Ljubljana: Lovely and Lively, even on Easter Sunday

We arrived in Ljubljana last night with few expectations, figuring only that we would be hard pressed to find any open restaurants or stores today, which is Easter Sunday. But it turns out that Ljubljana has such a lively, gracious cafe culture that not even Easter Sunday prevents crowds of friends and family from gathering along the riverside walkways and cafes.

The part of Ljubljana that interests weekend visitors like us is the scenic Old Town, whose streets center on the banks of the Ljubljanica River. Like Old Towns across Europe, there is a lot of charm by way of cobblestones and brightly-colored Baroque buildings, but what sets Ljubljana’s Old Town apart is how well-maintained and “human scale” everything is. The green weeping willows that line the River and the city’s pedestrian bridges are uber-poetic. I’d love to return sometime soon.

Things to Do:

The Ljubljana Castle is a little disappointing as castles go, mostly because there doesn’t appear to be a lot of historical significance to the building. Instead, the Castle has been modernized so that you can have your wedding or private party there, or you can climb a modest clock tower for views of the city below and then watch a 30-minute computerized rendering of Ljubljana’s development and growth from around 500 AD to the present.

Jon and I laughed when we followed signs to a “gallery” and found ourselves gazing at 20 photos of construction workers putting together the funicular that connects the Castle to the Old Town below. In an attempt to find the gallery exit, we ended up in some little cave that housed a weird art installation. Lights with smurf-hat-shaped glass covers grew “up” out of the cave floor, as if they were stalagmites, and playing in the background was this creepy, echoey, New Age-sounding music. We high-tailed it out of there as fast we could. You just never know what you’re going to find at a castle, I guess.

Overall, the Castle’s worth a climb and a look because it’s so easy to reach from Old Town, and the Castle cafe is sleek and comfortable when you need a break. But if you don’t make it up the hill, it’s not a huge loss.

We tried to visit the Slovene Ethnographic Museum (because there’s a special exhibit taking place about China’s influence on Slovenia – curious, no?), but it was closed for Easter Sunday. The sleek cafe (yet another museum with a really nice cafe!) was open, though, and packed with guests. Again, no doubt about the strong the cafe culture here.

Although our trip to the Museum was a bust, we loved the walk there. We passed through some run-down-looking areas, and highlights were the “Boston Fried Chicken” and the “Red ‘N’ Hot Horse” restaurants. The latter actually specializes in horsemeat, and the former – well, who knew Boston was famous for its fried chicken?

Because most cafes were open today, Jon and I grabbed a riverside seat this afternoon at an inviting place called Corso. We read novels (Suite Francaise is stunning, by the way), nursed our blood-orange Oranginas, listened to passing oompah bands and accordion players, and basked in the sunshine while the world walked by. Very action packed day.
The one open shop that tempted us today was the salt boutique. Cooking has definitely risen in prestige when there’s a salt specialist sitting next to the Bang & Olufsen. The place is called Piranske Soline, and according to a 2007 New York Times article, Alain Ducasse and unnamed top chefs favor salt from this place. Although the store helper couldn’t explain the differences among the various salts for sale, we took it on faith (in Alain Ducasse?) that at these prices, the salt has got to be out of this world. So we will report back if our 15 euros’ worth of salt isn’t worth the money.

Where We Stayed:

Our hotel, the Antiq Hotel, sits on one of the Old Town’s charming cobblestoned streets and is within a 10-minute walk of most shops and restaurants. The room we have is enormous but still welcoming, and at 153 euros a night, including breakfast, it’s a great value. The hotel is a family-run business housed in what looks like a former townhouse, and the service is very friendly and helpful. My one complaint is that our shower was a little iffy when it came to consistent hot water, but overall, I would stay here again.

Eating:

Eating in Ljubljana has also been great value. The food we’ve had is very similar to Italian food – lots of fresh pastas and pillowy-soft gnocchi, for example. The Eastern European/German influence shows in the popularity of stewed meats, and this blend of influences works fine.

Zlata Ribica (“The Golden Fish”), near the city’s famous Triple Bridge (photo at top of this post), is casual, friendly, and served great soups and good pastas. Jon’s roasted garlic soup was deliciously creamy and sweet. Sopping it up with bread was like eating the ultimate fondue. My beef broth with noodle soup was refreshing and packed with flavor, but it was no show-stopper when compared with the garlic soup. Jon’s tagliatelle was fresh and al dente, and my gnocchi was fluffy (though mixed with a slightly-tough pork stew), and we were happy as clams pairing everything with a decent, slightly-watery local cabernet sauvignon (2004 Vinakoper Capris). Total tab: 37 euros. Brilliant.

Paninoteka: For 2,80 euros each, we gorged ourselves on fresh arugula, prosciutto and cheese panini. We couldn’t have asked for a quicker, tastier lunch than the hot sandwiches from this small shop on the west side of the Cobbler’s Bridge.

Julija: Because it’s around the corner from our hotel, Jon and I walked by this restaurant half a dozen times today, and we were drawn to the menu (seafoods, pastas, risottos) and the decor (cheery, whimsical Baroque, like at Serendipity 3 in New York).

So when our friends, Colleen, Sarah, and Damon, arrived in Ljubljana this evening, Julija is where we headed to dinner. Our starters were good, especially the grilled eggplant-and-cheese (fresh ingredients hot and cheesy, where can you go wrong?). My risotto with clams was al dente and chock full of clams for a mere 9,50 euros. Spaghetti carbonara was unusually, but addictively, nutty and creamy (I feel like I ate most of Jon’s and Sarah’s orders), and the gnocchi eaters claimed much fluffiness was in effect. The white we ordered, a sauvignon blanc from a local vineyard, Kristancic, paired well with our meal, and we left full and happy campers with a bill that came to 15 euros a person.

Tomorrow, the five of us are driving down to Istria, where we hope some fun in the sun awaits!

If you enjoyed reading this post, you might also enjoy the following about Istria, Croatia:

• Hill Towns in Istria:  Mrgani, Motovun, Groznjan (posted 20 April 2007)
• Seaside Towns in Istria:  Rovinj and Pula (posted 24 April 2007)
• Eating and Drinking in Istria, Croatia (posted 2 May 2007)

Abercrombie & Fitch: American retail in London

Good Friday is a public holiday in the UK, which means I had the day off from work. Jon and I are leaving for a ten-day vacation tomorrow (Slovenia and Croatia with our friends from college), but the weather was so sunny and inviting today, we started our holiday in town by picnicking in Hyde Park with friends and then going on a scavenger hunt in Westminster.

