Barcelona and Valencia

Places to eat in Barcelona

Carpe Diem  by the beach
super lounge bar at night and chilled sangria serving cafe by day
ask for nasim.

babajeenasim@gmail.com
0034632149296

Arola - hotel arts
authentic spanish tapas and meal

Santa Caterina
Unbelievable place. Just go.
Avda. Francesc Cambo 16
Mercat Santa Caterina
Al costat de la catedral
08003 Barcelona
Tel 932689918
www.grupotragaluz.com


Lucia

The road side tapas though much touted - we did not enjoy

do go to the Sangria de famiglia
its not as great inside but should visit
BOOK ONLINE - entry takes hours otherwise.

SHop SHop  SHop. lovely local boutiques.




VALENCIA
Suprisingly fantastic food

Casa Montana
Wine joint with food. book in advance. Even if its a little far from where you are staying please make the effort. Start with wine and move on to dinner.

Copenhagen and its sister concern mamlo
www.restauranecopenhagen.com
all veg!! and just superb

Riff
dont miss this one. German chef. 5 course meal and simply deivine.
963335353
Calle Del Conde De altea 18

Appetite
Thai fusion. Small place. Very very big portions but somply outstanding food. Enough veg options.

Quetomas.com
Q tomas
very good for non veg.



Suprisingly good pubs strewn all over.

LONDON  more food

This time London was a Liquid Diet and some absolutley awesome food.

NOVIKOV

Asian and Italian cuisine. We went for the Asian. I have never ever ever eaten better food, got better service. They have a lounge too, which needs no booking. But table reservations are difficult. Book as soon as your programme is made. Kids allowed but not encouraged.

50 a Berkeley st. Mafair. London W1 J8HA
+44 20 7399 4330

La Bodega Negara
Mexican fine dining

If you book ( and you have to) before 9 pm they will shoo you out asap. To get the real mad feeling of this dark dusty cave, go late have a couple of drinks and eat a little later. Excellent food. Dont expect the regular nachos salsa, beans burritos. Do not miss if fond of Mexican cuisine.

oh and address alert- the address i give below is correct. But once you reach Door no 9, you might turn back. Dont  - just go in.. the Girls! Girls! and adult table dance....is just a diversion.

9 OLD COMPTON ST LONDON W1D 5JF

Ping pong 
old fav for lunch
all over london

OLD COMPTON ST and WARDOUR ST - SOHO
this place has just taken off. If  you are wondering around, and dont have anything specific in mind just stroll around. You will not be dissapointed. ALert -- some sleazy jpoints still exist, but its safe. 

CARNABY ST- shops, restaurants and loads of fun. OFF OXFORD CIRCUS

april 2014

Madhur freaked out - i have still to eat here - INPARMA 
10 Charlotte Place W1T 1SH
+44 20 8127 4277
www.in-parma.com

HONG KONG - food

Some new food places in Hong Kong

Sevva - absolutely must go. Go for drinks early evening and sit or stand on the terrace on the 25th floor, with a full view of Hong Kong. Booking a table on the terrace is very prohibitive, unless you are a large group then its worth it. Dining inside. Fine dining, Asian Fusion. Absolutely must go. For the view, ambiance and experience.

Prince's Building, 25th floor, 10, Charter Rd, Central. Right outside Central Station. Hong Kong. 25371388.

Chilli Figara 
Spicy madness. If you can handle spice --- climb the hill and go into this small restaurant and get ready to go mad.
Asian

Shop E, G/F., 51A Graham Street, SoHo, Central, Hong Kong


Dragon I 
Dumplings by day. lounge bar by night. we went for lunch. looked good for the night too. 
ug/f the centrium  60 wyndham st. central (its in lkf)  ph 31101222

LAN KWAi FONG
LKF
complete party place  must go at night 
some good restaurants in the day too. 

Chez Patric.
look up on the net. Small chef run restaurant. Awesome food. f

Kids, dogs, cats and other animals.

