*dimsumdolly* - the different morsels of the life of a foodie

Slow Spain

And oh, everything is in slow motion here. Spanish time is so relaxed it´s unbelievable. It´s like people here have it so easy with the siestas, and the late nights. I see kids running around late at night when I already feel like going to bed. The people here are also very friendly and so relaxed. No one´s in a rush at all. And the local women and men are so gorgeous. These people really have good genes. And oh, I love the

Anyway, more on Spain when I get back.

Sucky South

I´m in Torremolinos, a small city in the south of Spain and this place really sucks...there are too many British tourists...it´s as if i never left the UK. Every single person is as roasted as a suckling pig. It´s quite a hilarious sight actually. So instead of seeing hot Spanish men, all I see are pot-bellied old British men looking like roasted lobsters.

I don´t mind if a place is touristy but yet has some local culture...I mean cities like Barcelona, Hong Kong, London etc are filled with tourists but they have character. Here there is NO local culture whatsoever.

The food is also terrible - my friend and i have walked all over in search of Spanish food but all we find are places selling fish & chips, pizza and spaghetti, roast chicken, steak. Like, KILL ME NOW. Thankfully, we found a gem of a restaurant last night thanks to the recommendation of a fellow traveller from South Africa whom I met on a day-trip to Gibraltar yesterday. He told me of this restaurant which he found...it has no English menu and is patronised mainly by locals. Only has one waitress who could speak some English and she recommended some really good food. And I figured I could trust his taste...he looked like the sort of person who knew what good food was.

We met him at the restaurant and he began to recommend food he had eaten for the past few days at the restaurant. True enough, the food was superb...nothing like the horrible Brit fare we had been having. I was really so happy after eating crap food for the past couple of meals. And after dinner, my friend and I went to a small cafe near our hostel and had the best hot chocolate. It was so rich and thick. Pure molten chocolate. Yums.

The beach itself isn´t that fantastic. Though the weather´s hot, the water´s glacial. It´s freaking cold. I´m not swimming in that kind of water! The sand isn´t that fantastic either. And I can only do so much lying on the sea. I love the sea, but I just can´t lie there all day like the Europeans love to do. I need to be paddling or doing something out there!

This morning, we went to Mijas, a village up in the hills. It was much quieter, had fewer tourists, and was really quite charming I must say. That I liked.

My friend and I are heading to Tarifa tomorrow, so hopefully it´ll be a little better there. Please, at least let there be better food!

Anyway, I won´t ever go on last-minute trips again without doing more research. I don´t think I´m that much of a go-with-the-flow person after all!

Off to Malaga, Spain

It's a really last-minute trip taken on the spur of the moment. We were like, "OK, let's go to Spain! Which part? How about the south coast for some much needed sunshine? OK! Check for cheap flights on the net. Let's head to Malaga!"

My friend and I booked our tickets only last week.

To the land of tapas, paellas, sangria, Zara, Mango, Pull & Bear, Camper, beaches, hot sun, hot men etc!!!

Back in London on 28 June.

Bill's

Bill's definitely deserves an entry of its own. I can always count on olduvai to sniff out places like this. Chungkingexpress and his posse of friends took a train from London to spend Sunday afternoon in Brighton and olduvai took us to Bill's for lunch.

Bill's sells fresh produce like seasonal fruits and vegetables, but are a little pricey compared to the big supermarket chains. It's organic blah blah blah...the English are very into ethical eating. Everywhere I turn I seem into encounter some "Eat local produce" message so that air transport is reduced hence reducing carbon emissions into the environment. I must admit that as a Singaporean I never thought much about all these 'cos in Singapore everything is imported! But OK, I'm beginning to get into the whole ethical eating movement now. It takes a bit of getting used to though!

Anyway, Bill's also sells canned and bottled foods from countries such as Thailand, France and Italy. I was surprised to find Thai curry pastes being sold in glass jars there. There is a very relaxed and casual feel to Bill's and it's bustling with activity. More often than not, you'll find yourself waiting for a table as it's always packed. As you wait, you eye the plates of food on the hands of the wait staff and the food on people's tables and you work up an appetite just by all the visually tantalising food streaming out of the kitchen.