While we were out and about, I noticed a lot of double-decker buses emblazoned with Abercrombie & Fitch ads. They’re hard to miss thanks to the double-decker size of the half-naked hottie featured, and it reminded me to describe my visit to the new Abercrombie flagship store in London.

Only if you work in retail (or if you are a hardcore fan of the store – i.e., an affluent, white, twenty-something) might you know that the London store opened to the UK public on 22 March and is Abercrombie’s first venture outside North America. I, however, showed up a few days before the 22 March opening to be part of an “investor tour,” which is an open house-style event for people who own (or might own) big chunks of Abercrombie stock. You show up, get your name crossed off a list by an investor relations/PR-type person, walk around inspecting stuff, maybe talk to corporate reps (the CEO and folks less august), and then leave with swag.

The store sits on Savile Row and is steps away from the Burlington Arcade. If that last sentence meant nothing to you, I’m saying the area where the Flagship opened is super old-school in a big-jewelry, expensive Grandma-soap kind of way. It’s a funny place to locate a store that aggressively sells youth and sex.

Also confusing to me is how nondescript the store is. There was no signage and I almost walked past the entrance – that is, until I heard the pounding techno music inside. The Flagship is housed in a sober stone building whispering “private club,” rather than shouting “American retailer of sexy clothes.” (See photo at top)

Inside, the store was service heaven. It was like being back in America – there were helpers galore.  The staff had American accents, and everyone was asking if they could help. No need for the requisite dance with British servers to get basic help (“oh, please, would you ever be so kind as to take the time out of your busy day to see if perhaps you might possibly have this T-shirt in a different size?”). I mean, I’m not saying in America it’s OK to be rude or mean (never acceptable, anywhere in the world), but just that in the US, you can say “do you have this in a different size” without drawing a scornful “what an asshole” look from people who were presumably hired to help you.

As you’d expect from Abercrombie, the helpers were embarrassingly good-looking. An especially attractive young man and woman greeted guests/investors in the vestibule, and as is the Abercrombie way, the man was standing around without a shirt – the idea being that if you want to be like He of the Rippling Abs, you should buy Abercrombie’s £40 T-shirts.

The store interior was all high drama. Dark rooms; soaring ceilings; pinpoint lighting; gorgeous wrought-iron railings and grand stone staircases. The most entertaining touches were the oil paintings of studly young men in their American football outfits. And here I thought oil painting was a dying art.

I haven’t been in an Abercrombie store since college, but overall, I’m highly unlikely to shop there now (and to be fair, they’re not marketing to 30-somethings like me, so no loss to them, I suppose). Two things in particular annoyed me, and I’ll be curious to see if they annoy the 20-something target audience:

1. The Jeans Bar on the ground floor looks user-unfriendly. Jeans are displayed in glass counters and also along the wall behind the glass counters, as if you’re in a jewelry store. To try on the jeans, you have to talk to the helpers manning the counter, and honestly, I like to try on an annoyingly-high number of pairs before I decide on one that fits, so I’d rather not have to interact with anyone if I so choose. I also had to laugh out loud at jeans in the Men’s area that came with a sign announcing that only 250 pairs of these jeans exist in the world, and only the extra-cool stores (LA, New York and London) stock them. Obviously, there’s a price premium attached to such exclusivity.

2. Bad-value goods. Like many Americans, I love casual clothes, and I don’t shy from the occasional “investment piece.” But £70 for a sweatshirt that says “Abercrombie” on it? Seriously? The £50 tag on underwear-length shorts also made quality dinner-party fodder the past few weeks. And there were rooms of this stuff (sweatshirts and shorts), by the way. I haven’t seen any Londoner wear shorts, ever, so what’s with this inventory decision? Additionally, the sizes were American, not British. There’s a big difference between the two: an American women’s Size 6 is a British Size 10, for example. So, given European sensitivity about American insensitivity towards the world’s cultural differences, selling items in UK sizes would be a nice gesture, don’t you think? Or at least smart business.

I’d go back to the store if it ever closes and turns into a martini lounge. If that happens, the new owners should keep the helpers around. They’re hot.

Windsor Castle – Yo to the Queen

The Round Tower at Windsor Castle

Finally, after living in the UK for about 570 days, we ventured outside of London to see Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth II‘s weekend getaway.

Because I’m a train fan, there were only two options for reaching Windsor: a 1-hour direct train ride from Waterloo or a 1-hour ride from Paddington with a transfer at Slough (Office fans among you have heard of the unfortunately-named Slough). The latter doesn’t run on Sundays, so Waterloo, it was.

For £7.20 a person, you can get a “cheap same day return” ticket to Windsor Central Riverside station. The Southwest commuter trains that run to Windsor are clean, comfortable, and overall much nicer than the plastic-seated NJ Transit trains of my youth.

It was an easy ride into Windsor, and when we hopped off, we found ourselves on a busy, but still quaint, road called Dachet, and Windsor Castle loomed above. Because we’d packed a picnic lunch, we walked over the pedestrian-only Windsor Bridge in search of green patches to spread our blanket.

All we found across the bridge was the Eton boat house and a large, forlorn-looking grassy field that screamed “don’t picnic here.” I’m pretty sure I saw tumbleweed blow by.  So we turned around and headed back towards the Castle, which is so enormous that it took forever to walk around the perimeter to reach the tourist entrance.

I was amused to see the road circling the Castle walls was lined by chains of all shapes and sizes – McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Ben & Jerry’s and Thai Square, for example. There’s even what appeared to be a Medieval-themed shopping mall. I wonder what the Queen thinks. Does she go to McDonald’s? She’s probably grateful the Castle is surrounded by 4-meter-thick (high) stone walls.

After buying our tickets (£14.20 a person – yowsers) and making our way through security screening, we asked a guard where to picnic, and he suggested the delightful-sounding “Jubilee Gardens.”

