Month: October 2015

ESSO Poster Advert

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Thought this was a very interesting poster advert… I feel like advertisers know where I live so they know where to put these odd ads. ¬_¬””
I actually saw this being put up at night and wondered why on Earth is there a poster ad with a red plastic border added to it?! Not sure about the wording either… Are they trying to write a Japanese poem (probably an English haiku) here? 
“Now at Esso.
Synergy Fuels.
A new look and a new journey.”

Almost there but last line doesn’t make it – too long. :p

I don’t drive, so I hope car owners understand the benefits of synergy fuels.

Taro Japanese Restaurant – London Old Compton Street

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Miss Money was insistent that we meet up during my week off! I had already planned some days out with  Miss Pinky and so a couple of days ago was my only free time (kind of).
I met her during her lunch hour and after I had done some shopping around. I think I’m a quick shopper since I know what I want most of the time (but can become really indecisive when there’s too much choice!). Miss Money said we should go to a place where they do lunch time offers and so we ended up in Taro on Old Compton Street (I’m not sure why I keep ending up on this street!!). I actually wanted to try out this place anyway… Good choice Miss Money!

We took a moment to decide… not that long. Miss Money thought they were hiding the lunch box menu from us. ¬_¬”” So this is what we had…
Miss Money had the Chicken Teriyaki bento box which came with a bowl of miso soup. The chicken was a little sweet but a bit dry. Tofu was nice, and the edameme beans were ok (she made me eat some).

I ordered this tempura california roll… I wanted sushi, and I wanted a fattening one! This is awesome. I think I could have had another one of these that day. Hehehe. It had a brown sauce (not sure what it was) that tasted well with the sushi. Battered sushi is the best! Where else in London do they make this? I can’t remember the price of this, but I think it was around £7-£8 for 8 pieces. Warmed up sushi is the best!

I wanted to try out their tonkatsu ramen too… Hmmmm… it’s not as nice as Bone Daddies or Kanada-ya’s… soup was creamy but not very creamy – disappointed :(. Egg was overcooked. But the best part were the chashu pieces. They were nice and thick… it reminded me of the chashu pieces in Tokyo. Yum, yum, yum…
As you can see I was eating the sushi fairly quickly. Hehehehe.
Greedy Geek eating all the sushi XD

Total came to £24.30. I think that included the two glasses of water. Not bad but still expensive.

My geeky rating: 4.5/5

Good points: 
– Polite service
– Spacious seating
– Tempura sushi is ultimately the best!

Bad points:
– Disappointed with the tonkatsu soup
– Not the cheapest but reasonable
– We think the food took a little long to come out (it might have been the sushi’s fault ¬_¬”)

Address: 10 Old Compton Street, London W1D 4TF
Tel: 020 7439 2275

Website: http://tarorestaurants.co.uk/

Well… that was not the end of my afternoon. Whilst Miss Money went back to work I went to Shibuya Soho (post updated) and had an Americano and Strawberry Bing… ^_^ I couldn’t help myself!!!
Strawberry Bing at Shibuya Soho

Nissin Roast Beef Flavour

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A very short post today.

Never seen this Roast Beef flavour from Nissin before so I snatched this up from Longdan Express for 50p. Haven’t seen this flavour in China Town either.

Added the soup base and favouring oil to the bowl (before I get told off for not making this properly).

Then I added the noodles and water into the bowl… At first, I could only taste a subtle beef flavour, but as I ate more and drank some of the soup, the beef flavour sunk in and it had a little spicy kick. Tastes nice compared to the ordinary beef flavour noodles.

Not a bad flavour!!

Price: 50p in Longdan Express (varies in other Asian stores)

The Baby Show 2015 – London Kensington Olympia

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Never thought I would ever end up at a baby show with Miss Pinky and Baby B. I’ve taken the week off because 1. it’s half term week, 2. I need a break from work and make my colleagues suffer a bit and 3. spend more time with Baby B and Miss Pinky.
It’s an awfully long time since I’ve gone out on an outing with Miss Pinky and it’s my first time out with Baby B. Apparently she’s been out nearly every day! She’s going out more than me, humph. 😦 I want my freedom!!
During the weekend there was a baby show in Kensington Olympia, so we hopped onto the Jubilee Line, then took the District Line to Earls Court and changed again to Kensington Olympia. The show was just outside the station. I had already bought the tickets online (the discounted ones… kept looking for discount codes!) and we went in… 

At the baby show

First off Miss Pinky got a goody bag for £5… but she said it wasn’t worth it because most of the things in the bag were free samples…

Goody bag isn’t worth it

Then we had some food… expensive food costing up to almost £14. Miss Pinky had a sausage roll – but that wasn’t worth taking a picture of.

handheld pizza and a flat white coffee

Gosh, there were so many expectant parents looking for toys, prams doing photo shoots, baby bottle things etc, etc. You name it! Never thought I would be surrounded by so many pregnant women!!

