food

london 6.33pm 6.1C wednesday 2017

such a mild day today. this is the lowest temperature today… can you believe it? we have hit a warm spell, due to a plume of warm air coming up from the south right over south england. scotland is still cold though. that is why u still read of snow and what not there. but it is mild down here. that is why so many travellers flying with BA in heathrow are a bit angry and puzzled why BA has cancelled so many flights. i think BA has been having the same problems as ryanair, where the pilots all take leave over this period to use up their holidays, and so there is a shortage of pilots. ryanair have to cancel flights, and that makes for very bad public relations. i think BA is using this excuse of snow to cancel flights that they would have to do due to pilot shortage, but under the pretense of this snowmagedon they can fob it off and let the weather take the blame. ha.

i got an email from tfl, the london transport people asking me for my views for the pedestrianisation of oxford st. and giving me the plans for how it will look like after they have done it. the buses will be diverted to the streets running north of oxford st, wigmore st.  it will be more inconvenient for us bus travellers, because where we can take one bus , like the 23 that takes me from the paddington library straight to the virgin lounge near soho; after they are done , i will have to change to another bus. so rather inconvenient and lengthen the journey times.

i think they must be thinking of the potential for a terrorist attack using a truck or car to mow down pedestrians along oxford st , and pedestrianising it will remove that danger. so i guess it will be best to close it to traffic. 

i have been to the circuit training, this afternoon, and find it is giving me a way to strengthen my muscles. recently there has been an article in the papers of a 80yr old celebrity saying she is addicted to pumping iron. she goes to the gym to lift weights, and saying everyone who is old should do it . i totally agree with her. without realising it, i find i could not do press ups as much as i used to do. i cannot do even 10 now. such a shock really to find out how weak i have become when i first did the circuit training. now i am gradually getting the upper arm strength back.

and just now an old friend of mine called to arrange to meet and he was talking about how he is worried all the time now. afraid to fall, he said. i told him of the old ladies and weights and urge him to take up some weight training, join a gym or even tai chi… he told me an old lady friend of his has joined a tai chi class. and i hope that might encourage him to join her. he says he worries a lot now , unlike when he was younger. all kinds of things make him worry. i know health deteriorating can make people worried. he is diabetic and cannot control his suger intake, nor change his lifestyle. so he knows he has to change, but cannot do it, and so another thing for him to worry about. rather sad really. i dont really know how to help him. 

oh, i got another freebie today. a free souvlaki, given by a new branch set up in victoria near the coach station by this restaurant chain called the athenian. it was very nice, the bread is very soft and like pitta bread, except softer , and folded in it is a stick of minced meat, (chicken, or pork, or lamb,beef,  and salad and folded up and wrapped so it is easy to eat. i forgot to see the menu and see how much they normally sell it for. about £5or£6 i should think, that is the normal price. you have to fill up a form in a tablet , giving them your email address, before u can get your free food. i got there after the circuit training about 5pm, when no one else was in the queue, and when i got my food, a long queue began to form. so i am glad i managed to avoid that. there are quite a lot of freebies giving out, there is another one tomorrow and the next day. and free doughnuts too at another place.

but even the supermarkets are selling cheap food. this morning i was on the bus going to asda to buy their beef, when i read in the metro newspaper on the bus , that tesco is selling beef joints for £5 /kg. same price as asda. and tesco is nearer to me too. so i got off the bus and took the connecting bus to the tesco and saw they were selling lots of veg, potatoes 2.5kg, carrots, parsnips, cauliflower for 29p each. they did not advertise that , i wonder why… it would certainly make me go to tesco even without the beef half price offer.  so here is where advertising has made me alter my plans and shop at tesco instead of at asda as i originally intended.

now i got the beef, 1.6kg, of it, simon suggested i roast half and do a curry on the other half. i had intended to do all of it in a curry… but the meat looks so good, all trussed up and ready to roast , that i was tempted to roast it instead. i am not sure about roasting beef…simon like it rare, i like it medium rare… so how to get that then…might have to take it out and cut out a portion and return the rest to cook somemore… quite a bother really. 

actually he is right now cooking something in the oven. using the veg i bought but instead of the beef, he is reheating 2 tins of steak and kidney pie. they are rather nice, but very salty. but convenient to cook, you just put them in the oven to warm up and that is it. and if u do it like he is doing now, roasting veg along with it, it makes for a nice roast dinner. if u think about it, if u have to make it yourself it would take a lot of time and effort. here it  really suits its name of convenience food. 