Well, it turns out the Jubilee Gardens is a small, paved bandstand surrounded by a narrow strip of greenery and flowers. It’s right on the footpath visitors take to get from the ticket office to the main entrance of the Castle, which does give you the feeling you’re on display as part of the scenery.  Still, it was sunny and 50 F today, so we didn’t mind (too much) gorging ourselves in public on the paved bandstand.

Our free audiotour guided us through the few parts of the Castle that are open to the public.  Walking around, I could imagine how cold and tough it was to live in the Castle when William the Conqueror built the first part of the Castle, the Round Tower (see photo at top), in the early 11th century as a fortress.

Today, you know the Queen is in the house when the royal standard flies from the top of the Round Tower, as it did today.  The heavy, thick, stone walls studded with narrow slits (through which archers could blast out a few deadly arrows) didn’t conjure up warm and fuzzy thoughts, but the interior rooms, which are lived in and are therefore comfortable, do provide a big contrast to the Castle’s appearance from the outside.

When inside the Castle, the audiotour directs you first to see Queen Mary’s dollhouse. Another case of a misleading name. I thought it was a dollhouse given to Queen Mary when she was a child, but actually, it was given to her when she was an adult (an avid miniature-collecting adult). Weird. The dollhouse comes with real silverware, crown jewels and even vintage wine in miniature. Oh, and did I mention the electricity and working plumbing? No doubt it has a better heating and water system than my flat in London.

I enjoyed the photo exhibit of Elizabeth II’s life in the Castle’s Drawings Gallery, capturing her on film from infancy to the present. It’s easy to forget that the inflexible, reserved woman portrayed today has lived through some interesting times, including WWII during the Blitz, and these photos put her life in a context I’d never really considered.

The State Apartments were, as Jon says, “just like in any palace.” Lots of ponderous beds draped in heavy fabrics, Van Dycks, Reubens and throne rooms here and there, gilt-and-crystal everything; and china sets galore.

Quadrangle at Windsor Castle

For me, the interesting bits were the “spoils of war” from various colonies (e.g., a solid gold tiger from the throne of Tipu Sultan) as well as the pains taken to reconstruct parts of the Castle destroyed by a fire in 1992. In one grand room, the intricate wood-tiled floor was restored by removing each tile, flipping it over, and gluing it back down. Genius.While walking through the State Apartments, if you look out the windows, you get a nice view of the Quadrangle, which is a college-looking courtyard that looks too inviting to be left so empty of pedestrians. Alas, no visitors allowed on the Quadrangle. Queen only, I suppose.

Overall, Windsor is a nice place to visit, and I wish we’d had more time to walk around the pretty town streets. I might skip bringing a picnic lunch next time and just join the tourist hordes at the McDonald’s. It spares you the indignity of sitting out on a bandstand by the Castle entrance.

Hache Burger Restaurant, Camden

Do I ever miss the US? Of course.One thing that helps ease the pain is Hache Burger Connoisseurs , near Camden tube station.

When Jon and I made our first trip to Hache, we were freaked out by the crowds of Goth-punk-teens hanging out near the Camden Market. But the burgers at Hache are so juicy, the room so cozy and shabby-chic, and the prices so reasonable, we keep going back for more. The French angle (i.e., the restaurant name, the servers with the French accents) throws us off a little, but I suppose high-quality ground beef spans all cultures.I am favorably biased towards places that specialize, and at Hache, the focus on burgers pays off.

The menu offers several burger “flavors” (which basically means the toppings are different), and from sampling the burgers ordered by various friends we’ve gone with to Hache, I think all the burger flavors are good. That said, I always stick with the “au naturel” burger, which means the rich flavor of the unadorned meat gets a chance to shine.

The chips are usually crispy and hot (there have been a few misses in the past), and the onion rings are lightly-battered and made from real onions (not always a given these days).The dining room is quaint enough for a quiet date and large enough for big groups of friends. I’m a fan of Hache.

My Brush with Universal Healthcare

Up until this week, I had no need to try out the British healthcare system. But then I sprained my ankle, which made me think perhaps it was time to visit my local General Practitioner (GP).

In the UK, the NHS is the agency that oversees the comprehensive and (largely) free public healthcare system. The obvious big plus is that everyone, rich or poor, can access medical care. The big minus is that the process of getting an appointment can be long and painful, and as in the US, no patient wants to resort to going to Casualty (the ER).

When we moved to our neighborhood, we knew from word of mouth that we should “register” with our local GP’s office. That’s the way it works – new neighborhood, new GP. No shopping around through all the doctors available in your healthcare plan (a la US private healthcare).

What I learned this week is that there are two ways to get an appointment with your local GP: (1) you call up whenever you want and see when the next available appointment is (usually a week away); or (2) you call up the day you want to go at either 8:30 am or 2 pm for the few spots that are set aside each day for “day of” appointments.

I worked from home today, hoping to use Option #2 in order to get some immediate advice on how best to treat my sprain, which wasn’t really getting better despite ice and ibuprofen.

At 8:15 am, I started the redial game. It was like trying to get a reservation at Per Se before they’d opened! Busy signal-redial-busy signal-redial.

At 9 am, I finally got through, and of course all the walk-in morning slots were booked. The GP office told me to try again at 2 pm for an afternoon slot.

2 pm saw pretty much the same pattern as at 8:15 am. I ended up making a “regular” appointment for next Monday, at which point my ankle will probably have healed or ballooned into something nasty and crying out for Casualty.

My experience has not been the most impressive, I think.

I asked the local pharmacist at Boots where I could find naproxen (sold as Aleve in the US). Alas, naproxen is a prescription-only medicine in the UK. That’s kind of sad to hear considering how risk-averse I have (until now) considered the FDA. Who knew naproxen was that powerful that only a doctor can prescribe it?

Anyway, I’m limping a little less as the days go by, and Jon is going to be my mule and bring back some Aleve from the US this weekend.

All things considered, I hope I don’t ever really need to use the British healthcare system, because my choices will then be to wait a week to see a doctor, spend a day watching nasty trauma cases rush ahead of me at the ER triage, or pay a lot of money out of pocket to see a private doctor.

As a big John Rawls fan, I support and respect a universal healthcare system, but as someone lucky enough to have had private health insurance in the US, I’ve got to admit that universal healthcare (as practiced in the UK) is a definite step down. Theory colliding with reality once again. Do you choose equality over a possibility for higher-quality service? I suppose you don’t if you’re likely to be among the lucky ones who can get the higher-quality service in a less-equal world.