A pram that would have impressed Mr Picky

There were even shows and models showing off clothes and prams…

Models showing off some expensive prams

Unfortunately I didn’t get to picture enough of the event, I was hot, and pushing the pram… plus Miss Pinky and I swapped with holding Baby B, which made people think I was the mother. ^_^ Oh dear!! I am the Geeky Godmother!!! We spent a good 2-3 hours there when we thought we’ll be there for an hour.

Well just imagine you were in a market and there were loads of stalls about… 
The Baby Show happens every year but in different areas, so don’t forget to go if you want to look for discounted sterilizers and other things… but don’t get too carried away like Miss Pinky did. 😀 We’ll be going again according to Miss Pinky!

Granny Square Nightmare! へ(´д｀へ) 口口口

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Crochet. Why did I start learning to crochet?!!! ლ (#｀ﾛ＾;)>

And now I have started to learn how to make granny squares (this was after talking to Miss Pinky who wants a blanket for Baby B…  I was already thinking about it!)… And with the power of YouTube videos I started learning. Started off with a British video, but the woman went a bit too fast for me, so I switched to an American who went really slow – thank you!! My first granny square was awful… :p
My first ever granny square

Eventually I knew what I was doing and went for a pattern that was in this book which is almost the same as the one in the video.

2nd version – a better one!

After 4-5 weeks, 100 granny squares (with some small mistakes and two confused coloured rows) and a border later (need to make another round of this border), making it 101 squares,..

100 granny squares in a bag

So many to join together

 I made this lovely blanket…

Made a mistake somewhere…

Have to tidy the back

I even spotted the mistake I made with the two rows that had double colours. Spot the difference? ^_^

so where did I go wrong?

tidied up the back!!
I’m going to increase the border every year so the blanket is going to get bigger and bigger for Baby B. Maybe one day I’ll teach her how to crochet too!!
But this has been crochet torture!! I think I want one for myself now! Just a small one for the cold days to cover my legs – and a different version. ^_^

An Autumn Walk in the Parks

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Taking a break from granny square joining – 39 squares to put together and the border to go.
Last weekend I stepped out into the sunshine and wanted to enjoy a walk around Burgess Park and Kennington Park to check out the autumn leaves.
There might a lot of leaves on the ground already but it doesn’t mean all the trees have turned a reddish orange colour yet. 😦 So here’s my autumn walk… no doubt I’ll go for another walk later. ^_^
Burgess Park is always beautiful…

Didn’t feel too autumny…so later I went to Kennington Park and stopped off by the quiet garden…

I saw this blue tit, so I decided to sit for a bit and noticed there was a bird feeder. I sat and waited to see if the blue tits would be able to get there chance to have a nibble.

Waited quite patiently and they finally got their chance!!

It might not feel too autumny in the parks right now but hopefully it will later. ^_^

Romeo and Juliet Ballet @ The Royal Opera House

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Haven eaten a lot of food at Bone Daddies Shackfuyu I was hoping not to fall asleep for this performance of Romeo and Juliet the ballet… It took me a 15 minute walk from Old Compton Street to Bow Street in Covent Garden – I’m a fast walker (thankfully I could walk!). ^_^
It’s been a couple of decades or so since I last went to The Royal Opera House and that was to see The Nutcracker! I have always wanted to watch Romeo and Juliet the ballet version mostly because of the music, the dancing and of course the story line… I was on the website for a while looking for a fairly good seat and for a good price. I think I was lucky to stumble upon a seat that had it all!

When you enter the Royal Opera House you can see some of the costumes being displayed in the cabinets.

I sat in the Stall Circle Right area – Row A, which I think is one of the best views in the house! But I had to sit sideways so my neck was hurting a little… Thankfully the people sitting on my right moved up a seat by Act 3 and so I had more leg room! 
Sometimes the dancers would move out of focus so I couldn’t see some parts of the scenes.

The performance was amazing by the way, and I didn’t fall asleep, although I did yawn in between the three acts. The way the dancers performed and how they told the story was funny and tragic at the same time. Act 1 sword fight is one of my favourite scenes and also this scene… Dance of the Knights! ^___^ Just a beautiful performance!

Hope to see more ballet – for a good price of course!