As olduvai and I had quite a late breakfast we decided to plunge straight into dessert. We shared the Hazelnut Meringue with creme fraiche, banana, passionfruit and raspberries, topped with hazelnut sauce. Heavenly. I also had a refreshing fruit juice mix of plum, peach, mango and watermelon.

Basically everything there, whether it's savoury or sweet, looks really good. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves! Those cakes with all the flowers on top as decorations look sssooooo good, it's practically obscene.

Bill's
100 North Road
Brighton
BN1 1YE
Tel: (0)1273 692 894

The Mock Turtle

Ah, what a wonderful and relaxing week spent in Brighton with olduvai! Her dorm room faces Brighton Beach and it's so nice to look out of the window and see the vast sea, the occasional sailboat and the seagulls flying around. The seagulls in Brighton are like mutants – they are especially big! They must be fed too much by humans. The pigeons are also terrible. They aren't afraid of humans at all and are very audacious as to come right up to you and snatch your food away. It's also a bit risky to eat alfresco as evident when we walked past one woman sitting at a fish & chips eatery being "bombed" by a seagull. Ooops!

It was so nice meeting up with olduvai again after a whole year. Without fail, we'll always go in search of good food every time we meet up. We visited some cafes and also cooked dinner every night. Notably we made Bak Kut Teh, cornbread, pasta, mash potato etc. I'll do a tag team with olduvai here...she has written about the places we ate at and I'm just going to fill in the gaps by supplying some pictures and short descriptions! First to feature is The Mock Turtle! Don't you just love the name already?

It's a very quaint little cafe near the Pool Valley coach station serving English tea and cakes. There is more seating downstairs if you can't find any seats on the street level. Expect to find traditional English fare like scones, tea cakes, lemon cake, orange cake, walnut & date cake, shortbread etc.

OK, the only thing is that the pictures don't look that good 'cos they wrap all their cakes up with cling wrap! Actually I think it looks visually awful...can't they use glass cake covers or something???

Jars of homemade jam stacked on the shelf for sale.

Ooh, big fat jam doughnuts below!

Olduvai had the Walnut & Coffee cake which was really nice and moist, though maybe it could do with a wee bit less sugar.

I had the Old-Fashioned Dark Gingerbread with cream. This was a little bit dry but it had the right amount of spice. The cream that came with it, however, was scary! Gosh, imagine eating all of that artery-clotting cream! I suggest that you go without the cream and save yourself 30p.

We ordered a cup of tea each. Service is prompt and expect to spend about £6 for a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Note that it's closed on Mondays and is opened the rest of the week till 6.30pm.

The Mock Turtle
4 Pool Valley, Brighton
East Sussex
BN1 1NJ
Tel: 01273 327380

Flowers Galore!

I think London is prettiest at this time of the year...the parks' trees are lush with green foliage and the flowers are all showing themselves off in their full glory. It's absolutely gorgeous! Here are some pictures I took in Regent's Park two weeks ago.

Some of the roses had delightful names!

Brighton

Hello everyone, am writing from Brighton at the moment. It's a nice, seaside town south of London and I arrived here yesterday to spend the week here with good friend, olduvai.

Brighton's a nice respite from the hustle and bustle of London. It's much quieter and it's lovely to look out to the sea from olduvai's room.

Anyway, this is just a short note for now...more later!

Columbia Road Flower Market

A ten-minute walk from Bricklane will take you to the Columbia Road Flower Market which opens on Sundays from 8am–2pm. But it's actually OK if you are there at 2pm...in fact it's better 'cos the flowers and potted plants are being sold at a discount as the stall owners prepare to pack up.

I think it's more of the locals who patronise the market. The market isn't that centrally located and it's unlikely that tourists would want to make their way here just to see this little lane when they are too busy going to London Bridge, Westminister, Trafalgar Square etc.

And while you're pushing your way through the crowd along Columbia Road, look out for a cafe called Treacle for its very lovely cupcakes or "fairy cakes" as they are called on the their website. I like the big cupcakes (above) better compared to the tiny ones (below). Tiny ones only tease but don't satisfy!