36 Hours in Southwest Ireland: Kinsale and the Ring of Kerry

The (distant) second-best option to being out in the pubs today, St. Patrick’s Day, is to remember a 36-hour trip Jon and I made to southwest Ireland in November 2005. So here’s my tribute to St. Patrick:

We arrived on a Saturday morning at Cork Airport, got a snazzy green stamp in our passports (notable because all other EU countries have a boring, standardized stamp now), paid our 85 euros for an automatic transmission, right-hand drive Nissan, and after 20 minutes on the road, arrived in Kinsale, a town that is reported to be the Gourmet Capital of Ireland.

Kinsale has a harbor packed with sailboats and a waterfront of quaint, multi-colored buildings. The well-maintained, winding, cobblestone streets put the finishing touches on what, if there were such a thing as a Central Casting for Scenes, would be the place to go when your script calls for a picturesque fishing village.

The Old Presbytery B&B, where we stayed, is a converted townhouse that’s centrally located so we could walk around Kinsale without our car — a huge plus given that picturesque cobblestone streets make for unpleasant driving. Our room was spacious and comfortable, and Jon and I particularly liked the ways in which the Old Presbytery was more like an inn than a B&B. We came and went as we liked ,and even at breakfast the next day, there was no enforced socializing. Each room had its own table in the B&B’s small dining room, so we felt like we were eating at a restaurant, rather than in someone’s home.

Even though we were in Kinsale during the low tourist season (it’s kind of chilly in late November), the line was out the door when we arrrived at the Fishy Fishy Cafe for a late (2:30 pm) lunch. To us, the line at that hour and at that time of year meant that a lot of locals were eating at the cafe, so we waited another 45 minutes for an *outdoor* table. We were so glad we’d made the effort!

As you probably guessed from the name of the restaurant, the Cafe specializes in seafood. I started with the best calamari salad of my life. The rings of fried calamari were barely breaded, but enough so to add crunch, and the fresh sweetness of the calamari blended with the lightly-dressed greens. My steamed mussels in a wine, cream and basil sauce warmed me right up, and there was not a runty, dead mussel in sight. Every one was plump and juicy. I can’t even remember what Jon ate because my food was so good. And the best part is that with two glasses of wine and tip, our total for this simple, fresh and delicious meal was 65 euros.

Despite our experience of waiting forever for lunch at the Cafe, we failed to learn our lesson and remained a little too confident about being in Kinsale during low season. So we made the mistake of not calling to make reservations for dinner, despite the fact that it was a Saturday night.

Instead of eating at Crackpots or the Blue Haven (both highly recommended by friends and of course fully booked on that Saturday), we wandered aimlessly through town until we settled on a stylish-looking, somewhat-full restaurant called Le Bistro. Just from looking at the menu, we could tell the meal would be a mistake (e.g., what’s nasi goreng doing on the menu, and why is it 16 euros?), so all I can say is the menu had no focus and the food was bland. It’s clear the Gourmet Capital of Ireland has its share of tourist traps, and we were the suckers that night.

Luckily, tomorrow is another day, and after an artery-clogging breakfast (think English fry-up with soda bread) at the Old Presbytery, Jon and I hopped in our car and headed northwest for Killarney. Killarney is where we started the 110-mile driving loop in southwest Ireland known as the Ring of Kerry. As you drive around the Ring of Kerry, you see a lot of “sights” like the unfortunately-named-but-gorgeous Muckross House (click photo at right), as well as a lot of ancient, weatherbeaten churches and herds of sheep and cows.

By European standards, the Muckross House is a new home (built in the 1800s), so while Jon and I thought the house was pretty, it didn’t have enough historical draw for us to spend time and money to tour the interior. The grounds were the thing to see, so we spent a half hour wandering a wide, perfectly-manicured lawn that stretched out to the shores of the aptly-named Muckross Lake. The setting was begging for ladies in white carrying parasols, and of course it also needed Henry James observing from a window.

Moving clockwise around the Ring, we drove another 20 miles to Kenmare, which seemed a little less quaint and more yuppie than, say, Kinsale. There were a lot of small shops, coffee places and small department stores that I would imagine serve local residents in addition to visiting tourists. We stopped for a quick lunch and some shopping, and we continued our breakneck drive around the Ring.

While Jon and I encountered no traffic beyond the occasional sheep or cow herd, I can imagine that during high season, it wouldn’t take much to create a traffic jam of colossal proportions. I don’t know how a tour bus would even fit on parts of the Ring, especially because even though it’s technically a two-way road, in parts there was barely enough room for just our one car.

Our favorite parts of the drive were the lonely old churches on the side of the road and watching the sun set over the Atlantic coast from the southernmost part of the Ring. The towns we passed through – Sneem, for example – were smaller versions of already-small-and-charming Killarney and Kenmare. So if ruins, coastal views, livestock and grand houses are your thing, get thee to the Ring of Kerry.

London Chinatown – and the Chinese Experience resto

Things I hate about London Chinatown:

1. The ten thousand bajillion tourists there. What are they there to see, exactly? Have they never seen Chinese people? Seriously, I hate going to Chinatown and feeling like I’m part of the scenery.

2. The many crappy and overpriced restaurants that cater to Point Number One above.Things I love about London Chinatown (and that outweigh the things I hate):1. Chinese groceries in Chinatown are awesome. Loon Fung Supermarket, the biggest one, sells 22-pound bags of Jasmine rice, ten thousand brands of soy sauce, super-convenient frozen dumplings (the “Beijing Brand” pork-and-chive deserves special mention) and stocks “Great Wall of China” wines (I’ll let you know if I ever screw up the courage to give it a go).

On top of all this greatness, you can also pick up Skippy peanut butter at about half the price of the going rate at an “American” section in mainstream London supermarkets. Chinese wine and Skippy peanut butter – clearly, Loon Fong is my kind of place.

2. The bah tzang lady who shows up in the evenings and parks herself and her homemade wares on the doorstep of Ladbrokes (a betting chain) next door to the Loon Fung.

