La Bodega Negra, Soho
There’s nothing I like more than a good bar crawl around Soho. It’s my favourite pastime and something I approach with unparalleled excitement and vigour. For one reason or another it hadn’t been done for a while. I’ve been a busy boy, so the opportunity to gatecrash an evening at The Groucho club along with my little brother was not to be missed!
My pre-drinks drink took place at Quo Vadis club. One of my favourite haunts for sophisticated debauchery. I had a whirlwind 20 minute catch up – and a Negroni – with the venerable Rare Tea Lady who is always fabulous fun. I can’t remember what we talked about. Probably because we talked about everything. And nothing. Cramming far too much gossip and news into far too little time. I should have brought prompt cards.
I’m never too sure about The Groucho. The interior since the refit is a little too hotel-lobby for me. And by 11.30pm a DJ was spinning the kind of tunes that you would expect to find at your uncle’s wedding – with the dancing to match. Several more Negronis meant that I had become intolerant of such nonsense so I proposed we moved on. Everyone agreed, once I’d managed to communicate my suggestion over the raucous medley of wedding floor-fillers.
Dean Street Townhouse was full. They’re always full, but suggested we try Bodega Negra around the corner on Old Compton St. So off we went.
I’d heard mixed reviews about the place and since my visit AA Gill has written the most scathing of reviews about the food. Having seabass described as ‘growing antibiotics on a panty-liner’ must have made painful reading for the guys behind the new hangout. A joint venture between Will Ricker and Serge Becker should be a sure-fire success. The latter is the king of NYC nightlife; the former the king of - potentially slightly passe – high-fashion, pan-asian hangouts including the ever popular E&O in Notting Hill and XO in Belsize Park. Both which I like very much.
From what I gather there’s a restaurant downstairs, where they serve the alleged medicinal sanitary towels. We went to the cafe upstairs. A nice room with cosy decor and old posters adorning the walls. Banging tunes played at just the right volume and the vibe was effortlessly cool. It could have been a lot worse at midnight on a Friday in Soho.
A culinary revelation this aint. And neither should it be. It’s Mexican street food. Ample main courses of quesadillas or various tachos served with great cowboy beans and green rice come in around £10. In my mind they offer value and exactly what you want when you’re slightly pissed in town and trying to avoid the bridge and tunnel crowd.
Good beers, friendly staff and swift efficient service make for an excellent late-evening option for comfort grub. The bar looked comfortable and inviting and I’m tempted to return for a few shandies in the very near future too. On Friday La Bodega Negra provided a perfect pitstop, before heading on into the night where things get inevitably skewiff.
At that point my brother and I ditched the gals and headed for a sibling catch-up and some dangerously dangerous Manhattans and my favourite hangout of all – Gerard St’s Experimental – and flippin’ mental – Cocktail Club. Bon Nuit tout la monde!
Kolkata – Part 1
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In an attempt to contextualise life in India, my friend David told me that Mumbai is like London in the 1970′s and Kolkata the 1930′s. At risk of misquoting, I think he was referring to attitudes towards social responsibility. Citing littering, spitting, road safety campaigns and other benchmarks in the development of society as his evidence I think he has a point. Things here disturb us, disgust us, because we have moved on. Did the upper echelons of society care for the impoverished in 1930′s Britain? That’s a question I don’t have an answer for but I’ll take his word for it and respect the analogy.
Life in the slums however is somewhat different. Medieval villages spring to mind as makeshift shacks and lean-to’s provide inadequate shelter, muddy lanes snake through them, inhabited by pigs and wild dogs. Filthy children play barefoot next to open sewers. Society’s nuances matter not to these people. Their lives torrid, despicable, hopeless.
Normally when I sit down to write I have a rough plan in my head as to where a piece is going. Like memorising a map before a journey, I know where I want to be and roughly how to get there and it normally serves me well. In this case I don’t. The sheer mental absorption over the past week has rendered my head a foggy mess. Wading through a quagmire of thoughts and emotions as I try to work out how I feel. Clarity, and a comprehension of this chaotic place will only come with time.