 

 

 

steak dinner by simon

london 3.52pm 20.4C cloudybright thursday 2017

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sirloin steak meal. with blood pudding. (that black bit you see at 10 o’clock.) it seems the lining of the sausage like thing can not be eaten. i ate a bit including the lining before simon told me, and it does make it taste plasticky. haha. the pudding itself tastes salty. can’t say there was any other taste than that. the salt swamped whatever it taste of. the steak was delicious. and smelt lovely when he cooked it. i think the fat is delicious. most people trim it away, but i think that is defeating the taste of it.

earlier this morning i was at the virgin lounge. i like going there. 

random talk

london 2.18pm 16.9C cloudy friday 2016

6.14pm 16.2C dry dark night .amazing that the temp has not dropped much since this afternoon.

i am rather pleased that the ginger and chilli are still the same price in brixton. i think it will always be, but they will change the amount we get according to the season. come winter, we get less, and hopefully we get more come summer. i find it lasts me   from 2wks to 3wks.  i find they are quite essential in my cooking now.

garlic i can do without, though simon seems to want it in his cooking. he is quite prepared to pay 50p each bulb, ( he just bought 3 bulbs of garlic from our local sainsburys where they are 50p each!) .

when in brixton u can get 4bulbs for 50p. he said the bulbs he buys are large ones, which he wants.

he is so typical of british people, he does not want to be fiddling about with the small cloves. like some people not wanting to eat fish because there are too many bones in them. or preferring chicken breasts because to them life is too short to be bothering with bones. well, i have realised that when people get something in their heads, some strange notions, it is hard to shift them. to me the meat or flesh that surround the bones are the most tasty part of the creature. 

he does not realise that smashing the garlic cloves makes it easy to get the skin off. what i find is that the british garlic is so mild that i get no flavour in my cooking from them. that is why i stopped buying them.

recently i went to morrisons hoping to buy their topside beef joint which is £4.97 a kg, which is a ok price,( in brixton u can get this price all the time  but maybe it is for cheaper cuts of beef. to me, i cannot tell which cut is better. to me they are all the same, because it is how u cook them that counts.) but it was all sold out, which may turn out to be just as well.  because this afternoon i went to our local sainsburys to redeem simon’s shopping, to enter it in my nectar card, when i browse the store and saw 450mg beef pieces for £2. normal price £3.75. i was tempted to buy but i thought i shall just wait till the end of the day when they might be reduced to £1, when i shall buy the lot. haha. there were quite a lot of the packs that is why i suspect it might not be all sold out. anyway when i went there at 7pm, i found only one pack left, and it was marked down to 50p. so i got that. it is nice now and then to have beef slices in the stir fried veg. it gives a nice flavour to the dish. though if i have got more i might make a beef rendang out of it.

i have not suspected this local sainsburys so near me to reduce their food prices. they open till late, 11pm everyday even sundays as they are a convenience store and have different opening hours to the big stores which are governed by sunday shopping hours. since they open so late i always thought they dont reduce their prices. but this pack expires today, so i guess they have to sell it off by today.

people who shop there works in the govt offices nearby so they go for the ready meals. and the hot packs of takeaway lunch packs  which seem to be so popular. so maybe raw meat is not so popular. the pricss are higher than the main stores. 

whilst waiting, i cooked pork slices in ginger in my rice cooker when the rice is being cooked at the same time. i could substitute sliced beef for this instead of pork and it would turn out just as good. 

 

 

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bird in the bush.