What’s a bah tsang? See photo at left. It’s a portable meal. Sticky rice and a variety of fillings (fillings depend on what part of China you’re in or from) get wrapped up in bamboo leaf, tied with a string, and steamed. When you want to eat it, you can eat it cold or re-steam the whole thing and voila, you have a hot, tasty meal that doesn’t even require a plate or fork. It’s a Chinese tamale, really.

The bah tzang lady sells fresh, simple, homemade ones filled with pork and egg for £1 each, and sometimes she’s accompanied by a woman who sells homemade sesame candy that looks tasty, too.

3. Chinese Experience (118 Shaftesbury Avenue) restaurant for unusual, creative, fresh dim sum and Royal Dragon (30 Gerrard Street) restaurant for traditional, but also fresh dim sum. Alas, be warned that the vast majority of dim sum places in London don’t do the carts. It’s all about ticking boxes off on a form listing all your dim sum options.

Our favorites at the Chinese Experience restaurant include the crispy turnip cake served Singapore-style and the crispy Beijing-style dumplings with sesame (see photo at the top of this post). That said, the biggest draw of Chinese Experience are the decent xiao long bao, the Shanghai soup dumplings (see photo at right) that I’ve craved since the days when I could drop by Joe’s Shanghai at my leisure.

The Chinese Experience version is good because the skin is thin but also sturdy so the soup doesn’t leak out, and the pork filling and soup are flavorful, though it lacks the zing that thrilled at Joe’s or Din Tai Fung in Taipei.

Still, It’s the best in quality/price we’ve found so far in London. (The nearby ECapital Shanghai restaurant also serves them, but they’re pricier and have a subpar thick skin; Royal China Club and Yauatcha serve good ones, but they’re expensive enough that you don’t want to pop by too often).

And that’s my two cents’ on London Chinatown. If anyone reading this post wants to recommend additional sources of xiao long bao in London, I’m all ears!

A Walk in the (Holland) Park

Today, we had sunshine, blue skies and warmth. What a treat to leave our umbrellas at home, at last.

Jon and I celebrated the spring weather by making our first trip, ever, to Holland Park. The park is a mix of manicured grounds, sports fields and woodsy paths. Something for everyone, and today, it seemed everyone was there enjoying the day.

Disappointingly, the park’s resident peacocks were hiding away (probably to avoid the occasional visitor who throws things at them to scare them into showing their feathers), but the perfectly-maintained Kyoto Garden, the gurgle of the fountains in the sculpture garden, and the gazillions of nodding daffodils kept us happy.

So we wandered and then basked in the sun reading books.

Here’s to spring.

A Day of Modern Art and Furniture (Price is Right rules)

Jon and I spent part of our Sunday browsing the FORM show at the Olympia exhibition center (think the Javits Center, divided in size by twenty and plus a lot more charm).

According to the brochures, FORM is where modern artists, designers, photographers and sculptors show their stuff and sell their wares. It’s £15 a ticket to get in for the privilege of buying expensive goodies, which is about £15 more than we’d normally spend to check out pricy art for sale, but we got the tix for free. Which is why we dropped by. Which means the organizers’ intention to keep out the riffraff failed this time!

We were mildly amused when the security guard checking bags at the entrance pulled out from Jon’s bag a pizza cutter that we’d forgotten we had (don’t ask). The guard asked us what it was; we told him it was a pizza cutter; he nodded; and off we continued, into the exhibition center. The guiding principle of this exchange appears to be that if you can identify the weapon, it’s safe.

Luckily, as much as we enjoyed the idea of slashing modern artwork with a pizza cutter, we refrained and instead enjoyed playing “guess how much that is.” We’re very cultured this way.

So, let’s see how good you are. Guess how much the following item costs (and yes, it’s a chair made out of stuffed animal alligators):

If you guessed $32,000, you’d be right! Good work.

To be fair, there were some truly gorgeous items for sale, like the “blossom” chandelier by Tord Boontje (see photo at top). It’s made of Swarovski crystals and for $34,000, it, too, can be yours.

Well, to the lucky ducks out there buying blossom chandeliers and stuffed animal alligator chairs, I ask you: why aren’t we friends?

Tequila Tex-Mex in Notting Hill – quelle surprise

Despite the rain and the gloom today (as well as the suspension of services on the ever-frustrating Circle Line), Jon and I traveled west to visit our friends and have dinner in Notting Hill, where neither our friends nor we live.

So, then, why the schlepp to Notting Hill?  Well, it just so happens that our friends have a discovery on their hands.

The Tequila Tex Mex Tapas Bar (19 Notting Hill Gate) sets off all kinds of warning bells to stay away.

First, what does Tex Mex have to do with tapas? Second, what’s with the flashing multi-colored Christmas lights and cheesy sombrero-strewn decor? Third, why does the menu offer (in addition to quesadillas and assorted tapas dishes) couscous?

Sometimes, though, you have to throw caution to the wind, ignore all the warning signs, and go with the flow. At the Tequila Tex Mex Tapas Bar, our servers were friendly and attentive, the decor took on a friendly, warm glow, and the food was fresh and flavorful.

It’s true that tex-mex food is nothing fancy (this place is a far cry from the “real” Mexican food that Green and Red aspires to), but then again, we’ve been burned enough times by bad tex-mex that to eat something well-prepared and simple is something to crow about.

We started with barbecued ribs, which were sweet and spicy and eminently chompable, though if it were up to me, I’d cook them just a little bit longer to reach falling-off-the-bone status.

A monster-high pile of layered cheese, braised beef, sour cream, chili peppers and crispy, you-can-taste-the-corn nachos made for a serious appetizer. Undeterred by the size of said dish, the four of us polished everything off in about ten minutes.

Honestly, we could (should) have stopped eating after the nachos, but the siren call of the enchiladas lured us in for more. The four of us shared an order of beef enchiladas and another of chicken enchiladas. The flour tortillas were soft and chewy; the fillings were braised and savory; the sides of rice and beans was home-made-and-fresh-tasting.All this tasty food and our tab was about £15 a person (though keep in mind it was not a drinking night). We will definitely be back, and cheers to Cathy and Bobby on a restaurant well found.

