food

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What To Order…In A Caribbean Restaurant

If you went anywhere near the Notting Hill Carnival or the other one this weekend, you may have acquired a taste for Caribbean food. The Caribbean is a broad group of countries and islands – though there is much good eating out there in London …

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What To Order… In A Mexican Restaurant

So. You’re in a Mexican restaurant. You think you know what you want from the menu – it’s all the same, right? A bit of chilli con carne, some guacamole, maybe a few tortilla chips, a beer with a slice of lime or jug of …

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Royal Institution Announces Autumn Programme

Ah, the Royal Institution. Not a latter-day Bedlam for the blue of blood, but one of London’s foremost scientific centres of excellence. It was here that a certain Mr Faraday cobbled together the first electric generator and changed the world forever. The venerable organisation has …

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Loons In Robes

The Polyphonic Spree – Kokos, Monday 15th August In our time we’ve probably seen enough stage divers and crowd surfers to pack out a Coldplay video. We’ve seen stage diving singers, we’ve even seen a crowd surfing guitarist. But only now can we say that …

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What To Order… In A Polish Restaurant

The Polish presence is London is noticeable, and a good thing too: Polish restaurants and Polish food is widely available across London in the form of delicatessens, cafes, bars and restaurants. Polish food makes use of lots of sour cream, dill, rye, cabbage of all …

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TV Troll: TV Binge, TV Barf

Despair! Woe! Wailing and gnashing of teeth! Weltschmerz! Ennui! Wear black crêpe, tear out your hair – the end has finally come. Big Brother is over, and what on earth are we to do now? It’s a good thing, then, that someone at Channel 4 …

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Cinema Lovers

I have started dating a lovely lady who is also a serious film buff. After we watch a movie she says things like “Well, I thought the art direction was good but the script suffered from being over-written.” To which I have no response, as …

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London Mela

This Sunday, if you can get down to Gunnersbury Park in Ealing then you can join in the festivities at the third London Mela. Designed to display the “rich tableau of South Asian culture and creativity from London” the London Mela (Mela means ‘to meet’ …

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What to Order… In A Japanese Restaurant

There is something unspeakably classy and sophisticated about Japanese food – so intriguing, so beautiful, so modern and innovative and yet steeped in tradition and art. Most familiar to Londoners will be sushi, the bite size pieces of cold rice, seaweed and seafood or vegetables, …

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The Sleaziest Little Massage Parlour In Watford

It’s always nice to round off the week with a good ‘…and finally’ type story, and if it involves Barnet, massage parlours and take away food, then so much the better as far as we’re concerned. So here it is then: Watford Borough Council’s development …

What To Order… In A Turkish Restaurant

Turkish food is sometimes limited in a Londoner’s gastronomic experience to a post-pub greasy kebab that resurfaces the next day as a bad multicoloured burp. This is wrong. This is very, very bad and wrong. The Turkish (sometimes also known as Anatolian or Ottoman) cuisine …