Buzzing around the city on a moped, dodging the locals on their seemingly infinite modes of transport, swerving as they wander and run in to the road every street is filthy, dilapidated and decaying. Covered in soot, dirt and dust with people everywhere. Always Busy. Always determined. On many streets, more makeshift shacks line the footpaths, forcing pedestrians out in to the road. Life on the street is unimaginable at best. At worst it’s pitiful, desperate and critical.
It’s late. Silent. I’m on my balcony. Even the wild dogs that run, full-pelt alongside me every time I ride through the neighbouring slum each day are silent. Crickets tick constantly. Otherwise it would be almost erie. As I’m thinking, I wonder why I’m not totally distraught. Not even particularly sad or upset. Despite making this place sound like the end of the world, there’s something about its vibe that juxtaposes everything totally abhorrent about its sheer existence. Maybe it’s the playful smiles on the faces of the most deprived children? Maybe it’s that life feels so real? Maybe it’s my mind refusing to accept what my eyes, ears and nose feed it? I hope I’m not just callous and hollow. I’m not. I know many who would agree that they feel the same.
There is a benchmark for an acceptable life here. Its low. Lower than anything imaginable in the west. Does that make it unacceptable? By applying our western standards here, are we making an issue out of something that we shouldn’t? Does the man who leads a humble but content life need us to judge him? Treat him like an animal in a zoo and snap away at him going about his daily business before posting it on Facebook for our friends to gawp at when we get home? I’m not talking about the desperate existences that are present the lowest parts of society, but of the working class man who can serve the basic needs of him and his family. Gosh this post is turning out not to be about my reasons for being here at all. But it should be. So that’s the philosophical, sociological and contextual bit over with.
The Hope Foundation cares for children who are really forgotten by society. The most desperate examples of humanity: The orphans, the sick, the diseased, the ones whose untimely demise is inevitable without intervention. HOPE doesn’t just make them better, give them an acceptable life and use their past as an excuse for mediocrity. It helps them to excel, to love life and to take responsibility with them as they grow in to adults, gain employment, get married and start a family. First generation learners who will help weave a social conscience in to their society. This is how change happens and I’ve seen it with my own eyes, every minute of every day that I’ve been here. If only there weren’t so many people who need our help.
Money is spent wisely. Thinking is most definitely done outside the box and those involved are never afraid of a challenge, allowing creative thinking to holistically offer the vast spectrum of this level of society exactly what it needs. Facilities are basic but perfectly sufficient and all staff are united in their mentality and approach. I’ve really never seen anything like it.
Tomorrow seems like too early to leave. I think it’s clear I love it here. It makes me feel alive. I enjoy questioning societies’ differences and feel privileged to be amongst people who can find a smile in the most deplorable places that i’ve ever been. We can learn a lot from them in the west.
Mumbai – Part 2
In my last post I wrote that the poverty is Mumbai was less blatant than in Kolkata. I take that back. After having my memories of Kolkata refreshed, it’s the wealth in Mumbai that is more blatant. My lack of exposure to the communities, the back streets, the slums in Mumbai, jaded my impressions somewhat. Here in Kolkata, thrust in to the daily lives of the people who the tourists don’t see, the people who make the city tick, the people who make up 90% of this thronging metropolis has reminded me that the lack of arrogant, obnoxious wealth adds as much to the fabric of this city as its abundance adds to the fabric of Mumbai.
India is a country of infinite layers. Religious, historical, political and social elements make it impossible to unravel. Every visitor, and probably every resident, has a different take on why it is how it is. However no visitor can deny that its soul, its personality and it’s heart beat is infectious, addictive and energising for anyone lucky enough to spend a little time here.
Back to Mumbai. I did buy Grekka dinner. I unwittingly bought the whole family and their friends dinner. For a bloody month. Grekka showed me to a local supermarket. Explaining as we walked that they would be asked to leave the store and that in all likelyhood I’d have to shop alone. This did happen. Sort of.