14 March 2007 Update: I went back for dinner and drinks, and the service was still friendly, but slow and disorganized. My friend Jill and I had to ask repeatedly for basics like water and the bill, which was annoying. I think the drop in service compared to my last visit was because the owner wasn’t around. The margaritas were large, but too sticky from the margarita mix, and the “regular” nacho appetizer was made of cheese-flavored Doritos. Not at all like the “grande” nachos I’d a few weeks ago with Cathy and Bobby. The enchiladas and burrito were still good, so I’d say this trip was a mixed bag.

Leipzig Day 2 – from the Jewish Cemetery to the Stasi HQ

If you’ve been to Europe, you know that Sundays are not the best days to play tourist. In most cities, 99% of stores and restaurants are closed on Sunday, and Leipzig is no exception. Luckily, we had several sources of activity available to us despite the Sunday effect: (1) personal sights courtesy of the infinitely-patient Hubert; (2) the Leipzig train station (Hauptbahnhof); and (3) the Stasi museum.

We drove first along Berlinerstrasse to see the Jewish Cemetery where Jon’s great-grandfather is buried. Hubert pointed out notable community members during our walk through the graveyard – a woman who was a women’s suffrage leader, a famous rabbi and so on. There were updated gravestones erected on family plots to honor those who’d died in the Holocaust, and there was a plaque commemorating the fact that the graveyard was at some point the only place Jewish children were allowed to play (because they were otherwise banned from public parks).

After paying respects, we headed back into the center of town to find where Jon’s grandma grew up. Based on the address and description Grandma Gina had given us (i.e., it was across from the municipal liebhouse where Jews had all their belongings confiscated), we determined that the building she lived in no longer exists, and where it once stood, there is now a parking lot.

It started to rain, and we went to see the building where the Jews like Grandma Gina had found protection on Kristallnacht. The building sits across the street from what is now the US consulate, and it’s no longer the Polish consulate. Rather, it’s a city-owned guesthouse, whatever that means. There’s a small plaque in front to remember the Polish Consul General who decided to give safe haven to Jews on Kristallnacht. It’s amazing to me how much this city remembers.

Because we’d read so much about the Voelkerschlachtdenkmal, we figured we ought to see it despite Hubert’s warning that it’s no great shakes. The V is a monument commemorating The Battle of Nations, a victory of several allied countries over Napoleon in 1813. Hubert was, of course, absolutely right. The thing is a hulking, brooding hunk of stone that, frankly, looks pretty damn scary and ugly. Considering the Prussians decided to build this thing 100 years after the battle it commemorates, the monument is more about Prussia’s own aggressive ambitions at the time than it is about commemorating anything.

Leipzig’s train station, the Haupbahnhof, is the largest in Europe and houses 140 shops, half of which are open on Sunday. Other than dropping by the post office and pharmacy, though, there wasn’t much we found super exciting in the shopping mall. The clothing stores and houseware stores were closed, so really, what else is there to see?

The Stasi museum, which illustrates the banal, but fierce control exercised by the East German secret police, was pretty interesting despite our having to follow along on a photocopied brochure in English (.50 euros well spent) in order to understand anything on display. The museum is in the building on Dittrichring where the Stasi had their Leipzig HQ, and everything from the drab beige linoleum floors to the musty smell of a 1970s office creeps me out. I thought the disguise kits for Stasi agents and the tools used by the Stasi for opening and reading mail sent to/from Capitalist countries were the most interesting.

Today’s Eating:

Bagels at Bagel Brothers (Nikolaistrasse, 42) were tasty. Chewy, moist interiors and slightly crunchy, shiny exteriors. The store was bright and clean (it’s likely a chain, though we didn’t see any other locations in the city), and we laughed about how it marketed the bagels as “new york style with a schmear.” We’ve always thought of bagels as originating in Eastern Europe, but it seems that the way to sell them as “authentic” now is to make them come from New York. Bagel sandwiches were named after JFK, Doris Day, and someone named Dick McDay.

Telegraph Café & Restaurant (Dittrichring, 18-20) was the perfect way to relax and warm up after our hour at the Stasi Museum down the block. Cozy banquettes, newspapers from around the world (no Sunday NYT, alas) and wi-fi access, combined with low prices for pots of loose-leaf tea – how could you not drop by, really?

As if we weren’t grateful enough that it was open on a Sunday night, the generically-named Restaurant Sushi Bar (Klostergasse, 18, around the corner from Barfussgasschen) served up a 19-euro all-you-can-eat sushi menu today. We sat on these high stools at an oval-shaped counter, and cheesy little wooden boats floated around the counter “carrying” various sushi. It’s the pre-cursor to conveyor-belt sushi? We ate our weight’s worth in shrimp tempura sushi and then called it a night. After all, we have a 4 am wake-up call tomorrow in order to catch our 6 am flight back to London.

The Dismount:

I just finished reading an excellent book called Mountains Beyond Mountains, about Dr. Paul Farmer who, among his many other accomplishments, transformed the way the medical establishment thinks about treating drug-resistant TB in poor countries. According to the book, Dr. Farmer always asks his medical students to take him through a “dismount” – a lessons-learned, summary-style debrief at the end of every case. So here’s my dismount on Leizpig:

It’s a historically-rich, beautiful city that’s struggling to find its place in a post-unification Germany that favors institutions and industry centers in the former West Germany. As cities in western Europe go, it’s an affordable place to visit, and there’s enough variety and quality of food and cultural activities left in Leipzig to make it worth a visit.

Leipzig – Eating

I had low expecations for the dining scene in Leipzig – the former GDR’s image may have informed this impression, as did the fact that in Prague, we ate a whole lot of dense potato dumplings that I think are still weighing me down.  That said, I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and variety of eats today (see the previous Leipzig Day 1 post for a description of what else we did besides eat).

For lunch, we’d asked Hubert to take us to his favorite “traditional German food” restaurant, and that’s how we ended up at Zill’s Tunnel Restaurant. The restaurant sits on Barfussgasschen, which is a cobblestone alley lined with restaurants. I don’t think I would have picked it out on our own because of concern that it was on such a touristy-seeming street, so once again, I was glad we had Hubert with us.  I guess the reality is that even though in any other geography, the Barfussgasschen would scream tourist trip, maybe there aren’t enough tourists around to make it so.  And this means you take it for what it is – a street that happens to have a lot of restaurants on it.

