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After having dinner with Marc and Amanda last week, I noticed Spitalfields had a Taste festival this weekend. Less of a farmer’s market and more of a food festival with lots of samplers, Spitalfields appeared much busier than it normally is on a Saturday with a number of new stalls bolstering the handful of the normal ones just outside where Giraffe and Canteen sit.

A few street entertainers including a number of chefs on stilts, another juggling chef, kept the audience mildly amused by walking the small kids surrounding the small petting zoo. As I mentioned previously the food focused on selling sample wares from local restaurants. Everything appeared there from fresh scallops, mushroom risotto, ox heart burgers (of course provided by St John’s restaurant), and plenty of stalls to keep everyone happy. They even had a number of places offering free New Zealand lager and best of all, an organic cider place that proved perfect protection against the chills of the cold spring winds.

I’d definitely go back to Taste next year, although I hope they put the central stage somewhere other than in the middle of the crowd where it effectively blocks all pedestrian traffic whenever a show is on.

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I’ve been especially lucky in my two and a half years in London that my commute always seemed to be outside of peak hours, or at least, I could travel during peak hours on alternatives other than the tube. This means I’ve been able to walk to wherever my client or office is, or I’d be travelling much earlier/later than the majority of London.

The last week has seen me brave the central line at peak times. I’m a big fan of the central line - it tends to be fast, frequent and have the least number of delays (which is easy compared to the district or circle lines I used to depend on). Its other major advantage (often duel playing as a disadvantage) is that, like its name, the line cuts straight through the middle of London. It spans all the way out west, through the west end, continuing on to the city and further east. Combine this with its speed and you can literally fly through London, that is, if you can get on.

I’ve learned that if I catch the central line any time between 5:30pm and 6:30pm, it’s best to know what side you want to get off, and stay close to the exit. When people get on and off at places like Oxford Circus and Holborn, people don’t really hesitate to fill any space they can see, or even simply think there is. Others may shuffle at some point to free some breathing space, though it’s guaranteed to be packed. To be honest, it feels extremely claustrophobic and I find it difficult to remain perfectly polite when you’re trying to exit without stepping on anyone’s toes, or bumping into anyone else’s body.

Of course, this is all a part of living in a big city like London and I knew it was bound to happen. At least I haven’t had the experience of the entire tube station shutting down because of the sheer number of commuters overwhelming the station capacity.

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Last week I took advantage of the Oyster card 2-for-1 entry into the London Aquarium. I’ve been past the area plenty of times before and thought it’s about time to make a day out of it. With the two of us, entry is just under £7, a reasonable fare for entry into a decent underwater world as far as London goes. Compared to the aquariums I’ve visited in Australia and Singapore, I’d have to say that London disappoints.

Perhaps I found the crowds too pushy. Most especially were a number of foreign couples who didn’t even have kids trying to squirm their way in front of a tank for photos I could tell just wouldn’t work out. Surprisingly I found those who had kids appeared the most placid, wildly aware of the chaos the tiny make.

They have a decent number of collections, especially a large tank holding a number of sharks and a huge assortment of fish. The aquarium also has a display showing mangroves, and the best part, a touching pool where curious stingray swim towards the number of arms reaching out to pat their scaly backs.

Would I recommend this place to visitors? I probably wouldn’t unless they’ve never been to an aquarium before. It’s not bad to do if you’re running out of things to do in London (is that even possible?) though I think there is much better places to go to first.

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Elephant and Castle isn’t exactly well known for its thriving Chinese community and so Dragon Castle is a great surprise for those craving Chinese food on the south side of the river. You enter the restaurant through one of two doors alongside a towering red gate fronted by two standard Chinese lions only to enter a small foyer entrance. Compared to the other restaurants found in Chinatown, I thought this place looked much larger in space.

Given the large spaces, I thought the waiters and waitresses would push carts around though it turns out I was wrong. Instead, you walk down a large and grandiose path placed alongside the wall of the stretched out room and then shown to one of the tables clustered next to each other on the other, ordering from a small menu.

The attendants really earn their service in this place. Unlike many other dim sum places, our pot of tea always remained piping hot, constantly filled without any requests. The little parcels arrived at a steady pace without the sudden overcrowding other places give you and they quickly whisk the dishes away as soon as you’re completely done and, most importantly, not when you’re almost done with your chopsticks still picking up the food.

The food is excellent value and the quality reasonable though I wouldn’t claim it’s the best that I’ve had. The dim sum menu isn’t as overwhelming as many other places, instead keeping to a core set of favourable dim sum favourites. We also managed to order a main dish that remained off the dim sum menu and they seemed happy to oblige.

