incomplete

As most of my time in London was spent in the confines of the British Library (although I must say, quite a pleasant place to sit and read, with some three cafes/restaurants to choose from, and some rather nifty armchairs out front with sockets on the er... arms to plug yr laptop into, oh and soap that smelled like coconut! And of course tons and tons of books - so many that you have to get on their catalogue and request for them and a display at your desk lights up when it's ready to collect).

Sorry, as I was saying, a lot of my time was spent hard at work doing research for the dissertation, but thanks to Ching and Sam, managed to see some sights and have some good food. The list was posted previously. I suppose I should really write about it, but my mind is full of thoughts of other things, like whether my bag's too heavy. However, I shall say this: warm chocolate and green tea cake, grilled tofu with yuzu marinade, grilled aubergine with miso, moist carrot cake, strawberries and dark chocolate ice-cream, pho! But unfortunately, I didn't lug the camera along much so I can only show you the above photo of a lunch at a lovely little French cafe, where I had a duck pate sandwich with some elderflower presse.


And now I am back in Brighton, to stare at this. (and add more post-its, and move them around so they actually seem to have some cohesive theme running through)

It's Sunday and I haven't been out of the flat at all. Not at all.


Can you blame me? It's been raining almost non-stop since last night.

quick update

Hit London from Tuesday to Friday, which involved two days of solid work at the British Library's Humanities Reading Rooms, as well as food glorious food at: a French cafe for baguette sandwiches, the surprising Roka, Coffee Cake and Kink at Covent Garden, Song Que in Shoreditch, Ten Ten Tei around Chinatown and Addie's at Earls Court. A quick stop at Foyles, a couple of hours at the new Hockney on Turner exhibition at the Tate Britain, Kowloon Bakery for the usual, a pop into the new Whole Foods at High Street Kensington, and a stop at the Gap sale.

More details another time (if ever). The research continues. Can't believe I'll be in Singapore next week. Where does the time go?

London loves

First, Saturday lunch at Yauatcha, with some fusion-y dim sum (spinach wrapped prawn and water chestnut dumplings, the crispy 'box dumpling' which had prawn and date within and deep fried beancurd strips on the outside and served with plum sauce, some regular siu mai and a crispy duck roll), expensive tea which they don't refill (they can't really as they don't leave the er.. leaves in the pot) and some non-Chinese desserts (I had a coconut brioche burger with pistachio cream and cherry coulis as the filling). It's noisy and very blue, and they pack the tables together such that you can listen in on conversations and spy on their blueprints (we possibly sat next to the owner who was talking shop about opening Hakkasan in China). It has a minimalist concept, lots of whites and blues and a fishtank out front full of inedible fish.

Yauatcha
15-17 Broadwick Street, W1


And what is reunion dinner without steamboat! It was quite an adventure...

Buying veg and fishballs in Chinatown
Trying desperately to find sliced pork at the Japanese store - only to have the last 3 trays swiped under our noses.
Making our way to my cousin's friend's place in Kingston only to learn that the trains were not running all the way there and getting on a replacement bus service from Wimbledon which takes some 40 minutes.
Buying more stuff from Sainsbury's and finally getting to our destination where we start rinsing and chopping and boiling water only to wait
and wait
and wait
because it's a slow cooker.
(I've never done steamboat in anything but a steamboat so this definitely was a first.)
Then giving up on the slow cooker and transferring stuff to the rice cooker, which did work.



It was a ton of food including: mussels, prawns, two kinds of fishballs, enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, finely sliced fillet steak, salmon pieces, tunghoon, egg noodles, Chinese cabbage. And brownie after.

Sunday breakfast (CNY Day 1) was the ever popular nian gao (it's a sticky cake made from glutinous rice)!

The best way to eat nian gao - sliced up and fried in egg.


After a late breakfast, we made our way to the very grand British Museum



It has a fancy new roof.



Glorious ancient stuff.



And behold! Their reading room.

Lunch was some simple French food at Paul, which included some 20 minutes of queuing to get in.

Was it worth the wait?


Their bread sure was. It was crusty and to die for.


I ordered the Paillasson Campagnard (grated potatoes topped with mushrooms and dry cured ham)


Ching had the La Berrichonne (wholemeal bread, goat's cheese, ham, olive cream, tomato)

Covent Garden
29 Bedford Street
London WC2E 9ED


How was your new year?

No roads lead to Chinatown - coming soon!

happy holidays

The (temporary unannounced) hiatus from blogging is over and while I have so much to write about, I'll start with what i know best - the food. But basically, R finally arrived on Dec 18 and we've been doing some wandering around Brighton. And on Christmas Eve we went up to London for two nights to stay with my cousins in Hackney.

We hit Maggie Jones for a late Sunday roast on Christmas Eve. At about 18 pounds per three-course set, it wasn't exactly cheap but it was yummy.

My choice: Venison pate (served with toasted bread triangles), the roast beef with yorkshire pudding (perfect!), 'burnt cream' (a generous helping of creme brulee with a solid layer of caramelised sugar, so hard that it required several hard taps of the spoon to crack)

R's choice: Duck liver pate (served with toast and gherkins), roast lamb (not bad), apple crumble (a bit too sour)

Ching's choice: Stilton mousse (creamy and cheesy), seabreem (which wasn't up to standard and was kinda boney), passionfruit and mango terrine (nice and light and fruity).

The restaurant was too dark for photos and really quite crowded, and the waiter took a while to take our dessert orders but it was a good meal, a good start to two days of feasting.

Maggie Jones
6 Old Court Place, London, W8 4PL
Telephone: 0871 2238083

For Christmas Eve dinner, it was good old laksa (fresh from the Prima box!) with loads of fresh prawns and taupok.

On Christmas Day, the eating never seemed to stop, starting with breakfast of brioche lavishly spread with Nutella, then there was pasta for lunch and stollen and Dundee Cake. Then after a round of Cranium, the dinner began - parsnip soup, roast pistachio-crusted citrus-sesame oil-brown sugar-glazed lamb, wasabi mash, pureed carrots, and brussel sprouts with chestnuts. Dessert was apple-banana-mince crumble and a Somerfield Christmas pudding.

On Boxing Day, with leftover stollen, pudding and brioche in our stomachs, and the public transport finally up and running (somewhat) we took a bus over to the city and did a building tour, such as


The Gherkin


Leadenhall Market
photos by R

Then a stop by the baklava store in Hackney for an assortment of sweetsweetsweet stuff before heading back out for more food - this time in Chinatown, where the prerequisite stop is the Kowloon Bakery where I pushed my way to a boxful of pastries. And then to some Chinese restaurant for steamed fish, roast duck, hakka yong tau foo, spicy eggplant, beef and kailan, and preserved cabbage and pork soup. R and I headed back to Brighton on the megabus after the dinner, stuffed and happy.