We walked in unchallenged, but it wasn’t long before we were. Arguments and raised voices ensued as Grekka’s friend’s baby was thrust into my arms and they took a trolley before disappearing in to the labyrinthine store. Slowly more and more staff joined in, in what was almost a witch hunt. One showed me to a sign asking ‘not to entertain street urchins in this store’. Despite my persistence that I was buying them food and would be gone in no time, they were shortly ejected. The callous lack of consideration and pity shocked me. I was looked down upon and warned that anything I bought would be sold. My fear that this may be true still stands.
Any child or parent who sells something given in good faith is shooting themselves and their nation in the collective foot, underwriting the stigma and discrimination that others demonstrate towards them. I do hope that in this case the store staff are wrong. Grekka deserves better than that. A girl who certainly knows how to get what she wants however, this is what I was left with in the store.
I avoided eye contact whilst queuing and paying. I could feel the burning stare of staff and customers. Heads shaking with annoyance and self-righteous tutting. I doubt there was even the faintest whiff of pity or care for these kids amongst the collective. At worst they like to try and forget that they even exist. At best they are a fact of life that is tolerated, despised and used as one of many platforms to elevate an unjustified sense of self-importance that is evident in so many better off nationals.
I hope that the Rs7200 (£93) I spent in that store isn’t wasted. Will it be? I fear it probably will but desperately hope it won’t. I’m not yet the savvy traveller that I though I was but I’m glad I did this. It won’t happen again. Being backed in to a corner by two teenagers isn’t something I plan on making a habit of.
Back in Kolkata time is short. A rare hour of peace to sit down and write is over. I’m off to a child welfare focus group which will be interesting, then an Indian tv studio for what I have no idea, then a conference on spinal surgery, then child protection night-watch until midnight. Variety is indeed the spice of life. Wish me luck!
Mumbai – Part 1
It was a first for me. I’d been stopped in the street many times before. Beggars, children, flower sellers, tailors, hash and cocaine dealers, people selling chewing gum. All frequent occurrences on the street of any Indian city. All united by their persistence and by the reluctant acceptance that follows when they realise that I am not going to be their next customer.
Never had I been accosted, out of nowhere, by a man who exclaims that I have something in my ear, who proceeds to stick a metal pick with a dab of cotton wool on the end right inside, revealing the wax that he extracts on the top of his thumb. Now I have problems with my ears but I’m pretty sure this was a set up. I’m not sure how, but I doubt anyone even with perfect eye sight could see in to my ear from a few paces away. “Sir, it’s my job. I can help you” he said convincingly. Despite my assurances that I didn’t need his assistance he was determined to get on with it until I firmly asked him not to, thanked him, and chuckled as he showed me his open palm in the hope of payment for his services.
I’m in Mumbai on a 2 day whistle-stop tour and to catch up with friends, before I make my second trip to Kolkata to spend a week with the charity that I have been volunteering for in the UK for 2 years.
I like it. It’s chaotic. The hubbub, heat, humidity and pollution are ever present. Not nearly as intense as Kolkata however. The roads are still death-defying but it’s no way near as uncomprehendingly mental. That’s a good thing believe me. Exactly as I’d expected, it’s more progressive that Kolkata. More established. More civilised. The poverty in the touristy down town neighbourhood is ever present, but less desperate. Less blatant. Less in your face.
This is Grekka and her mother. At least I think that’s how you spell it. She had trouble typing on my iPhone. We got chatting as she offered me some jasmine flowers tied on a string as a bracelet. She lives on the street just by the Gateway to India with her mother, sister and two brothers. An ironic juxtaposition.
She speaks, and understands, English well. She explains that she doesn’t go to school and wants help getting her younger sister in to Education. We chat about the impossibility of affording the fees, the neglect that she feels from the state who should help her, the jealousy she feels when she sees children walking to school every day. Even the uniforms come up in conversation. Such a basic right is everything that she could ever want.
