The Sugar Bar

I met up with Alessio and Hilda at William Curley a while back. When I first moved to London, William Curley was one of the first few cafes/chocolatiers/patisseries I heard about but somehow never found time to head that way for a little look-see. It’s a bit out of the way considering I lived in the East but when I stopped by, I was enchanted. It’s a charming area speckled with beautiful furniture and chandelier light shops. I would’ve stopped to take some photographs of these shops but it was raining a little too persistently for me to fuss around in my bag for the camera. The rain, the grey and the puddles; maybe it was because I was leaving but talk about sympathetic background!

Bursting into William Curley a little late and windswept, shaking off the rain and putting the brolly away, the humble shop draws you into its comforting embrace. Warm yellow lights, a welcoming interior, ice cream and little sweet treats to delight. Not to mention Hilda’s little papoose. I seriously think she might be the cutest toddler I’ve ever met!

A chocolate ‘statue’. What an artwork! It was intense. Made all of chocolate, gold-painted and garnished with gold foil. I stuck my nose in real close to have a good look because I’m curious like a cat. This might have made the lady behind the counter terribly nervous. She warned me it was all chocolate and to be careful for it was very fragile (which I knew of course). But pardon moi, the hungry crazy eager look in my eyes must have triggered a few warning bells in her head.

Cheese Soufflé Tart • チイズ　スフレ　タルト

Tropical Entremet

Matcha & Kinako ice cream

I love eating ice cream in the summer. But love it especially when it rains, or snows. Strangely, the inclination to have ice cream when the weather is a little colder becomes so much more of an itch I just must scratch, or die. May have been a wee bit of a shameful affair to say that my first order at Curley was ice cream when there were so many exquisite little gâteaux available. I wasn’t let down anyhow. Kinako is gorgeous. I didn’t quite realize that kinako in ice cream would be quite so velvety and luscious.

William Curley was just about the last café stop in London which was a neat way to round it all up. But big love also to Hurwundeki which stole a few bits of my heart and robbed me a little bit of my soul.

•••

In Cambridge Heath, under the railway arches, hides not a nightmare or a monstrous troll…

The chugging of trains past and used vintage furniture shivers with the routine passing of people with places to go, people to meet. “Train terminates at this stop. All change please.”

And so I move in back with the parents. Home sweet home.

(**last 2 shots were taken on 120mm film on my Diana F+)

Photo from UcityGuides.com

The past month I’ve not only been busy but I’ve been considering the future of this blog. Should I give it a major facelift, should I redesign and reconceptualize everything seeing as this was really a brainchild of a teenager, should I scrap it completely or should I leave it to age in a corner with only some good photographs to keep for memory’s sake? I’m not sure yet where that’ll take me but once the decision is out, I’d be sure to post back here and let you all know. I’m at the crossroads.

One half of the hungry crew

Anyhows, last weekend Mowie organised a dinner for us hungry ghosts, including Suyin, Panu and Bruce, at Catty’s recommendation. I’d been told the ordering here was high-tech, you could play with your tables (literally) and the food was impressive. I mean, this is heaven’s playground for food geeks! The food was lush, the music being played in the restaurant groovy and chic, and the ambiance completely otherworldly. And as a first-timer to Inamo, you could be sure that I was reduced to a wide-eyed child, going back to basics to my 5 senses to explore the wonders of the world – Inamo’s world. I was utterly and completely in awe of anything that moved, on my table, that is.

The world is your oyster. The table is your iPad, or menu. Ie. You touch your table. There’s a little circular touchpad on the bottom right for you to maneuver through the menu of starters, main dishes, side dishes and dessert, drinks menu or other fun things like a map of the surrounding area, games, spy camera that stalks the chefs in the kitchen. Be careful not to get carried away with changing the ‘ambiance’ or settings of your table, or desktop (now I’m getting confused with restaurant dining or computer speak). Yes I kid you not, you can change the background of your table: send it to outerspace, to the rocky deserts or lotus gardens. Mad! Can’t decide? Your table’s got the ‘random shuffle’ function too. Some of the images are a bit neon or psychedelic but I suppose having your face lit up a ghostly cyan can be pretty fun whilst you chomp down on a Thai Green Curry or sumfin. Some people are into that.

It’s trippy and really fun. Only problem is that you might get way too engrossed with the damn table and forget you’re actually dining with others. You can play Battleship with your dining mate across the table, however. So that’s got my thumbs up. Although I’m shit at Battleship and got called a coward by Bruce for backing out in less than a second.

You know menus without pictures really put people off? And then there are those menus with ridiculous out-of-this-world very deceptive pictures that look nothing like the real deal when it gets dished out from the kitchen? Inamo shows you the image of your meal, when you hover over the option via your touchpad, and screens it onto the round plate-looking placemat set in front of you. So, it looks real, it looks like its there. It’s virtual menu. It’s virtual dining. OMG it makes me want to eat the table.