Many years ago we lived in a small cottage. Ground floor us and 1st floor big fat snooty woman, her arrogant husband and their nice children. Opposite building, assorted kids of assorted ages and dispositions, a mad gardener who had pyromania, a piano teacher, assorted movie personalities and a few undescribeable human beings.
 I wanted my kids to learn some elements of wildness, the same which had turned many of my mother's hair startling white. So the kids raced around barefoot and ate with dirty hands, climbed trees, cycled at dangerous speeds, rummaged in the overgrown garden and ofcourse lived with assorted animals. We had one dog, and another walked in our garden leaving his brothers and sisters with their mother. He was all flurry and cute and was promptly adopted. The lady upstairs had cats - lots of them. They slunk around all over the place, hissed at my dogs and drove them batty. So much so that when my daughter went up to play with the kids, one of my dogs kept guard, and kept giving her warning barks- telling her not to get too friendly with the cats. We kept fish, but they ate each other up. Many other dogs ran amok in the compound and my dogs would take off randomly to the beach. We had direct access to the beach, which was also an invitation for more wild dogs.
One day the kids ran in, highly excited. There was a gaggle of them kids. (I felt so proud looking at my dirty haired, filthy nailed, muddy faced kids..!!) In her tiny hands, Kanak had a small parrot baby, looking all disoriented and bewildered.
We immediately fashioned a large basket, tied up four ends, looped up the rope and hung it high on our balcony, which opened to the sky. We were loathe to close the bird in a cage. It was a fledgling, could barely fly, and we all feel in love.
Nippy (for he loved to nip at my gold earrings) soon grew as did the blood lust of my younger dog, Teddy.  When we realised he could fly, but could not stay up for too long, we had to put him in a cage.
Nippy was then taken to our closed living room and left to fly. He would flutter, rise to the ceiling, try to sit on the fan (switched up please) and then land on my shoulder, climb up to my shoulders and nip my earrings. We were both in love with each other.
I realised that Nippy was desperate to fly. Thinking its natural for a bird to be that way, and be on his way, I let it be, until one day I saw something which made me take a deep breath for I had paled.
We would leave Nippy in his cage, and Teddy would place himself strategically right under the side Nippy was sitting, and alternately smack his lips and hang his jaw open.  Just hoping that the bird would fall into it. To top it all Teddy made direct eye contact with the bird. Open mouthed and slack jawed I moved closer and saw the little bird's heart beating wildly in panic from under his little breasts.
I had nightmares that night and a few more, of waking up one day and seeing small birdy feathers and a few bones on my balcony, and Teddy sitting in a corner and looking like - well like- a dog who has swallowed a bird.
We left his (or was Nippy her?) cage open at nights and one day Nippy was gone. I admit I looked hard at Teddy, opened his jaw and checked and all that, but apparently, Nippy had flown his (makeshift) nest!
We have since shifted, kids have grown, so have the dogs, but I still look for Nippy across the skies when I hear parrots every morning. Teddy ofcourse had plenty of wild dreams, when he would smack his lips and paw the air, thinking he had killed a bird for a tasty morsel.
The gaggle of them kids, have grown, some become film heroines, some doctors, and my kids still have fond memories of those wild days. 

The big fat greek experience

The many myths of greece --- Its not only a hot mediterranean country, with islands and sandy beaches.We overlook the ski resorts and mountains and cool and sometimes cold evenings in the hily towns. And ofcourse a sea resort like Mykonos - which was so windy, we did not let Kanakk go to close to the cliffs. I had nightmarish visions of her flying off! And please note that all beaches dont have to be sandy. Infact Crete was manmade by the hotel and if a party of 50 people danced on it, the sand and the beach itself would be displaced,and the only beach which was natural resembled Juhu Beach on Chatt Pooja. And what can i say about Mykonos? It was windy. At this point let me add that Kanak was moved a good few feet by the wind, while trying to climb onto the flight. We setteled into the plane (trying to reach Athens) and we wondered why it was moving so much - side to side, until Madhur pointed out it was because of the wind. Crazy winds i must tell you. The doors in the hotel would slam shut, Taxi doors would not open, and Mykonos was extremely hilly. We were due to go to Santorini, and for 2 consecutive days, ferries were cancelled, - u guessed it - due to mad windy conditions. Lesson learnt- Fantasy thoughts and movies dont maketh a country and its holiday - (mamma mia and the women dancing in the hot sun?!!?) Its best to do intense research and also definately look into some first hand experience to get the true feel of the country. Any country. Its been a wonderful holiday. The last of its kind before my eldest flies her nest and starts a new stage of her life! Greece is huge and filled with surpirses. The conditions in main Athens remains a major worry. Poverty striken men and women, many many abandoned dogs, and a whole lot of major apathy. Mykonos, being a complete party town, seemed fairly ok. The walls white washed, and I am sure research will show me that the town has to compulsarily white wash its walls, every once a year. The entire city sparkled pristinely.Every single building and outer wall! Crete seemed ok too! But Basically Greece remains in trouble financially. All those who hold a job seem comforted and certain. Those who dont are suffering. But given the problems that plague them, sans the taxi drivers in Mykonos, The Greek are extremely welcoming, warm, hospitable and wonderful lot of people. The entire lot of Cabbies in Mykonos are khadoos and need to sort out their attitude. All in all, we met some lovely people, learnt a few humbling lessons on acceptance and hospitality, and saw a whole lot of huge pillars in every archaelogical site, posing as temples to Gods. By Athina, I was fed up!! And wanted Zeus to strike me down!