I can see her nodding reassuringly over my shoulder. I turn around and her mother is there, just checking that she’s ok. I can appreciate her concern so I beckon her over. We perch on the curb together and we recount the conversation once more, her daughter translating for me as I explain the work we do in Kolkata and the familiarity of their story.
Grekka asks me for my number and address. She wants me to help get her sister in to school. I’m suspicious so politely decline. Then her mother disappears to get her friend’s number so I can call her. After 5 minutes, when she doesn’t return, my hand is grabbed and Grekka leads me around the corner to where her mother is talking with a small group. I’m offered a seat on a wall next to a man with a phone. We (me reluctantly) exchange numbers.
Throughout our conversations, I try to dispell any hope that Grekka has of me being able to help. In Kolkata it would be a different story, but I have no contacts here and leave tomorrow morning. I hope she finds a way to get in contact but it’s doubtful. The cycle of poverty unbroken for another generation in this family.
I’m suspicious of this situation. I can’t help but feel that it’s all too perfect. I am aware that many of these kids are employed by gangs who exploit them for profit. Their poverty is very real no doubt, but they’re a little too clean, jewelled and well-dressed in contrast to the helpless kids I’ve encountered in the past. Call me a sceptic but I’m wary of giving too much. However I want to do what I can, so now this is done and my wineglass is empty, I’m going to find Grekka and her mother, and take them to the supermarket. The least I can do is buy them dinner.
Kew the music
I have a friend that hates picnics. The very idea of eating on the ground, paper plates, drinking out of plastic glasses whilst sitting on a damp blanket brings him out in a fit of expletives and wrist-rolling gestdiculative campness. We have on many occasions tried to lure him to a picnic under false pretences just so we are afforded the opportunity to point, laugh and heckle as he has his “I’m too posh for picnics” hissy fit. Never has a grown man fretted so much over something so unimportant. Considering he does something vital and incomprehensible in the Tory party you’d think he has more pressing things to worry about. Obviously not!
Due to a last minute drop-out we considered inviting the picnic-hater to Kew the Music last week but alas he was out somewhere with some bureaucratic busy bodies from Government – schmoozing and whining about all the political nonsense and minutiae that makes these folk tick.
Kew the music is the ultimate middle class gig: a series of live music performances of the catch-all, middle of the road variety. We were there to see The Noisettes and The Feeling. Naturally I wasn’t exactly dripping with excitement. At Glastonbury two weeks ago I don’t think I sat down for four days. I couldn’t. The mud even penetrated my ground sheet and at one point I feared that my tent may landslide into the John Peel stage: such was the state of meteorological mayhem. The thought of picnicking whilst watching music with Kew Gardens’ Temperate House as a backdrop was therefore utterly fantabulous.
Michelle, who takes these kind of things very seriously, had paid some money for the ‘reserved picnic area’. She had also reserved picnics but more of that later. This essentially meant that we got to sit on a piece of grass surrounded by a twee little picket fence and some spotty teenagers in yellow t-shirts, paid to ensure that no minions from the other bits of grass snuck over the impenetrable two foot fence.
To kick things off a guy with a piano was plonked on stage to croon away, attracting the adoration of the ever enthusiastic under-12s, before the main acts turn their parents into jigging and arm-swinging embarrassment machines and they skulk back to their picnics to polish of the taramasalata, before collapsing out of humiliation and exhaustion. Then the Noisettes took to the stage and the proper entertainment started.
We weren’t aware that our picnics came with wine. I wasn’t aware that Michelle came with wine. I therefore pitched up with 2 delicious bottles of Ridgeview’s 2007 Bloomsbury Cuvee - a delicious Champagney bubbly from Sussex that I nabbed from the cellar of my pub. Michelle pitched up with a decent bottle of Provence Rosé too. Booze was clearly not going to be a problem, or potentially a huge problem, as we’d vowed to have an easy night. Something that is nigh-on impossible when we are confronted by an unlimited supply of grapey deliciousness in the usual surroundings of London’s hostelries.