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this is an easy dish to make. all cooked in the same time and pot as the rice. this one is slices of pork with ginger and soya sauce.

i keep up with news from malaysia by following some blogs there, and this one mentioned gurney restaurant closing, and i googled it and found out that they are planning to build a undersea tunnel from penang to the mainland in that area. it is surprising that the blog owner did not know of this development, he never mentioned it. and he is usually very informative of developments in penang, like the extension of land on the seafront near gurney drive.

and i only found out by accident. it did say it is  privately funded , so maybe that is why there is no public consultation which would be required if public money is involved, i suppose.  i wonder who are the private firms behind it. they hope to make back their money with a toll. but who would want to use it when there is allready a bridge that is now there.  the bridge has a toll fee, so this toll for the tunnel must be as cheap otherwise who would use it? . i fail to see the logic of this tunnel . must be quite  rich private developers to finance such an expensive project as an under sea tunnel… even then i would have thought it must affect penangites, and the owners of businesses or land or housing that will be destroyed to accommodate that so surely some kind of public consultation should be required. but no one seem to make a fuss about it… so different from our heathrow airport extension. 

food, krispy kreme

london 9.47pm 10.7C cloudy friday 2016

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the minced beef offer from iceland is great. i bought 4 packs yesterday. it allows me to make hamburgers for so cheaply. seeing all those adverts for hamburgers can make a person start craving them. haha. it even made me crave it,  so even myself is not immune to suggestions… just goes to show the power of adverts;  and the adverts dont tell the whole story either, showing the complete hamburgers when they are only selling the meat. to get the whole thing u still have to buy the buns, the lettuce, dressings etc. and prepare them.

the actual meat hamburger is really very easy to make from the raw minced beef. and 500mg of it, costing £1 can make a lot of beef patties, and that is just using two thirds of it… plus a third left over for making other dishes, like bolognaise for eg, or just stir fry in fried rice. i like both so it will be a tough decision which one i do finally. perhaps i can have both…

(if u consider  the original price of raw minced beef (£2) i can see why a lot of people will just buy the ready made beef patties in that asda advert,as it costs the same;  just for the convenience of it, and i can hardly blame them if they do). 

i like that krispy kreme , it is from a hole in the wall, outside their shop in holborn. it is the only one in london where u get this. yesterday when i went there there was a long queue, but today, maybe because i went there after 2pm, so away from the office lunch hour, and also this time there were two guys there helping input the order, there was no queue.

 i got a code sent to me via email from the company so i get it free. normally it would be £2. it is a new krispy creme that they are introducing one with nutella filling. the filling has the texture of chocolate; and because it is in a box, it kept its shape, and did not get squashed which makes it nicer to eat. last time i got one it was given to me in a paper bag and i squashed it. maybe that was why i did not enjoy that… but this one i like a lot. it is nice once in a while to eat them, esp if it is free. i am glad i dont have a sweet tooth, so i can resist the temptation.  they are really doughnuts with sweet filling inside. it really is amazing how much they have caught on, i heard recently that a big private company have bought the krispy creme company for $1.35billion. if u buy a dozen assorted ones they are about £11. so these nutella ones cost about double the usual price. but the filling really does make it more enjoyable. what i would think is that it might make people go buy nutella instead and just spread it on their toast. haha.

i have not eaten nutella before and so this one gave me an idea of what it tastes of, and surprisingly it tastes very much like what chocolate should taste of. so u can get the taste of chocolate without paying the high cost of chocolates. i think if anything, this doughnut will bring more customers to nutella. 

hamburgers with pink in the middle

london 3.40pm friday

i have enjoyed eating hamburgers where the meat is pink in the inside. but now i see a council in portsmouth winning a court case against a burger place for serving a pink in the middle burger.

it seems the council wants them to specify how the burger meat is produced so that the meat is not contaminated.

a rare steak is allowed because only the outside is contaminated and the germs are killed on cooking, so it is ok to serve a steak rare.

it just means more cost to get someone to work out the paper work. it is no wonder eating out is so expensive because of all these petty bureaucracy… though i suppose u could say it will stop fly by nighters serving unhygienic food to unsuspecting customers.

but dont complain when the food prices are jacked up, and it costs so much to eat out.  it just means anyone willing to go into this food business must allow for the extra costs in complying to all the food rules and laws that abound and all that cost means the customer have to foot the bill. now u know why it costs so much to eat out.

the owners sound like they are polish, so maybe there is some kind of politics in there somewhere. the local shops may be complaining as they provide competition.

once u taste beef that is medium rare, it is difficult to go back to eating well cooked beef. 

