check us out now over at adaywithhenry.blogspot.co.uk
we have moved!
December 28, 2012chinatown sunday
February 7, 2010for the second weekend in a row we met friends at London Chinatown for yum cha – sadly not the cart variety which is pretty rare in london – but still good and we left full of dumplings. Justin and Sam also had a new favourite – duck tongue – and I was hypnotised by the lanterns being strung along Gerard St in anticipation of chinese new year….mmmmmm red….
beards, bellies and ale
February 15, 2009this week we tootled along to the Battersea Beer Festival for a celebration of real ale. For those of you unfamiliar with ale it is defined as… “beer brewed from traditional ingredients, matured by secondary fermentation in the container from which it is dispensed, and served without the use of extraneous carbon dioxide”.
It is the kind of stuff that most australians would think of when they imagine being served warm beer and I have had the odd visitor turn their nose up at it but really, it is delicious. Apart from the many and varied flavours that you don’t get drinking cold lager, it is produced all over the place in small breweries which means it always has a story. So, the stories from Wednesday night included:
- Old Bushy Tail – a reddish malty beer from Bushy’s brewery on the Isle of Man
- Quadhop – fruity hoppy golden ale from Downton brewery in Wiltshire
- Hophead – an old favourite hoppy bitter from Dark Star in West Sussex
- Dogwatch Stout – chocolate aftertaste from Nelson in Chatham
- Beijing Black – lovely stout from Potbelly in Kettering
and last but not least, Madog’s Ale which according to the notes had a ‘malty nose’ which in reality translates to smelling of farts from Purple Moose in Porthmadog in Wales.
the market at borough
February 7, 2009borough market on a saturday is definitely one of the highlights of the week – bacon bap with brown sauce from roast, monmouth flat white and if you wander for more than half an hour, a cheeky half in the Market Porter. This morning we were joined by the lovely April who is visiting and we wandered home with a bag full of Flour Power Banana Cake, ingredients for potato and leek soup and some Cotherstone cheese from Neal’s Yard.
sunday night in bethnal green
February 1, 2009Justin works with lots of cool people and one of the coolest is Andy Liu. He has been giving us the inside vibe on chinese food in london and tonight he took us to gourmet san in bethnal green. We had some rather tasty treats, lots of garlic, lots of chilli and the odd bit of offal. I wish I could tell you what we had properly but basically it was a cold beef and tripe salad with coriander and sesame, fish cooked in a broth and loaded with chillies and the most delicious garlic lamb skewers…
and then we caught the tube back and walking home it started to snow. Proper snow. Sometimes london is really quite rockin.
Online TV
January 12, 2009I’ve been using myp2p for a while now to watch football, but have now discovered KeyHoleTV…which lets you watch live Japanese telly online! It’s total awesomeness.
Instructions here:
http://xorsyst.com/japan/watch-japanese-tv-online/
And download here:
http://www.v2p.jp/video/
i am addicted to the web…
January 11, 2009but how can i resist when these lovelies are around…here are just a few I can’t stop visiting at the moment:
http://issuu.com – lots of magazines, some amazing photos books and asterix comics. fantastichen.
http://www.designspongeonline.com – yum. tasty interiors, mini trend tips and links to great online design stores.
http://www.etsy.com – if you have spoken to me in the last 6 months you will know that etsy changed my life, it continues to do so…
chat bald.
Reading List
January 10, 2009Why do I choose such big books?! I’ve been reading most of these for months now…some for more than a year!
German beer styles
December 27, 2008My first ever post on our blog…hoorah! And what better place to start than a list of German beer styles! We’re heading to Berlin tonight so stay tuned for photos of us sampling them:
Altbier (“old beer”): top-fermented then cold-conditioned
Berliner Weisse: top-fermented, sour wheat beer
Bock: strong, bottom-fermented
- Doppelbock: stronger version of bock (“double bock”)
- Eisbock: bockbier lagered at sub-zero temperatures
- Maibock: brewed to celebrate Spring
Braunbier: made with dark malts, usually bottom-fermented
Dampfbief (“steam beer”): warm top-fermentation
Diaet Pils
Dinkelbier: top-fermented with a proportion of spelt malt (“dinkel”) and usually including both malted barley and wheat
Dortmunder Export: pale, bottom-fermented
Dunkel / Dunkles
- Muenchner Dunkel: dark, bottom-fermented
- Schwarzbier (“black beer”)
Export: typically a golden, bottom-fermented beer
Gose: top-fermented, sour wheat beer
Haferbier (“oat beer”)
Hanfbier: brewed with hemp blossom rather than hops
Hell / Helles (“pale”)
- Muenchner Hell
Koelsch
Kraeusen
Lagerbier: bottom-fermented
Landbier
Maerzen (“Maerz”=”March”)
Pilsener / Pils
Rauchbier (“smoke beer”): produced using malt that has been smoked over beechwood
Roggen: top-fermented beer made with malted rye (“roggen”); also usually includes both malted barley and wheat
Schankbier: beer with a lower-than-usual alcohol content
- Luettje Lage (“little round”): dark, top-fermented Schankbier
Spezial
Steinbier: currently extinct!
Ungespundet (“unbunged”): only made by a handful of breweries within a 30km radius of Bamberg
Vollbier
Weissbier / Weizenbier: top-fermented; typically made with equal parts wheat and barley malt
- Hefeweizen / Hefeweissbier (“hefe”=”yeast”): unfiltered wheat beer
- Kristallweizen: filtered wheat beer
Zoigl: brewed in communal breweries in Oberpfalz
Zwickel (“tap”): unfiltered, bottom-fermented
live at scala
August 18, 2008yep, we were sad little aussies and went along to see uncle paul. I was slightly relieved when he forgot the opening lines to deeper water, he must have a million songs! Scala is a kick arse venue, and as you can see from the pics you can get really close…