Although I wouldn’t eat it every day, I have only good things to say about my eisbein sauerkraut, which are slices of braised beef with red cabbage sauerkraut, topped with gravy and served with airy potato-and-butter dumplings called klosse. Hubert explained that my dish, especially the klosse, are a Saxon specialty, and I definitely wouldn’t complain if I crossed paths again one day with a klosse.

Jon had a little less luck with his sauerbraten mit klosse. Like me, Jon is now a fan of the klosse, but the sauerbraten could have used more seasoning to make it interesting. Sauerbraten is a “pork knuckle,” which is a giant, fatty leg of pork. It was cooked so that it was still tender and juicy, but when you’re eating a hunk of meat that serious, I think you need a little something something to lift up or hide the heaviness.

Ur Krostitzer, the local pilsner I ordered, was so hoppsy (is that a word?) and flavorful that I downed two during lunch, and Jon was equally happy with his dark lager, Schwarze Perle.

Our tab for three came to less than 50 euros. Check it out when next you’re in Leipzig.

Because eating ten thousand calories’ worth of meat and potatoes wasn’t enough, we also stopped by a large, bustling Movenpick café near the Old Town Hall for desserts and coffee. I’m so creative, I ordered black forest cake (schwartzwald kirsch torte) and tea. No complaints about the goodies, though I must humbly apologize to my fellow Americans for furthering the stereotype of Americans as dumb and bumbling. After all, I was the loser in the bathroom who couldn’t figure out how the soap dispenser worked. I pumped and pumped and wondered where the soap was. Too late, I realized I’d managed to pump soap all over my arm.

As if this bit of genius weren’t graceful enough, the bathroom attendant had to witness that and my embarrassment at not having any spare change to leave with her (as is the custom here).

For dinner, we walked back to the Barfussgasschen to try out,Varadero, a Cuban restaurant (think Communist-era connection). We were disappointed there were no plantains on the menu, but the beer was again good (Wernesgrun pilsner) and overall the food was hot, fresh and cheap. I loved all the black-and-white photos on the wall of Che and Fidel, and when you throw in the lightbox photo of a beach and assorted palm trees, I’d say the décor was comfortingly not German.

Jon’s garlic shrimp appetizer was a standout (surprisingly not overcooked), our main courses were fine, and our one disappointment was with the black beans and rice.  The beans were undercooked (still hard) and the dish was very dry despite the liberal use of bacon fat. How hard is it to cook black beans and rice?

Leizpig Day 1 – Seeing the Sights

Today was an action-packed day.

Our gracious host was Hubert, a German lawyer who handles restitution-of-Jewish-property cases (what a huge back story that is!). Having spent five hours with him, I feel confident that he’s one of the smartest, most patient and thoughtful people I’ve ever met. It’s impossible to detail, even in this lengthy post, the many examples of these qualities we found in Hubert, but I guess you’ll just have to try to meet him yourself someday.

We set off on foot in the bright sunshine, and within five minutes, we stopped in front of the lone active synagogue in Leipzig. Hubert told us the only reason the synagogue survived World War II is because it was incorporated into a large apartment building where non-Jews lived. Before the Holocaust, 14,000 Jews lived in Leipzig, and 1,000 live there today.

I loved that the block on which the synagogue sits now includes a Bang & Olufsen and Poggen Pohl store. Time certainly does march on.

Next we crossed the Pleisse River, which was really more like a stream, and Hubert pointed out a small monument remembering the Jews who were forced into the water and subject to public humiliation a few days before the escalation of Kristallnacht. The Polish consulate nearby is where Grandma Gina and her niece, Ruth, sought and were granted protection during Kristallnacht. Hubert explained that legally, consulates (unlike embassies) are not foreign soil and so it was only a matter of luck that anyone who sought refuge there was actually protected from the rampaging violence that night.

We visited 18 Pfaffendorferstrasse, where Ruth’s family lived. The street, Pfaffendorferstrasse is, relatively-speaking, a busy and noisy road, but to get to the building where Ruth’s family lived, we walked down a small, quiet alley. The apartment building now houses small businesses: an apartment developer and publishing house, among others.

We walked around to the back of the building to take a photo of what we could see of the apartment, which must have been a long walk up on the top floor of the building.

No doubt Hubert has given up many weekends in the past to play host to people like us, looking for connections to the past. Without pause or break in conversation, he walked us over to Carlebach School, set up in 1913 when all Jewish children were required to attend the same single school, instead of mixing with the general population. The building today is now used by a publisher of Braille and recorded books for the blind.

Last on our personal “must see” list today was the memorial of empty chairs, which sits where the city’s largest synagogue stood until burned down on Kristallnacht. Each empty chair represents a congregant killed on Kristallnacht.

As if it weren’t enough that Hubert spent time showing to us Jewish and personal monuments, he also took us to see a few of the general sights of Leipzig. Based on the gorgeous old buildings and landmarks Jon and I saw today, Leipzig is a city that seems to have come out of the years of war and Communist rule relatively intact.

Hubert explained that unemployment in Leipzig hovers around an unconscionably-high18%, and there are too many apartment buildings and stores sitting empty, but overall, I’d say Leipzig is far from being out for the count.

So here’s what you can see if you’re not in town to find your grandma’s birthplace:

St. Nicholas Church: When you first set eyes on it, it’s just another gorgeous church in a soaring Renaissance style. It turns out, though, that the church’s claim to fame are Peace Prayer Services that took place in and around the church in 1989, which grew into demonstrations that brought down that famous wall.

Madler Passage: Walk a few steps around the corner from St. Nicholas and you’re in front of a large, indoor arcade called Madler Passage. Most of the stores in the Madler Passage are global luxury brands (Wempe, Mont Blanc), but there’s a local store at one end of the passage, Gourmetage, where we found not only the usual global delicacies (prosciutto, whiskeys, French and Italian wines) but also a variety of local German wines. Hubert, being the stylish, worldly man that he is, recommended a few bottles by Schloss Proschwitz and a sparkling wine (Rotkappchen). So we’ll give them a try and report back. The bottles weren’t cheap, so I have high hopes they turn out to be the find of the year.

Auerbachs Keller: Down a set of winding stairs in the Madler Passage and flanked by enormous sculptures depicting Faust and Mephistopheles, this local attraction is hard to overlook. Hubert warned us away from the food (we figured the souvenir shop in the corner of the restaurant reinforced his advice), but because the restaurant is where Goethe set a scene from Faust (he and the devil eat a lovely dinner there), we went downstairs to poke around and take photos. The dining room is cavernous but cozy – how I have always pictured an old-school German restaurant.