Oh yes. The food. When I first came to London, for some reason I was more aware of Oliver Peyton than any other restaurateur. As a big-smoke novice I was in awe of the now defunct Atlantic Bar & Grill and the, in hindsight, mediocre Mash, then subsequently Inn the Park where I recently had a delightful raspberry tart with visible mould. Now he does some stuff on T.V with Pru Leith and some enthusiastic and patriotic chefs. He also has a company called Peyton and Byrne, some gallery restaurants and probably some other bits and bobs going on to boot. Bloody hell Ed. Stop rambling.
Peyton and Byrne did the picnics at Kew the Music. Michelle is a self-proclaimed veggie-lesbian. She’s not a Lesbian at all. Quite the opposite, so I never really got this. But she don’t eat animal and I don’t not eat animal so we had one of each – there was supposed to be three of us after all. We unfolded our quaint paper red-and-white-check ‘table cloth’ and unpacked a delectable array of yummies. There was some perfectly good chicken-liver pate with punchy piccalilli; some nice little quiches; potato salad; gazpacho; some muddy looking, under-seasoned sludge that may have been masquerading as baba ganoush; fresh peach & heritage tomato salad; fresh figs with rocket and mozzarella; stale bread and butter and some other tubs of varying culinary quality munchies. On the whole not a bad little spread. They’d been too easy with the salt almost across the board but they have to play it safe I guess.
But surprise surprise I have a little problem here. The picnics were £45 a pop. £45 for a rubbish bottle of warm white wine, not enough food for 2 and a souvenir hessian bag is a lot. Thank god we got 2 picnics ‘cos we nearly polished off the lot. One would never have been enough for the both of us and I imagine with a lot of people coming from work, that they’d be expecting a feast. It wasn’t that I wasn’t happy, cos it was a perfectly lovely evening, but I wish I’d put my foot down and driven home my suggestion of bringing grub from the superb Melrose & Morgan in Primrose Hill on my way home from work.
Thank the lord we didn’t invite the picnic-hater. We wouldn’t have been able to hear The Feeling for his whinging. We would have had to pin him down in the first place, and this food wouldn’t exactly have worked in our favour in convincing him that eating off the ground is sometimes the only way to go.
Compass Confusion – Pizza East Portobello
I was always happy to make the journey to Pizza East: Soho House’s pizza machine in Shoreditch. The food was always yummy but I very much enjoyed the vibe and the people watching too. Plus a mate used to give me free stuff which is always a bonus. I’d often head up to Shoreditch House afterwards for some frivolity by – and sometimes in – the pool to wash down the din dins and make a jolly good night of it.
Then one day to my delight I bumped into the gratuitous grub giving guru down the ‘bella and she told me that the unstoppable king of the dining scene bling – Nick Jones (my old boss) – had taken over a dilapidated shit-hole of an old boozer at the top of Portobello Road called The Fat Badger. I knew The Fat Badger as it’s in my manor and was run by a friend of mine until Jonesy got his paws on it. It really was the most heinous of watering holes and was approaching a state of such structural catastrophe that someone had resorted to holding the walls together with black and yellow duck-tape. Nick couldn’t have come along at a better time.
I watched with excitement as the boards went up and the builders moved in. Tattooed eastern Europeans blaspheming and exchanging curt expletives over the sound of banging, cutting, drilling and other cacophonous building site noises. Then I fucked of to Corfu for a week and forgot all about it. Then last Saturday I was sauntering down the ‘bella with an American guy that I had befriended on holiday and there it was. Pizza East Portobello!
Now I hadn’t really thought about this. And even now maybe I’m making too much of a deal out of it. But I thought it would be called Pizza West. After all it ain’t east. Well, it’s east of Wormwood Scrubbs but no one goes, or comes from, there so what’s the bloody point? It’s in W10! And although strictly on Portobello Road its right up the North end also where no one goes – except if you’re heading to Golborne Road for some old tat or over priced ‘reconditioned’ furniture. I don’t know why this bothers me but it does. It’s silly. There’s nothing east about the place and Pizza East Portobello doesn’t roll off the tongue like Pizza West either.