byron hamburger

london 2.51pm sunny 19.5C tuesday 2015

i have just been to the charing cross branch and eaten their hamburger. i chosed the double cheeseburger, and boy is that the truth. there were two 6oz hamburgers in there between two round buns, and it was so high, i could not get my hands round it to eat it like a mouthful. i have to cut it up in pieces with the cutlery they provide. all i have to pay is 25p, and this one cost £12.50. so quite worthwhile to order. it was so good, i could not help telling the chap sitting on the next table to me to order it. i was craving hamburger and this one filled that crave completely.

i went there earlier, at about 12.30pm, but the line was a bit long, and since i am not a office worker with a limited time for lunch, i decided i shall avoid the crowd and go into the charing cross library nearby.

by the time i finished there and went back, there was hardly any queue and it was only near to 2pm, when the office workers rush is over.

the food came very quick too. all in all a very pleasant experience. and very nice of them to do this. 

capitalism in action

london 11.08am friday 2015

i am in the library now, having just used the library computer to access my email and get a email from byron , a burger company, who are giving away 25p burgers on 6th oct as a promotion for their charity giving free lunch to children, or something like that. i got notice of it via londonist who send me a daily email about things happening in london, but i found an article in the evening standard online. rather nice of them, is this a form of capitalism in action, dont you think? not exactly free food, but close enough. 

i am writing off line as the library wifi is not safe enough for chrome to log on.

i had some problems getting the library to print out the email. the first time it did not print anything (@20p a print) and the library assistant have to come to the computer to see what i did … i found out that the email have 3pages and i did not specify which page i want printed , that explained why the page came out blank.

 the email contained a square picture code on page 3. that i have to present to the burger joint to get my 25p burger. so it came to 40p  all told that is the cost to me because of  a repeat print. ah well, such is life. haha. its still cheaper than having my own printer at home. the ink is very expensive and tend to dry out… anyway, if u want a 25p burger just get yourself registered. and get yourself down to a byron burger joint on 6oct. 

steak and kidney pie

london 3.52pm sunny saturday 2015 25.6C

quite a warm day, and sunny. i went to tanners hill, deptford, se8, near new cross station, to buy the pie. i first heard of it mentioned here, in the londonist, where it got high praise. so much so that i felt compelled to try it. i think steak and kidney pie is one of the best things about english foods, and to be able to buy one that is praised as the best of its kind and within easy reach of my place is great. i ate one cold, and even unheated, it was delicious, with such alot of beef meat in it, (usually they bulk it out with carrots and potatoes but not these, just beef and kidney).

 it delighted me. i so often get pies with hardly any meat in them, and costing so much more than the £2 each.

the price is a surprise, so good value. i bought 2 at first, and after eating one, i went back and bought another 2 more. haha. this time i bought  a steak and mushroom pie, just to see what it is like. they do chicken too, and maybe i shall buy one next time;  but steak is what i really like because it is not easy to find steak at such a good price. in fact, next time i go i must ask them if they sell the beef, because it would make really good curry. at first on the outside it looked like it sold only fresh meat, no pies. and it was only when i went in and saw through the doorway a table with pies laid out on it, that it sells pies. i think i would never have gone to this place if i have not read of it, it is not on the high street but down a side road. and there are no prices written out. very low key , they obviously rely on word of mouth, but they should really advertise it more with signs and stuff. still i am a great fan of them now, and can only say do go, and buy it, it is what pies should be , but never are. 

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Indian state bans beef and brings in five-year jail terms for possession | World news | The Guardian

Indian state bans beef and brings in five-year jail terms for possession | World news | The Guardian.

mumbai is in this state where it is now a jailable offense to sell or possess beef. except buffalo. previously it was legal to sell and possess beef from bulls and bullocks. will there be a black market in beef now in maharastra state? i wonder.

i guess those who want to eat beef will have to leave the state or even the country. tourists will be the ones caught out by this, as who knows where the boundaries of that state are in the first place. imagine what will happen if u buy a beef takeaway at the border, and cross over into that state without realising and get arrested. haha.

it is aimed at the muslims it seems. they own the beef trade.  of course the muslims in muslim countries are no slouch either in banning stuff, like pork. so i guess they both deserve each other.

