Saturday, May 18, 2013

#40@40: A meal of worms!

An extreme little food experience to add to my list. I've heard it be said that in the coming years, due to the growing population and the cost food production we will be looking in other places for our daily food requirements. For western audiences this could mean trying something that a lot of the rest of the world has no problems with, eating insects.

I managed to find a place in London called Archipelago, which advertises exotic dinning. So I booked a table for a Saturday night. I coincided it with a visit from my girlfriend and took her along for a bit of moral support.

I didn't say where we were going to my girlfriend and had her trying to guess what we were doing all day. Do we need to dress up? What should we have at lunch so we didn't have it again at dinner?

I wouldn't budge and so that evening we found ourselves in a dark and mysterious street near Oxford Circus. Facing a door which could only be entered if you know the password. Fortunately such things are know to me, OK the man told me when I phoned and made the booking.

Inside the restaurant was also dark and mysterious with walls covered in wood carvings, knives and stuffed birds. We sat down in a comfy corner and were given the menus on a scrolls. To my girlfriend's credit she didn't make a run of it when she saw what was on the menu and in any case is was possible to pick items not too usual for western tastes.

The restaurant has a range of dishes with usual ingredients from the selection of insects to a range of different meats. I think vegetarians might be a bit disappointed, but we had plenty to choose from.

I started very tamely with a very tasty duck starter and my girlfriend dived straight in with crocodile in vine leaves! I tasted the crocodile and it was nice, a bit fishy/gamey if a little dry.

The Main course was duck for my girlfriend and bison steak for me. But this time I ordered the love bug side salad which contained crickets and locusts lovingly sprinkled onto a green leaf salad. The insects were very tasty and I found them crunchy a bit like eating bacon frazzles crisps.

My girlfriend declined my offer to taste them.

For pudding my girlfriend went for the sorbets and I had meal-worm caviar with sour cream and blinis
This too was very nice, a combination of crunch and sweet treacle to balance the sour cream.
Another pudding option which I didn't want to try was the chocolate covered scorpion, but only because it looked a bit small. Honest!

In all with the very nice wine it was a great experience, if a bit expensive, and I definitely would do it again and want to try some other bugs.

I wonder what I can order on the internet :)




Thursday, May 16, 2013

#40@40 Some proof

being a tourist...


on the Thames..

and on top of the Dome...

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

#40@40 And so it begins...


So how did I start on my 40@40 list?

Well, the best way to start is with a bit of a bang and go on as you mean to continue, so on my birthday, I decided to cross a couple of things off the list straight away.

First up, something touristy in London, a nice trip down the Thames by boat. Well OK, so I've done that before but this time is was a little different as the boat in question was a nippy RIB speed boat.

So on a grey Monday morning I joined a mixed group of people at Embankment pier. The group including a family doing a birthday treat and a group from Belfast that had done the marathon the day before. We all got kitted out in big waterproofs and were then escorted onto a huge yellow rubber boat with bench seats up front for twelve people.

The first part of the trip was a straight forward tour of London with lots of interesting facts about the buildings on the Thames. We went up river past the houses of Parliament, were we where warned that if we steered too close we would be shot at, and then on up to MI5 and MI6 buildings hearing about their history with the sound of the James Bond theme tune playing on the speakers.
Then we turned back and headed down river past a whole host of landmarks until we got level with the police station at Wapping High Street. At this point we left speed limit zone and our driver could really open the throttle.

Whoosh!!

Wow this is quite fast, a big smile came across my face.
But that was only half speed, next they really put their foot down and it felt like we weren't touching the water at all.

Double wow! and now the smile is a huge grin as we flew along with to the tune of Hawaii five-O and more James Bond.

So we where having a great time rushing along and seeing the sights. It was at this point that they started to make the boat do turns. They started pulling great arcs in the water tipping the boat right over. This caused a fair amount of yelps of alarm and grabbing of safety rails, followed by much laughter. We ping-ponged from side to side down past Canary Wharf and whizzed down the river all the way to nearly level with my flat. It was at this point we did a huge u turn the width of the river and raced on back up the Thames.

