Summertime in London is a really odd thing. For one, you don’t pack your jackets away. And secondly, it’s actually colder than Sydney right now and they are in the midst of their winter. The third thing, and this happened yesterday, they announce there’s a heat wave when there is not. It’s 23 degrees, my English friends. 23 degrees.
But I will pucker my little lips together and I Shalt Not Whinge. In fact, I think I even embraced the London summer not so long ago, no?
It is so weird for me to not have an opinion about something. Usually everything; whatever the thing may be – a restaurant, a movie, a service or even just my new L’Occitane Red Rice mattifying moisturiser – everything leaves me with some form of an opinion. I love it, I rave about it. But if I hate it, wow, I run around the internetz bagging it all over Twitterverse, much akin to social media murder (’tis a good thing I don’t hate very much. Or have any influence).
Drawing an opinion from me (either good or bad) is really not very hard. What’s a more difficult achievement is balancing so precisely on the thread between leading me to like or dislike something that I am left speechless (which is an unfathomable feat in itself) and without an ability to form any opinion.
My dinner at Tamarai left me with one such conundrum. I went, I ate, and I really don’t have much of an opinion about it.
Well, ok, I lie, the pan fried pork belly made my tummy dance in glee, but other than that it really didn’t leave an impression. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t bad, it was just meh. Oh wait, was that an opinion right there?
I’m gonna ask you to do something really hard. Really really hard, but bear with me ok? Because there once was a time when I was young, and the world was a very different place, and I want you to go with me there, just for one moment.
So sit still, close your eyes and breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt at yoga, is that that way of breathing is how a person should always breath (because god help me I thought my party trick of in one nostril and out the other was just the coolest thing since Fido Dido). Anyway, breathe, and concentrate… and push your mind way back to the depths of your adolecense.
Back to a time of scrunchies and crimped hair. A time of leg warmers (oh wait, that’s like now).
Back to a time when Tom Cruise was hot.
After surviving our food-binge weekend in Lille, my friend Ying escaped to travel through Spain, Italy and France (in relative gastronomous sanity) before stopping by London for another few days enroute back to Oz. She gave me a day, 20 hours to be precise, in which I could take her to my favourite eat-outs. I protested vehemently that 20 hours is merely a fraction of what I needed, but hey, I can improvise.
Our itinerary: dinner at Inamo, breakfast at Lantana, lunch at Sketch, and cake at Hummingbird*.
Yes, this is how we roll in the catty life.
My boyfriend’s been away in Finland all week and I’ve been on my lonesome at home. You know what, I have to stop calling him “my boyfriend”. Much like you and I and that cute puppy I wanted to kidnap today, he has a name. His name is Panu. Equal emphasis on both syllables ~ Pah-noo, not P’noo, like so many people insist.
Panu and I, we are quite the opposites. He’s tall, I’m a midget. He’s… not really quiet, but I make a lot of noise. He likes rock, I like breaks. He’s a sci-fi fan (yuck), I like everything but. He loathes karaoke, and me… *coughmikehogcough*. And he’s healthy and well, I eat a lot.
But what keeps us together is that secretly, under his crazy health-nut exterior, Panu also loves to eat. Oh, and we also really like each other.
Last weekend saw me pack my little red suitcase for what was to be a hectic weekend: flight out to Stockholm late Friday night, a day in Stockholm, cruise to Helsinki overnight on the Silja Line, and a day in Helsinki, then back in the London gloom. It was my first time in Stockholm, but I’d been to Helsinki before, because that’s my boyfriend’s home town. Well, kinda. He’s Finnish-Australian, like I’m Malaysian-Chinese-Australian, which is a bit of a mouthful but eeek, imagine if we had kids? Finnish-Malaysian-Chinese-Australian? Wait a minute, did I say kids? Phwoarr… what a brain fart! I totally hope that he doesn’t actually read this blog!
Anyhoos, diversion. Food. Though we only spent a day here and a day there (and half the meal potentials were wasted on the cruise buffet), I can solemnly say that on this trip, I had the best meatballs I’ve ever had. Ever. And this time, I’m really not exaggerating.