Anyhoo. It was packed. It was always going to be packed. All the delightful yummies that would brunch at The Electric – Nick’s other place down the road – had migrated there for their Soho House fix. iPads and Independents everywhere. Not to mention the perfect frequency of ‘yups’ chipping out from the crowd as they wolfed down their brunch before the rugrats got too unruly and had to be returned home to the nanny, or the spaniel needed letting out for a poo.
What they’ve essentially done is taken all the elements of Pizza East and squeezed them into an awkward space that’s a fraction of the size. We were shown to The Deli Counter; a kind of holding pen for the hungry where I kept spilling my coffee ‘cos some twat had put a ‘distressed’ slice of tree trunk full of holes and knots where a counter top should have been. Then an american teenager stole my Guardian and proceeded to drop her orange juice on her Blackberry as she was finding the tree trunk equally perplexing. After an acceptable wait we were plonked at a table where we were expected to sit sandwiched between a crying toddler in a highchair and a table of over-sized European tourists. This was not pretty. I stood staring at the impossibly small space; a questioning look upon my face which the hostess attempted to rectify by pulling the chair (it wasn’t really big enough to be a chair) slightly out to the left.
I shoehorned in the American and then I sat proud of the table. Perfectly placed to have my chair constantly kicked and nudged by the passing Portobello-ites and those bloody rampaging rugrats that were charging around. Then we ordered, ate, drunk some drinks, paid and left. I think I had green eggs & ham; and a plate of white & green asparagus with some cheese. I did! I have photos of them. The American had a pizza. I don’t remember much because the atmosphere, noise, children and my numb legs overwhelmed me. It was probably perfectly good. Yes it was. Quite yummy in an acceptable way. You get what you expect. But the space really is as tight as a duck’s arse and that annoyed me. I challenge anyone to manage more than 20 minutes at that table before the pins and needles set in and you start jumping around trying to restart your legs.
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Sunday Soap Box
A quick post between breakfast and lunch service at the pub is all I can muster this morning. Compelled to write after flying through the Sunday supplements. Once again, aggrieved by the pennings on an over paid, over critical oaf with a predictable and underwhelming writing style that has a questionable understanding of the industry that he scrutinises week-in week-out to put bread on his table.
A A Gill is at Hix Belgravia. I enjoy his waffle every week and am inclined to respect his opinion even if I don’t agree. Zoe Williams is at Quo Vadis, as is my current bone of contention: Jay Rayner. He’s on a rant about time limits on tables. Again. He’s always ranting. It’s boring.
What it seems he fails to understand is that it’s bloody expensive running a restaurant. We get slapped around the face from all angles with ever-increasing overheads and bogged down with time-wasting bureaucracy that we have to pay someone to take care of. Food’s gone up. Alcohol duty has gone up. VAT’s gone up. Minimum wage has gone up. Just about everything is going up. As we don’t want to rip people off – like charging more than £14 for a pie – we have to increase the turnover of our tables otherwise we’d all be out of business. So yes, he’s right that the well-priced food and wine is the reason for time limits.
Managed correctly, out by times can be worked to suit the restaurant and the guest. They should be applied where possible but never uncompromisingly enforced. If someone wants longer then give them longer. Their repeat custom will be more profitable for the restaurant than a second sitting in the long run, but most people don’t care. If you want to carry on drinking after dinner, go to a bar. It’s not like there’s not a mind-blowing choice. I think most like the change of scenery.
If Joe public can get it then why can’t a national critic? I wonder is he would have anything interesting to say if it wasn’t negative? If I’m honest, I find anything positive he ever says a little dull and predictable.
Right! Back upstairs to juggle those out by times on what’s looking like the busiest service of the year so far. Fancy lunch Jay? I could guarantee you a table. My bookings have time limits.
You can read Jay Rayner’s review of Quo Vadis here.