The last section of the trip, back in the slow zone, you could see huge grins and laughing in the group as we caught our breaths. We went slowly back to the dock with a medley of music on the speakers. We had chariots of fire for the marathon runners and Stevie Wonder's happy birthday for me.

It ended with a smooth finish and an opportunity to buy the official pics. Then I was back on dry land with slightly shaky legs, after having great fun and memories of a trip I would recommend to anyone.

...And so on to the next item

After lunch it was over to East London for a walk over the Millennium dome, now know as the O2. They have built a walkway which goes 52m high and 350m over the O2 from south to north. As the dome itself is basically a big tent, the walk way is suspended slightly above it so you don't quite walk on the surface and chance a drop through to all the pedestrians down below. The walkway seems to be made from the same material as bouncy castles and it was definitely a bouncy walk in the spacemen style.

The 90 minute 'experience' started with a safety briefing and getting fitted out in big blue jump suits and full body safety harness (which goes over the shoulders rather than just the waist unlike my climbing harness) which is made quite tight, the upshot of which makes you walk a bit bent over. Security was quite tight, as they were worried about damaging the dome. We were just allow to take our mobile phones up with us no other cameras, wallets, bags, etc in case we might drop onto the dome. In fact there is a special pocket in the suit on the shoulder of the jump suit designed just for our phones (can you tell the 'experience' is sponsored by a mobile company).

I was joined for my walk, by a group of ten people from British Gas, who were on some sort of team building trip. It was just me, the instructor and all of them. We started with the group photos, OK a group photo for the BG people and a solo one for me. Then it was on up the stairs and onto the walk itself. The harness is linked to a safety wire and the whole thing feels very secure, in fact despite the height I didn't get any sense of vertigo for the whole walk. We headed north making quick progress despite it being quite windy and had lots of opportunities for a good look at the sights around East London.

We were soon at the round platform at top where we could get our phones out and stop for photos and take in the view. There is even a special official iPhone app, which I used up there, to give you augmented reality at the top so you can see information on the things you are seeing. Of course the app also allows you to 'check in' up there and send out various other social media updates, with maybe a little advert from the sponsors.

To add to the strangeness of the experience of a group of people all dressed in blue climbing up at 52m high tent in the wind, there was also the sounds coming from the dome below. A huge WWE raw wrestling event was happening below and every now and again we could hear the roar of the crowd rising up through our feet at some turn on fortune of one of the fighters.

Eventually it was time to head on down, this time via a steeper slope all the way to the ground. Being careful not to slip and trying to catch a sight of the Olympic stadium we reached the end of the walk. All that was then left to do was return our fetching costumes and buy some souvenirs.

It's another great thing to do for a day out in London, as long as it isn't too stormy, I would heartily recommend a stroll over the O2.

All in all the day was a great success for my list and not a bad way to spend my Birthday. I rounded it off with steak and ribs for dinner and then took my brain off the hook and watched 'Olympus has fallen' at the cinema.

What next I wonder...

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

Oporto

I'm sitting on a sun chair on a balcony in Oporto with a cup of coffee waiting for the others to get up. It would be perfect except for the bloody noisy seagulls and the fact that it's raining slightly. 

Yeap typical Englishman on holiday behaviour sitting out no matter what just because I'm on holiday. To be fair the first couple of days here were lovely weather and I've got if not a tan exactly, a lot more freckles than I did last week.

The reason for the trip is an interesting one, it was a surprise birthday party for Ryan, a mate of mine from the old work. We have been keeping it a secret for half a year or so which is a properly hard thing to do. I wasn't so bad for me as I don't see him everyday but every time I saw him it was the first thing to pop into my mind. So 12 of us took an early flight down on Friday and were hiding in the apartment for when Ryan and Izzy turned up. We hid out the back and BOOM jumped out spraying champagne cameras as they walked through. 

The look on Ryan's face was priceless

Izzy did an amazing job of organising it all and we have all enjoyed a long weekend of beaches, walking over very tall bridges (44.6m) and way too much port tasting.