You know my views on this. You can see a lot of new live music for £177.50, in places where music was meant to be played as well.
Busy week … saw John Mayer at O2 on Tuesday night in his Solo Tour. Performed with no backing band and still sounding great 22 yrs on from first hearing him in the US; amazing guitar skills and must have played his way through a 2hr set and about 9 or 10 guitars. Tonight off to Portsmouth to see OMD, never seen them before and looking forward to it.
I might have commented on the Tamil Prince in Barnsbury previously. Today had a long family lunch at its newer sister place, the Tamil Crown on Elia St in Islington. Both restaurants are in former pubs and retain a good pub vibe whilst serving absolutely delicious Indian food from a very short menu, which I always appreciate. Well under £50 a head including several drinks each. Highly recommended. Then round the corner to the Island Queen pub, another really nice place tucked away in the back streets, again with a really chilled, relaxed atmosphere. The kids are hitting the town, us oldies have retreated back to Stratford.
You reminded me that, after a day around London visiting The Hayward (excellent), Tate Modern (good but a bit of a rabbit warren) and a glass exhibition (excellent) we headed for Dishoom Covent Garden having heard great things. A 25-30 yard queue outside was a shock, apparently the norm around 6’ish, but it moved fairly smoothly with a nice touch of Chai tea handed out. Inside it was unbelievably busy, however you weren’t shoehorned in. Good menu, excellent service and the food (for such a busy restaurant) was on point (£120, incl a couple of drinks, for two of us). Would definitely visit again. Recommended.
Wow, three galleries in one day? I’m at the stage where I do a couple of rooms and am then exhausted. I’ve never been to a Dishoom restaurant but have heard good things, have to give it a go. Can’t you reserve a table?
Was a lonnnngggg day (and 7km of walking). But worth it. Great sculpture exhibition at Hayward and Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirrored Rooms were interesting (as is she). Nah, Dishoom don’t take reservations. Clever idea as you can’t get better advertising than a long queue of people trying to get in - had the odd person asking with interest what we were queuing for and saying they would have to give it a try. We weren’t queuing more than 30-40mins to be fair.
There is a chain of restaurants on France called L’entrecote which is similar, no reservations, and long queues mainly of locals build up prior to opening. They only serve one meal - a green salad, followed by entrecôte steak in a special garlic sauce and as many chips as you can eat. There are a range of puddings though and very good house wine. It’s tough to spend more than about €30 a head and really good……but you have to remember to get there early. I think there might be a version of this in London but my daughter advised me it wasn’t great value. On a recent footy trip we took in the Guggenheim in Bilbao. By the time we got to the top floor I was knackered and had a sit down rather to do the last gallery. Which it turns out, had all the good stuff in it - Gilbert and George, Koons, Rothko…… How were OMD?
Le Relais de L'Entrecote mate. There's a couple of branches here and it's pretty good. The 'green' sauce is great Love a Rothko exhibition, you should have shuffled off to view the last gallery When I can finally get out of here I'm back for some high culture - galleries and some gigs, and the lesser cultural delights of Loftus Road and a few pints
I think that there are two brands - the Relais version which is Paris centred and plain L’Entrecote which is more southern - Toulouse (where I went) Bordeaux etc. food looks identical though. I went to the full Rothko experience at the Louis Vuitton Foundation gallery in Paris in January. Staggering number of his pictures in one place for this exhibition, to the extent that they started to blur in front of my eyes….I suppose blocks of colour can do that to you.
OMD were very good. McCluskey really got everyone going and the band did a great set. Definitely a good night out.
It's back! Season 17 of Taskmaster is here, couple of unknown contestants for me but I think Sophie Willan is going to hilarious, she appears to not have a clue what's going on It's our anniversary on Sunday and Mrs SM has bought me tickets for Greg Davies live next year as a present - result......she got Nick Cave tickets from me!!
Saturday afternoon, no footie and not working so what should we do dear wifey....I know, let's go to the theatre!! Apart from going to see stand-up comedy I've not been to a theatre since I was at Secondary School so no idea of any form of etiquette, but we're going to see "Murder in the Dark". We like watching some of the newer adaptations of Agatha Christie works and love a good horror movie so this fits well with our tastes. Saturday afternoon matinee showing, followed by a meal and a few bevvies in Glasgow should be a good day, and no stress worrying about QPR results!