Cupcakes must really be becoming the next big thing. Check out this article in the New York Times.

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But if you don't want something as fancy as the Treacle, pop into The Flea-Pit, a rather run-down cafe, but full of character and retro-looking furniture and crockery. It is a good place to rest your legs as it's casual and relaxed and has a great sense of fun about it.

After looking at the flowers, we went to have Vietnamese food at an eatery called Song Que. I didn't eat as I had a lot to eat at lunch but the food that my friends ordered looked really good. But I had a beverage I really miss – soy bean milk! The food's also cheap, by London's standards anyway. After eating we headed to the art studios along Cremer Street, Shoreditch, where some of the artists had opened their studios for an open house to the public. At one studio, visitors were allowed to paint on a palate which has seen better years. Nonetheless, it was fun and the orange face you see was drawn by the very talented Keith. The rest of us just scrawled colour.

One thing I really like about London is that there is so much creativity around. It seems to seep and vibrate from every pore of the city. The fashion and shopping's great and you can just about find any type of clothes you like. The markets and bazaars are filled with budding designers who peddle their uniquely designed clothes and fashion accessories. Design and lifestyle shops are filled with creatively designed homeware like lights, cushions, crockery, furniture etc.

For musical and theatre buffs, London is like the Mecca of theatre. I must admit I've been really bad about doing my pilgrimage to the theatres even though I'm currently staying right smack in the heart of the theatre district. I've yet to watch a musical. But hey, I need to put food in my stomach first and a roof over my head before I can think of paying homage to the theatre gods more regularly. I think they'll be understanding and merciful. But I did catch Shakespeare's A Mid-Summer's Night Dream at the Open-Air Theatre at Regent's Park on Thursday Night. More about that in another post.

Spitalfields and Bricklane

I know, I know, I've been rather slack with my updates. But there's good reason for this – I've been busy doing some freelance editing work which means some money coming in at some point. Hopefully soon, of course.

This week's weekend is already here and here I am going to blog about last weekend's activities. Anyway, last weekend I went to two weekend bazaars at London's East End – Spitalfields and Bricklane. The former is more upmarket and has individual stalls set up very prettily in neat rows. The clothes there are usually designed by budding designers who sew the clothes themselves so designs are usually very unique and quirky. As for food, you get stalls selling freshly baked brownies, quiches, Turkish desserts, olives, bread, cheeses etc. Just looking at it provides such a visual feast.

A short walk away from Spitalfields is Bricklane. It's a long lane lined with people selling stuff they don't want anymore. The place is filled with bric-a-brac, but there are also stalls and several bazaars at the side roads filled with budding fashion and jewellery designers, aspiring bakers selling cakes and upcakes, aspiring chefs selling delicious looking paellas and frittatas...anything and everything really!

Then I spotted a bakery which had people filing in and out. It looks like a very established bakery in this old neighbourhood and doesn't seem it has changed very much since the day it started. But therein lies its charm of course. Seeing it reminded me of those bakeries selling the pandan waffles I love at HDB blocks back in Singapore. It's like your friendly neighbourhood bakery, you know?

I found this little stall below so amusing. Emulating the Peanuts comic strip, the guy and girl on the left had an old typewriter in front on them and put a sign up that read "Advice £1". They were even dressed the part!

Overall, I thought Bricklane was more interesting and I would definitely go to again just to soak in the atmosphere and take a look at the interesting designs that people come up with for everyday things. The place is just bubbling with creativity and vibrancy!

Food Notes in London

I've found a cheap place to buy fresh ginger - Chinatown! I paid 99p for a kilogram the other day. It's much cheaper than Tesco and Sainsbury (the two big supermarket chains in the UK). Incidentally, both have now become my two best friends since I'm now cooking a lot more than I used to back in Singapore. It's the domestic goddess in training!

Ben's Cookies

All cookie lovers, you HAVE to buy some from Ben's Cookies to eat. They are delicious!!! Notice also that "Ben" is drawn by the illustrator of Roald Dahl's novels, Quentin Blake!