Well enough said. Here’s some of the food we ate. The dessert’s the pretty part and very impressive from what I tasted!

Truffle Marbled Beef

Black Cod with Spicy Miso

Berkshire Pork Neck with Apple Confit & Chocolate Sauce

Pandan Macaron, Yuzu White Chocolate Mousse with Lemongrass & Coconut Sorbet & Milk Chocolate Sauce

Vanilla Crème Brûlée

I would have taken more pics but the table’s a straight rectangle so getting across to the other side isn’t quite that easy. And with all the distractions offered from my table, why on earth would I be hanging on to the camera?! The meal was truly enjoyable and this futuristic way of dining a great experience. I would definitely go back here again and ban myself from the ‘games’ section.

Oh. And one more thing, if you’re a compulsive online shopper who loves sending truckloads of goodies into your online shopping basket with one click, practice restraint at Inamo. It’s easy to get carried away and click ‘ORDER’.

inamo restaurant
134-136 Wardour Street
Soho
London W1F 8ZP
Tel. for reservations: 020 7851 7051

It’s funny how sometimes you’ll find my friends and I standing about in a straight line, frozen stiff when there appears a swarm of squealing toddlers running zig zag about you or between your legs. It’s terrifying, absolute pandemonium unfolding before your eyes. A dear friend of mine even confessed this most ridiculous line: ‘I am allergic to two things; one of which is children.’ I don’t think I’m particularly allergic and I don’t really believe he meant what he said. Call it the heat of the moment. It’s perfectly logical in my opinion, however, that some people find children annoying, judging that the we’ve witnessed some which are just nightmares. But I have to admit that majority of the little buddies that I’ve met or spotted at work around the baby section are just truly adorable. And don’t get me wrong, I am in no way anti-children and I do want children in the future. Just a warning to my future kids though: discipline discipline discipline and then sweet treats on Sunday if you’re good otherwise you’re getting shoved under the stairs with no tea (your Mama Diva here’s giving you this headstart years in advance).

Nevertheless, when my soft spot for children goes away, I’ve been known to be a real mean dick – I’ve stolen candy from a kid before. So sue me. Who was that poor sucker? My sister. I stole her candy. I stole her whatever that thing is that babies suck on when they’re teething. I stole it right and good and it even waved it in her face, laughing.

I am mean and I ain’t gonna deny that. And oh yea, I’m greedy like that.

Maybe it’s because I’m still a child at heart. But humanity has got the better of me, civilization has socialized me and so I’ve stopped doing dumb things like that. If you can’t have what they have, make it for yourself. And so I did. My little sis C texted me to say Mum was making a lovely spread for breakfast Saturday morning. I wasn’t gonna lose at breakfast half a world away and if my mama can’t make it for me, suppose I’ve two hands, a pathetic kitchen but a brain nevertheless. The plan? To self-indulge in the kiddiest, cutest breakfast ever. And if mini-anything is not simply the cutest, I don’t know what is.

Catty has been tweeting about this – Matcha Madness. Matcha – one of the four foods I love most in the world (mushrooms, berries, matcha and black sesame seeds – they drive me wild). What is it about? You like matcha? You eat matcha? You want MORE matcha (from Teapigs)? Then head on over via the link and take part. Stop procrastinating. Go paint the town green.

So. I basically agreed to get involved, partly because I love to win things. Who doesn’t, right?? My post for it, however, is definitely not the most creative. And compared to the other things I’ve made before using matcha, this certainly pales in comparison so bad I probably shouldn’t have even bothered. And here comes the BUT. I gotta say the simple combination of flavours in this reminds me of Japanese Christmas Cake – strawberries, fluffy light sponge and whipped cream. This is quite perfect for the summer heat especially when British strawberries are at their best now, all red ripe and fat. Simply use your favourite pancake recipe (I’ve used one meant for dorayaki actually, recipe over here), whip up some double cream with matcha and a touch of icing sugar if needed. Put everything together including the ripest sweetest fat strawberries you can find and drizzle golden syrup over.

When I was a kid, I used to make up combinations of fruit and biscuit as dessert for my parents. After a meal, my mama would clear away the dishes and I’d be busy in the kitchen hacking away (alright, actually nimbly slicing away) at whatever fruit was available, banging together some biscuits, chocolate squares that sorta thing together and putting it all nicely on a plate a la smiley faces, concentric circles, towers, etc.

Some kids had Lego. I had fruit and biscuits.

This childish pancake stack is really a tribute to that little kid me. The cherry on top? Those broken bits of matcha biscuits I stabbed into the matcha whipped cream. I have so much class, now don’t I?