St. Thomas’s Church: J. S. Bach was choirmaster here for the last 27 years of his life. We weren’t able to go into the church because a concert rehearsal was taking place this afternoon, but all the stores near the church include “Bach” somewhere in the name and street musicians play (what else) Bach. We satisfied ourselves with a photo of a giant Bach sculpture (his pocket turned out to show how poor he was during his life) and walked on.

The Opera House: On the north side of a square called the Augustplatz sits Leipzig’s ginormous opera house. On the south side of the Augustplatz is Gewandhaus, the home of the Leipzig orchestra. Tickets this evening for the orchestra were for a children’s concert, so we went with opera tickets. I’m therefore going to blame this evening’s adventure on Jon, who ordered the tickets in advance and didn’t know what we were going to watch tonight.

When we arrived at the opera house, most of the building was pretty dark, but then we spotted a random lion statue holding a sign saying that if you’re looking for the Keller Theatre, you have to go around the side of the building. So we walked over to that theatre and saw that it was open. Our tickets were inside waiting for us at the box office, and then we descended two flights of stairs to find ourselves in a basement reception area that had all the charm of a, ummm, basement.

It wasn’t quite the opera atmosphere I’d been expecting. We felt like we were waiting to see an off-off-Broadway production, which was generally fine with me. When the theatre doors opened, our impression was reinforced by the rows of folding chairs in a black-walled room.

The opening act lasted less than 30 minutes and although we didn’t understand a word of it (all songs were in German), we got the gist: the Girlfriend is constantly on the phone; the Boyfriend tries everything to get the Girlfriend’s attention; the Boyfriend stomps out of the apartment and calls the Girlfriend from a payphone, at which point the Girlfriend pays tons of attention to the Boyfriend. The End.

It wasn’t the best piece of musical theatre we’ve ever seen, but we figured it was good enough that we’d wait around to see what happened after the intermission. Big Mistake.

After intermission, we sat through an hour-long, one-woman opera. Again, the phone played a prominent role. As best we could determine, the woman is alone in her apartment and gets a number of phonecalls throughout the night. Here are the parts we could understand:

[piano player duplicates ringing noise made by telephone]
[woman picks up the phone] “Hallo! Hallo!”
[1 hour of solo singing, in German, by the woman ]

So for an entire hour, we had plenty of time to think about an interaction we’d had during intermission with a German woman sitting in the otherwise-empty row behind us. She had busted out in German asking us to move over a seat so that she could see over Jon’s head. We told her we didn’t speak German, so she repeated her request in English, and we moved over because it wasn’t a big deal for us.

What we wondered for the next hour is why, given that she’s sitting in an empty row, couldn’t she move over a seat?

Leipzig – Touchdown

Guten tag from Leipzig, Germany, where J.S. Bach was choirmaster for 27 years, Goethe studied law and Felix Mendelssohn lived and worked.Jon and I have just checked in to the Leipzig Westin.

Our Air Berlin flight here was uneventful, though as a testament to how often we fly budget airlines in Europe, we were surprised that we were given assigned seats when we checked in at Stansted Airport. When was the last time we flew on a European airline that assigns you seats?

We landed a little behind schedule, and then Jon and I were stuck at the back of the plane and then waited on a long line through immigration (I loved the customs guy with three-star epaulets. He’s a three-star immigration official, don’t you know?), all of which means that we missed the last train into Leipzig.

We then schlepped back and forth across the large, shiny-and-new Leipzig airport to find a cash machine and then a taxi into the city. Our ride cost 31 euros, which is about three times more than the train would’ve cost, but at least (1) the taxi was super nice – all of the ones waiting at the airport were humming mercedes; (2) we got to whiz along the autobahn at a blistering 140 km/h; and (3) it took only 15 minutes to reach the hotel.

The hotel is pretty standard-issue Westin: gleaming, splashy lobby with trendy lighting, and rooms that don’t live up to the lobby (do they ever?). I have to admit I feel cheated not to find a Heavenly Bed in our room. How ever will I sleep at night?

Frivolous comments set aside (for just a moment), Jon and I have serious plans ahead of us this weekend. Over the next 48 hours, we’ll search out the old neighborhood and haunts of Jon’s Grandma Gina, whose family lived in Leipzig for generations until the Holocaust came and almost wiped them out.

Happy New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year, all! Yesterday heralded the Year of the Golden Pig. And you know that the Golden Pig shows its snout only once every 60 years, so this is no ordinary Chinese New Year. Among other things, it’s a good year to bust out with a kid because then he/she will have an easy, prosperous life.

Jon and I went to a friend’s house on Saturday night to celebrate new year’s eve. We were the only two people who showed up wearing red. It’s always nice to show up in matching outfits for reasons not apparent to other party guests. It makes you seem extra cool.

Yesterday, we ate a million courses of dim sum and New Year’s specials (longevity noodles, anyone?) at Royal China Club on Baker Street. We’ve been before to the “regular” Royal China next door, and I’ve always found the dim sum there overpriced, but the Royal China Club was a lot snazzier in decor, more gracious in service and slightly more creative in food. Based on the £35 per person price tag for dim sum, I assume the RC Club’s competition is something like Yauatcha, though the coolness factor is not high at the RC Club.

Highlights of our new year’s lunch yesterday included a roast suckling pig so beautifully crisped and sliced that it was hard to distinguish it from a peking-style duck. The tea also gets a shout out. Whatever we were drinking was refreshing and fragrant – jasmine with a pinch of peach. I was also pleasantly surprised by the sweets, which normally I dislike at Chinese restaurants. There was moi gee (chewy rice-flour cookies) magically filled with vanilla ice cream, and a bamboo steamer of fluffy, white steamed dumplings filled with a sweet, eggy custard (see photo at top).

I didn’t order nian gao (New Year’s cake) to go like some of the other lunchers, because I’m a fake Chinese (sorry, Mom and Dad!) and fail to appreciate a pudding made of glutinous rice and steamed with fruits. But I did visit friends the entire afternoon, so I think all in all, Jon and I were pretty diligent celebrants of the new year.