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Ask people who live in London and I’m sure a few of them would have eaten at the Japanese Canteen. It’s one of those chain stores that specialises in, well I suppose obvious from the name, Japanese Cuisine. I’ve eaten there twice and been disappointed both times trying some of the different dishes. The katsu dish I ate was well over-fried, resulting in a very dry meat that should really be nice and moist, and wasn’t really helped by the excessive drenching of katsu sauce. I love katsu sauce on its own though its far too easy to get since it comes bottled in lots of Asian grocery stores. The katsu dish wasn’t even served with anything extra (no pickled ginger or side) other than lots and lots (and lots!) of rice - which helps to explain the cheap price tag. The other dish I’ve had there was sushi and it was definitely rather ordinary as well - they didn’t really have much variety and I definitely had concerns around what looked like, not-so-fresh seafood.

Details: Japanese Canteen
Found on: Lots of places in London
Highlights: Cheap, westernised version of Japanese
Room for improvement:Don’t expect this to come close to authentic Japanese cuisine.
The Kua Rating: 3.5 out of 10

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Last week I took a couple of days off to trip up to Scotland with some friends to go on a Whiskey Tour of Scotland. We flew into Aberdeen to drive down to a postcard perfect farmhouse in Dufftown - a place surrounded by whiskey distilleries. Glenfiddich’s distillery lies not far from where we were staying though we hit a few other ones from Speyside (the greater area). Unlike the Islay whiskeys, Speyside ones tend to be less smokey and cleaner on the palette though newcomers to whiskey drinking will tell you they all taste the same.

Like most good tours through any brewery or distillery, at the end you get a sample of wares to try. The most impressive range was at the Abelour distillery that gives you six drams to test out at the end - including one small one of the still (the end result of the distillation process that has a stunning 70% alcohol content).

I really enjoyed the trip to Scotland. It has amazing scenery with rolling hills filled with trees, sheep, cows and horses. We ate some black pudding and haggis with breakfast, and even got to try the infamous (heart attack inducing) deep fried mars bar. Scottish people are extremely friendly and warm, making visiting all the places we visited all the more enjoyable. I even bought a bottle of whiskey that I found by the Dufftown Distillery distilled in the year and month of my birth. Scotland also has some fantastic produce with fresh fish, and hearty steaks and meat which means it’s really hard to not eat well.

A great trip with fantastic company - thanks Jason, Ali, Gavin, JK, Dave, Jake, Kate, Tom and Claire! You can check out a set of photos here.

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Is it ever wrong to have a BBQ? My texan friend Ajit has been talking about having a BBQ for quite some time now, and it was this weekend that he organised for a bunch of us to come around. Luckily for me I’ve gone back to eating meat, and meat there was indeed with a plethora of pork chops, steak and delicious Spanish chorizo sausages as well as all the sides. He’s got a great patio as well to grill meats which helps keep the smoke outside.

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One of my favourite breakfast treats to make at home are pancakes – not your thin, crepe-like ones but hearty fluffy ones that go well with fresh fruit and maple syrup. Here’s some I made this weekend for my new flatmates and myself.

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Well it’s been a month since I vowed to become a vegetarian so I thought it best to let you know how I went…

Being a vegetarian has been quite easy and I haven’t found myself any more tired or any more restless because of it. In fact I think I’ve actually felt a whole lot better overall since I think I’m getting my variety of fruit and vegetables every day. I don’t think I’ve eaten out as much and certainly haven’t had much Chinese in the last month compared to what I normally would (probably better for my sodium intake). Eating out with people hasn’t been as hard as I thought - generally it’s easier to choose because you don’t have as many options, and I’ve tried a whole new variety of things. I’ve also tried cooking a few things that I normally wouldn’t cook, and that has been very nice learning experience.

On the negative side of this experience, it’s meant missing out on a whole selection of foods that I could have tried at new places I ate at. I also was very conscious about not eating lots of cheese and eggs since that’s an easy choice but means that my saturated fat intake would have rocketed. I don’t have any cravings for meat, but the one that I think I’ve missed the most that would have made eating out much easier was really seafood - especially fish and prawns.

I haven’t decided if and when I will go back to eating meat - I might give it just a little bit of a longer chance to play out.

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Last night I went along to see the Australia vs Denmark football (aka soccer) match held out at White City. It was a very disappointing game for all the Antipodeans given that Denmark scored within the first 10 minutes and managed three by the end of the first half. We managed to score one in the second half but it was apparent we were unlikely to win. Other than being supremely cold in the stadium on the plastic chairs, it was a fun night and nice to get out and support some sport.

Final score: Australia 1 - Denmark 3

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Waking up in the very early morning hours on a Saturday morning (say 5am) is not one of those things I’d choose to do very often – but given the option of going to Paris for the weekend is one small sacrifice I thought I could make this week. Luckily for me I managed to get a couple of cheap Eurostar tickets to head over to the lovely city of Paris for the weekend. It was a good test of travelling to a country whilst being vegetarian and successfully made too, though with some difficultly but more of that later.

Catching the Eurostar makes so much of a difference compared to going by plane since there is no lengthy trip to the airport and you arrive in the centre of the city both ends. Better yet you also get a lot more room and catching a snooze is relatively easy even in economy class.

Both days was packed with travelling to all the different sights that Paris has to offer. Fortunately the first Sunday of the month also means that all the museums in the city are open for free that also means that you get to enter all the museums much faster. On Sunday I managed to do a whirlwind tour of several of the museums including the Louvre, Museum D’Orsay, the Picasso Museum and the Rodin Museum. The Louvre is quite an exciting place to visit but is overshadowed by the large number of crowds drawn there for the Mona Lisa and the now popular Da Vinci Tour. I really enjoyed the Museum D’Orsay as well for its variety but the upper floors started to get really quite claustrophobic in the afternoon. My most favourite museum for the weekend was definitely the Rodin Museum – most of it is actually outside with a beautifully kept garden littered with a number of Rodin’s statues including the famous thinker. I think it seemed like a classic hang out spot for a lot of Parisians since I noticed a lot of people hanging around all the numerous benches and steps in the garden, reading their books at a leisurely pace.

Surprisingly I didn’t find it excessively difficult eating out in Paris as a proper vegetarian – I think it helped that my guide books pointed me to a couple of vegetarian restaurants. My of the diet for the weekend seemed to centre on pastries, egg, cheese and mushrooms. Unfortunately most of the French food was out since the focus seemed to be around lots of meat (chicken, duck, beef, fish, etc) and it was a shame since I was looking forward to some very nice French cuisine. I almost got tripped up on the way home by attempting to eat a spinach tart for dinner before heading home but quickly found out after a bite it contained bacon. Needless to say I ended up passing on it.

I really enjoyed my weekend in Paris – the public transport system is extremely efficient and affordable although it’s also a very pedestrian friendly city. The language barrier, though higher than I expected didn’t really end up being such a barrier, especially if you really tried to give French a good attempt. There are plenty of activities and areas to appease all types of travellers and I’ll definitely look forward to going back when I go off experimenting with vegetarianism.

Check out some photos from my weekend away here.

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After living in a city for a while I think you start to form ideas of which websites offer you the a good insight into the city. London has a huge number of sites showing what’s on where, and interesting news ranging from the BBC to Timeout. A favourite website of mine recently is Londonist - a blog put together by various people writing about all different aspects ranging from music, food, photography and news all about London. I highly recommend the read, and would enjoy hearing which site’s are your favourite.

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