June '07

Back to work ...

Our one week of leave was over too soon ... :(

The groceries arrived today, and we went out to buy some bulgur wheat from Camden (after fetching ourselves some much needed coffee). We'd been eating out all of last week so it's home cooking for the rest of this week!

Made lamb kebab, tabouleh and cucumber with mint yoghurt for dinner.

Saw Grendel

At the Underworld in Camden.

Food, glorious food ...

As Fifi and Polly headed off to the Burberry warehouse thingy somewhere, Muffin and I made a pilgrimage to the Borough Markets.

For some strange reason, the Chorizo sandwich queue was nonexistant. So we joined the queue at the Hobbs Roast sandwich place, and Muffin got a salt beef with mustard and pickles while I ordered a pork sandwich with apple sauce ... washed down with Monmouth coffee ...

Later that night, we headed to Belgo Centraal in Covent Garden for dinner. We waited for 45 mins (after taking a spin round the block and discovering nothing else better) before we were finally shown to our tables ...

It was well worth the wait!

We'll definitely be back -- with more people to share food with!

Brick Lane and Wellcome Museum

We had a hankering for curry, so we headed to Brick Lane.

After walking past many curry joints, including lotsa upmarket-looking types, we decided to settle for the plainest looking cafe, where there were actually native Indian diners in it. Alright, I admit it -- I was initially attracted to it for the sweets on display on the window ...

After much googling about (when I got home later), turns out we found the BEST curry joint in Brick Lane by accident -- we've decided to make Sweet and Spicy one of our regular haunts.

We had a dhal, a chicken curry, masala tea, and some Indian sweets ... all very tasty, and cheap.

We then headed to the Wellcome Museum, which had just opened yesterday ... The exhibits were very informative ... too informative, even -- I actually passed out in the Heart exhibition .. which featured a video of an open heart operation ... (woops)

I found out that my heart beats at a slow 60bpm. Which is good coz I found the formula for life expectancy ... and slow heart rate means longer life :) Hooray for turtles, too bad for mice ...

Brighton

We woke up in the afternoon and decided to slowly set off to Brighton ...

Chilling out at the London Aquarium

We made a concerted effort to wake up early enough to make it to the London Aquarium just in time for the shark feeding (at 2pm). We waded through hordes of tourists in the South bank (they were queuing for the London Eye and many of the other attractions nearby) but we were glad for the relative quiet of the aquarium (and that there weren't too many schoolchildren about).

The London Aquarium is certainly very impressive, with huge tanks and many species on display.

It's well worth the £ 13 or so pounds. And the mackerel tank made us hungry ... The petting tank was fun -- there were a quite a few frisky rays with their fins poking out wanting to be fondled ...

Later that day, we headed off to Covent Garden for our fix of Monmouth coffee ...

Nice food at M&S

It was one of those days where nothing much happened.

First of all, Muffin was still *working* on our day off. By the time he was ready to go out it was already late ...

So we decided to hop on a bus and head towards Kensington High Street. Most of the shops were closing, so we headed into Marks and Spencers, and found a nice Deli counter which served food.

London

As Fifi was in town, we took her and her family for a quick touristy spin about London.

First stop, Borough Markets. Pigged out on Chorizo Sandwiches, roast sandwiches, Monmouth coffee, cakes, raclette, hot chocolate ...

Satiated, we made our way to the Tower of London , taking the odd happy snaps along the way.

As we only had one and a half hours at the Tower of London we didn't get to see everything (such as the torture chambers) but we did see the Crown Jewels and the Bloody Tower. In all, not worth the £ 16, I thought.

Hungry again, we headed to Gilgamesh restaurant for dinner. The restaurant certainly looked impressive inside -- filled with stone and marble carvings depicting the setting of its Babylonian namesake.

The menu can be described as Pan Asian (must remember to get photos of Fifi) -- and we ordered 5 of the 7 Gilgamesh dishes (an aubergine and tofu curry; a red duck curry; a wasabi steak; a lamb rendang type dish; and a green chicken curry). The dessert menu didn't look too exciting and we were too full anyway. In all the dishes were all very nicely done and tasty, tho the curries were waaay too rich. We saw other people's food walking past -- next time we've gotta try the sushi!

 

It's like wearing ... nothing at all! (nothing at all! nothing at all!)

And so we had just finished having lunch at Soba near Soho, when suddenly I noticed something flashing by ...

And then more flashes ... of flesh! Unprotected flesh, I might add!

I hope those cyclists didn't get too chafed!

And just when I didn't have my camera handy too -- hence the blurry phone camera shots ... :P I managed to get one full frontal shot as well ... tho I don't think I'll post it here ;)

Now I hope people will believe me when I say the Brits strip down to their underwear (or worse!) as soon as the thermometer hits 15 degrees Celcius ...

Speaking of fuzz, we watched Hot Fuzz later that night. Pretty funny! :)

 

Slug

Feeling a little sluggish from doing nothing but working from home, we decided to go for a stroll at Hampstead Heath -- and found this guy slowly making its way across the path ...

We brought a Tiramisu to work to share today. Yum!