Website: http://www.roh.org.uk/

Bone Daddies Shackfuyu – London Old Compton Street

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9 more granny squares to go! Speeding up now! ^_^
I had planned to go and watch Romeo and Juliet the ballet version a month ago, so a couple of days ago the day had come, but before the performance The Geek had to eat.
I went out drinking with my soon to be ex-colleagues (but of course we’ll be in touch – we’re like a close knit family) at the beginning of the week… you must wonder why my workplace has a high number of turnovers – well that’s for you to guess. ¬_¬”” Anyway, one of these ex-colleagues/friend who I will call Mr IronMan (the triathalon thingy he likes, not the superhero) was telling me about green tea ice cream that he had had with some of his female friends at Bone Daddies Shackfuyu (but he couldn’t remember the name of the dish). In the end I ended up googling about this ice cream he enjoyed… So before the ballet, I trekked towards Charing Cross Road and had to switch between buses during the journey, humph.
Bone Daddies Shackfuyu

Bone Daddies Shackfuyu is on Old Compton Street. It’s actually a Japanese fusion pop up restaurant that opened this year in the winter, and will close next winter (now turning permanent for some reason). So limited time people, limited time! Shackfuyu is a play on words where they have joined two words together – “shack” meaning a rough, ready space and “fuyu” 冬 meaning winter in Japanese.

I was greeted by nice staff and thankfully I beat the queue because it started to get busy after 6pm. I kind of already knew what I wanted (because as always I look online at the menu apart from the drinks)… so this is what I had…
The menus

First came out was my drink, the Okinawa Sunset – a mocktail. This was citrusy and sour.

Okinawa Sunset Mocktail

DIY pouring

A few moments later my food came out…

My food – post mixing my hot pot… itadakimasu!

Hot stone rice (basically a bibimbap) came out second and the waiter that was serving this started to mix it (it’s not his fault – that’s what they are told to do)… Do they not know that bibimbaps are supposed to be mixed by the customer! Argh! Take Korean food classes!!! Well I politely requested that I mixed it (although I rudely said you’ve ruined it – with a smile – the Japanese way)… I could mainly see the sweetcorn, mushrooms, seaweed, bits of beef and the carrots… it had a sweet vinegary taste – I felt like it was never going to end. It’s too bad they never offered any gochujang paste or was that already in there?

Hot stone rice

Next came out was the prawn toast okonomiyaki. It came with mayonnaise but I completely forgot about it. This dish is amazing. It’s presented like an okonomiyaki but inside it’s actually a prawn toast. Wonderful. 

Prawn toast okonomiyaki

It’s definitely prawn toast!

And the aubergine which came in a sweet miso paste dressing, bubu arare (crispy puffed rice pellets) and shredded nori. This was to die for! The paste reminded me of hoisin sauce and the aubergine was cooked perfectly. ^_^

Aubergine
gochisosama deshita!!

Last but not least was the green tea ice cream, which in fact called the Kinako French toast. The ice cream was clearly not the highlight of the dessert but the French toast. ¬_¬” Thanks Mr IronMan for not remembering this. So kinako きな粉 means roasted soybean flour, this was sprinkled all over the French toast which is amazingly sweet. The green tea ice cream (which needs more green tea flavouring) toned down the sweetness of the toast. Hmmm, great combination! ^_^

Kinako French Toast

Total came to £35.20. A little expensive for a pop up restaurant but I guess they have to make the most of it since it won’t be staying for too long (…for real, this place is going to permanently stay!). 

My geeky rating: 4.5/5
Good points:
– Very polite service – I think they were a bit too eager though…
– Food was definitely filling – just don’t order too much
– Funky music (ok they played the CSI NY theme song, which I love so much)
Bad points:
– A tad expensive
– Don’t mix the hot stone rice! Ask the customer first!

Address: 14a Old Compton Street, London W1D 4TJ
Tel: 020 7734 7492

Website: http://www.bonedaddies.com/shackfuyu/

p.s. there is a hidden bar below the restaurant which I have not seen.

p.p.s. don’t forget to go before it closes next winter (I think in 2016) 

PG Tips Poster Ad – Keep it tea

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18 granny squares to go… slowly getting there!
Here’s a poster advert from PG Tips the teabag that everyone loves. Even Mr and Mrs Travels miss this as it can’t be found in France. My family love the stuff too! I’m more of a coffee drinker… sorry…
So “Keep it tea” which I think is taken from “keep it real” is a PG Tips’ campaign to make us aware and be grounded with tea from the world of fakery. Read more here. I think some of us need that!

I’ll make sure to have a cup of tea tomorrow morning. （＾＿－）
p.s. I know you can’t see it but in the right hand corner it says “no airbrushing used”. Really?! LOL!!

McCain Chips Poster Ad – "The Chip of Chip Snobs"

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20 more granny squares to go… all bummed out from drinking and a few hours sleep from yesterday. Terrible colleagues! ^_^

Well aside from all that here’s a cheeky poster ad from McCain Chips. I couldn’t see what type of chips are being advertised here – oven chips, crinkly chips…? You know what I mean. McCain Chips are claiming to be “The Chip of Chip Snobs”. I suppose they are, and I think I’m a chip snob too! 
McCain – The Chip of Chip Snobs
I like the way the hand is positioned with the little finger stuck in the air – a very, very British thing to do – I only do that when I drink tea from an actual cup. But McCain is Canadian!!