
Johan Sebastian Bach
Leni Riefenstahl
Sigmund Freud
Heinrich Himmler
Hans Wieland
Verdi
Charlotte von Stein
Lazlo Moholy-Nagy
Dante
Friedrich Nietzsche
Heidegger
Novalis (or Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg)

My Japanese food heaven

Japan Centre's Morinaga "Hot Cake" mix. Fool proof and idiot proof!

Bye bye Fortnum and Masons, boo to Daylesford Organics and farewell to Whole Foods. None of them compare to my new favorite food shop, Japan Centre. I am currently so addicted to it I no longer want to eat out. And I get really cranky when my value sushi bento box (a steal at around GBP5 - bigger & better than at Itsu too!) is sold out by the time I get there from work.

But delicious take away sushi and other bento box meals (their "katsu curries" are 10,000 times better than Wagamama's) are not the only reasons I shop here so often...

It's also because:

1) They sell the best pancake mix in the world, which yields perfectly thick and fluffy pancakes every time (see above picture). I am never going back to soggy Bisquick.

2) You won't find just one type of ice tea in their chiller cabinet, you will find a million: light, strong, premium, no caff (Mugi cha or Soba cha), with milk, with fruit, with milk and fruit, with flowery flavour, with or without sweetener, etc. etc... In fact you can also find lots of exotic flavored waters, energy and fermented milk drinks - the other day I tasted one with bits of "nata de coco" (coconut flesh) and I swear it was just like summer in a bottle!

3) They have an awesome in store bakery stocked with the weirdest and most delicious buns, from chocolate brioche to green tea muffin, from curry "pans" (a type of pain au lait) to yakisoba sandwich (I dare anyone to try this!).

4) They stock yummy black sesame pudding and all kinds of "agar agar" fruit jellies which are packed with fiber and much healthier than our western desserts.

5) One can find fresh Asian veggies such as Yam and Lotus Root. And also fresh Oba (or Shiso) mint leaf which you can infuse in hot water to make Asian mint tea or simply add to your sushi.

And most important of all, because unlike the typical hard-to-decipher Asian food store, all of their products contain an English tag with a brief description and list of ingredients, so you are never left wondering what the heck you are buying!

Eddie Vedder solo tour at the NJPAC

Picture source: Boston Globe

It was an unforgettable gig and - thankfully, very thankfully indeed!! - mr. R and I were there to witness: Eddie Vedder adorning the NJPAC theatre with his golden voice and a generous 3 hour set list, including songs from his Golden Globe winning soundtrack “Into the Wild”, alongside various covers and even some Pearl Jam material (check out the complete setlist at Metro Distortion).

The first big moment in the evening came as soon as Eddie stepped onstage, with a tidal wave of applause flowing from an adoring crowd. As soon as he was able to thank us (after several attempts to break the standing ovation) Eddie said it was still too early and that he still needed to “earn all that applause”. He then asked us to brace ourselves for a long evening of music, following in the tradition of a certain Bruce Springsteen. Woo-hoos and deafening applause all over again...

Eddie kicked off with Daniel Johnson's Walking the Cow and the audience gawped at the theatre’s state of the art acoustics. Quite simply I had never heard anything like that. Loud and clear, there and then was the proof that Eddie Vedder really is one of the most powerful and versatile voices in modern music. He sang with such clarity and purity that the music flowed through our every pore.

This purity of sound was most evident in poignant tracks such as “Dead Man Walking” or “Man of the Hour” (from Big Fish), or in urgent songs like “I Am Mine” (which sounded reinvigorated in its unplugged version), “ Masters or War”, “Setting Forth” and “Rise” (this one had the audience literally rising up to the chorus). Even Eddie acknowledged how amazing the acoustics were and claimed that the NJPAC was going straight into his list of favourite places to play. Which made me think about how perfect this theatre would be for a Pearl Jam “unplugged” evening à la Benaroya...(Please?)

There was also the usual cool Eddie banter and extras sandwiched between songs: we had the opportunity to ask questions (which some concert goers wasted with song requests – for shame people!) and Eddie gave us some answers, including an earnest account of what's hidden behind that most mythical of PJ songs, Yellow Ledbetter. He also experimented with new sounds, debuting a fresh off the peg song ("Unthought Known") and layering vocals for a tribal-like effect in “Arc” (from Riot Act).

29 songs later and after a radiant set closer ("Hard Sun"), I came out of the theatre so uplifted I felt I was skimming over the sidewalk. This performance demands to be released as a live CD, for Eddie is not only one of “the great voices of our time” (as Time Out NY put it), he is also one of the greatest artists.

China Picspam - Part 2 (Shanghai)

...continuing from my previous post:

Oriental Pearl TV Tower by night,
the ultimate postcard from futuristic Shanghai

The guy on the left just had to ruin my
picture perfect vision of Pudong with his ugly elbow... (sigh!)

Another "glimpse of the future" moment at
the Aqua Bar (Sun with Aqua, 6 on The Bund)

Yet more tea! Green tea & barley "bubble tea"
and iced coffee with "healthy" jelly at cafe R B T
(can you please open a London branch asap?)

Stacks of buildings

A walk through the street markets
in the "Old City"...

... leads us to the overly touristy &
wholly unoriginal Yu Gardens Bazaar...

... but at least the dumplings were pretty good!