i wonder how macdonalds and burgerking can do business and thrive in india since their main business is beef burgers. the only meat they can put in their burgers now is chicken.

perhaps the burger business needs an entrepreneur to start a business using lamb/sheep and goat burgers. i spoke too soon. i should have known that there is allready a big industry doing the mutton trade.

not surprising mutton is expensive.  it seems only beef is cheap, considered a poor man’s meat.

there have been a report of people collecting all the old cows wandering the streets and slaughtering them. i guess that trade is going to stop or will it? maybe it will widen to include bulls and bullocks now. haha.

it will be interesting to see how people will behave to get round this new law. ban something and there will a market spring up to cater to it, as sure as eggs are eggs. haha.

what is this world coming to when u have people adopting extreme positions in food. like two unruly kids fighting over food that they dont even want to eat, but want to  prevent the other from getting it.

unless this is a plot by vegetarians to force people to give up meat altogether.

john my friend has been on holiday in goa for the whole month of february. he is expected back today. i bet he is craving beef. haha. first thing he do when he lands at heathrow is to buy himself a macdonald big mac or burgerking whopper. haha.

hindus force abattoir to halt slaughter

london

i was talking of why hindus dont enforce their religious views by objecting to places that serve beef, and here is a article in the times this morning about india’s biggest slaughterhouse being forced to stop since feb11th. their muslim staff have been intimidated by hindu extremists. they do it by beating up their drivers. 

the times online is not free to everyone, so i googled it and found this article , an indian website. it gives a more rounded account. the abattoir in mumbai is the only one to process beef, from bulls, etc, not cows; and their butchers went on strike to highlight to people the actions of the hindu extremists which wants it shut down. seems to me going on strike indefinitely is fulfilling the extremists demands, but i can see there is not much else the butchers can do. so now it is up to those who want beef to influence the govt, but somehow i dont have much hope for them to be successful, with the prime minister himself siding the hindus extremists. hope i am proved wrong and that the primeminister do support this beef abattoir. after all, he cannot be against bull slaughter surely, even if he is against cow slaughter. i was surprised to see the jains included amongst the hindu extremists demanding the abattoir be closed. they have become much more militant, if their involvement here is correct. 

everything in the world seems to be so intolerant and confrontational have you noticed? hinduism used to be a very tolerant religion. so was islam, ( i have to correct myself with islam, i only say it because my muslim neighbours in malaysia have always been very peaceloving and gentle, but that was a long time ago when i was a boy. it is not so now as few of us live in mixed neighbourhoods , with muslims having their own kampongs and living separated from the other races) . but now both have got themselves with extremists who are calling the shots. this harassment of the beef butchers is just a symptom of the intolerance that muslims and hindus have become with each other. granted they have been on each others throats since partition. so it is not new. what is new is govt siding more and more with the hindus.

 in the past, i think govt tries to be neutral. the votes are easier to get if u side the hindus in a hindu majority, or side with the muslims in a muslim majority (must be quite rare though with so many sent off to pakistan and bangladesh). so a govt that sides the hindus will win the votes and it looks like that is what the modi govt has become.

in the same article in the times,  i learnt that india’s prime minister, modi, has pledged in it’s manifesto to ban cow slaughter. in the state where mumbai is located, it is allready banned since 1976. 

interestingly enough it is ok to kill bulls, bullocks and buffaloes. so only cows are prohibited.

religion surely brings about strange convolutions of behaviour.

so what would they do with old cows? what a waste of good meat.

the muslims and christians argue that it is imposing their religious views. not recognising, (or rather recognising it but  as theirs is the only true religion, it is only right)  that in muslim countries, their prohibition of pork also imposes their religious views on others.

logically everyone  will see how absurd all this is , and abandon religion. but of course that is not how people’s minds work. 

added. 19.2.15 this article suggests that modi is not that keen on religious diversity, as it has taken him this long to assert it. from the comments it might be he came to power because a lot of indians now feel it is time to make hinduism prominent and not pander to the muslims and other religions.

i think it is all the stories we hear of ISIS , and terrorists who are islamist. people now get the conviction that islam is a religion that breeds terrorists. you cannot really blame people for starting to think it, because all the terrorist incidents have been promulgated by men who believe in islam, or cite their actions using words from islam.