Live fish and dead skin - Crete and Mykonos

We went to a fish spa.For the uninitiated, - the legs are cleaned and you sit with them submerged in a tank full of small live fish. They look harmless - until you expose your legs to them. The minute the water ripples they rush to your legs and - attack! All the fish move in lightening speed and are nibbling away at parts of your leg. All four of us had a crazy 15 minutes, trying to explain to the fish that we are all ticklish - no go!  They insisted on eating parts of our skin which they thought  were dead, but which we felt were very much alive - and Ticklish!!! Its like a feeling of a strong vibrator singing away on your feet , soles and if you happen to feel ticklish (like we did) and spread your toes apart - then between your toes too! Its a great experience... As long as you dont look down and see them attacking your "dead skin" or think of how razor sharp their teeth might be to cause this kind of vibrations.  We are now in Mykonos.  Mighty silly place to be with one adult child and one teen child! They want to party, we want to party but none of us want to go with the other! There are a number of paradise islands here! All of which promise you the same thing - that you will miss your breakfast!  Mykonos is very very pretty, very very windy, and the sea is very very blue. Infact the sea is many shades.  Nearest to the shore its dark dark blue, then gets lighter blue and blue green and towards the horizon its silver. I have never seen a shade of silver over the sea ever before. I am not having fanciful thoughts- it is actually silver. The waves dance in the wind, the boats bob (some of which make me feel sick, just looking at them!) and the entire effect with the wind playing symphony is hypnotising! Today, on the street shops i read a t shirt which proclaimed - Mykonos fucks Ibiza. I dont know about Ibiza, but Mykonos does do that to your sleep patterns! 

Feta cheese. And more feta cheese.

We hunted high and low in Athens, and on the internet, spoke to all manners of human beings, I even wanted to ask the hazaar stray dogs scattered all over the city (more about that later), but nobody was able to find us NON GREEK food.  Its been feta cheese and cheese stagmanaki, and local athenian cheese and then local cretian cheese, its been cheese and more cheese. In all forms. Friend, in phyllo, stuffed in peppers, courgettes, zuchinni (whats the difference between courgette and zuchinni?) and in tomatoes and we have stuffed all this down our throats and protesting stomachs, drenched in copious amounts of olive oil, for all the 6 days we have been here. I refuse to now say cheese even for the camera. So last night we went to a - i wouldnt say small village, actually i woundnt say village.. its more like a town..   so any case we went to this village / town and we ate Italian food -- i want to put the bbm dancing emoticon here! It satiated our hearts and the souls and taste buds of my kids . I wanted to hug the owner. Did I mention that the Greek tend to have terrible BO? Therefore I restrained from the spontaneous display of affection and happiness.  We are now talking about Crete - pronounced as Kreete.  Its a huge island, really huge. To a walker in a straight line, from one point to the other 250 kms ! And to the driver, who ofcourse cannot drive in a straight line- 650 kms!!!!  So when we were told about the 2 villages close to us, we decided to try out luck there instead of traveling a few 100 kms for food. At that point feta cheese sounded just alright! Coming back to the stray dogs. They are all over Greece I think. And they are HUGE! I mean really huge and fat (fed on feta cheese me thinks!) And they all look tame, i mean they all have collars and tags hanging from those collars , but they are all sitting around in alley ways and road sides. And permanently sleeping! I have seen very few of them walking and never seen any sitting up. From their sheer size I think sitting up would be a task! They all look abandoned. The greek in their crisis have decided to leave and let go of their most loyal family member. Its really sad to see them.  Crete is a very funny island. Its warm - almost hot and the sea is cold. The first dip is chilling. There are barrenish mountains all around, and on some we can see snow caps! But the sea is blue, green and all Mediterranean.  Last afternoon we swam into the sea. Approximately 1.5 kms in all - back and forth. If the Mumbai Sea were clean, I would let go of all personal trainers and other physical fitness teachers, and stick with an early morning swim in the sea every day! The biceps, legs, torso, everything was fighting the waves to move forward and the heart rate had gone up to a level where we could hear it echoing inside the sea.  Best form of excercise I say...... Bring on the Feta Cheese!