Details: Dragon Castle
Found at: 100 Walworth Road, SE17 1JL, London
Highlights: Decent quality dim sum at extremely reasonable prices in the place you’d least expect it.
Room for improvement: Would be a much better experience if they used carts to wheel food around for a more authentic experience.
The Kua Rating: 7.5 out of 10

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Friday night saw a large crowd descend upon the O2 to witness American superstar, Alicia Keys. We had fairly decent tickets on the side of the stage, especially considering how many different tiers the O2 has. Unlike many other configurations in the O2, on this night all the area in the middle had been filled with seats. It kind of makes sense when you think about how laid back many of Keys’ songs can be.

The first support act was unmemorable in the form of some DJ playing R&B tunes followed by the old band, Soul 2 Soul. Although Soul 2 Soul looked like they’d recently joined with plenty of new fresh talent, I found their act quite weird. They had one big hit that they saved until the end, although the band seemed like a tribe of musicians where the actual make up changed through several generations.

And back to the main act. Keys played a great collection from her new and older albums, including saving many of her popular songs like Fallin’ for the final encore. Impressively I think she played for almost a straight two hours, weaving a semi dramatic story to tie all the songs together and give the show some flow. It was obvious the audience really enjoyed the show Keys put on, and evident that Keys really enjoys performing with her beaming smile and delightful laughter filling in the gaps between her conversations with the audience.

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The bright colours and huge display of cakes in the window attracted us to this little cafe off the side of on the seven dials streets in Covent Garden. £2.60 will buy you one of these colourful cakes with plenty of flavours including Banoffee, Lemon and White Chocolate, Carrot, Raspberry and Peach and many more, with all of them uniquely decorated and distinctly eye catching.

When I bought one, it seemed too big to be a cupcake, yet too iced to be a reasonable sort of muffin and I guess when I tasted it, also seemed to have that confused identity just as well. If it was a muffin, it was a little bit too tough, and if it was a cupcake, definitely not moist enough - either way the batter seemed like it’d been overmixed when put together. I made the mistake you normally don’t make with a balanced muffin/cupcake by eating the top bit separately from the rest of the cake. Without the super sweet icing, the base cake just seemed rather bland, and then with just the icing top and the top, the sweetness and raw flavour overpowered what cake was left.

Unfortunately I don’t think these cakes are for me - the excessive sweetness imbalance out weighing the attractiveness of this cakes. Had I needed something to display on a table, or needed a super sugar rush, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy them though I think it’d be a plain waste. It might suit some people out there though.

Details: Candy Cakes
Found at: 36 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9HB
Highlights: Eye catching colourful cakes attract you to an equivalently brightly decorated cafe
Room for improvement: Excessively sweet (at least for me) and the cake wasn’t light enough or crumbly enough to make it a truly satisfying cake.
The Kua Rating: 6 out of 10

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I have no idea what made me agree to see the musical Cabaret - it could have been the discount tickets combined with not really knowing much about the story. I was expecting the worst, and I guess it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. Very disappointed with the last real west end musical I saw, I left the show probably best described as slightly ambivalent.

We had excellent seats and it’d been the closest I’d been to a stage yet at only three rows away from the front. Whether or not it’s good or bad, we could see everyone’s face in so much detail that we could, to much of our amusement, see the spit fly into the audience as they annunciated their words as much as possible. Fortunately they limited their sharing with the audience to the front row.

I guess the performers to Cabaret must be comfortable with each other with several scenes best described as, how do I put it, rather raunchy in either the things they did or the things they wore (and sometimes what they didn’t wear). The story is set between the 1930s and 1940s and centres around an American guy and English woman in the heart of Berlin. One of the other actors, best known from Home and Away plays a very poor German, his accent slipping into a blend that sounded almost Russian at times and the other probably most well known celebrity, Julian Clary who plays the narrator, surprisingly good at his role.

Whilst I wouldn’t recommend this musical for everyone, I guess some people would find the story entertaining, or at least recognise some of the songs that made this musical famous.

Thekua.com Rating: 5 out of 10

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I’m a little late posting this, as you can see from Gerrod.com, though I still wanted to write this up. Last Saturday I went out to Chiswick to farewell good friends Ben and Michelle as they go on a huge trip travelling around before heading back to Brisvegas. Here they are below:

I can remember when I first arrived in London, one of the first things I did was attend a surprise birthday party Michelle organised for Ben and, I guess he was quite shocked to see me. It helps you, when moving to a new city, to have people you already know and having Michelle and Ben around is like the solid rock you get as a foundation to build on. I know they’ve had plenty of fun, lots of travel and met lots of new friends. I’m very glad they’ve had a great London experience.

I wish them the best for their travels, and though I know I’ll be sad to not be able to catch up with them in London, I know I will see them sometime in the future. Best wishes guys and happy travels!

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