Category: Eating Out

Categories
Eating Out Travels

Culture. Eating Chinese Style

Some of the family from Malaysia is visiting the UK for the first time.

It was the first time they had experienced the pomp of the British culture, the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, and many more sights and sounds. (see previous entry for pictures, click here).

It was the first time they had experienced real cold when outside walking, “0” degrees Centigrade, as one said, smoke came out of the mouth. The poor things were wrapped-up so much, they could hardly move. Malaysia is permanently hot in the “30”‘s, and is very very humid.

We went for a meal in London’s China Town. Why after traveling all this way were they taken for a Chinese meal, and not for a typical British meal?

typical Chinese family meal

A typical Chinese meal table layout with all the food in the centre.

That got me thinking. What is a typical British meal. Where could I take them for such a meal, and I struggled to find an answer. There are Chinese, Italian, French, Indian, Bangladesh, Japanese, Turkish Kebab, Greek, American style steak houses, hamburger restaurants. But what about British, English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish?

OK we have Fish n Chips, but where are the restaurants? They are far and few between. I could only think of a few, and some of these are perhaps not the standard I would take people to for a special meal.

Where are the roast beef and Yorkshire Pud restaurants?

As I have described in previous blogs, and talked about in my trainings, food in a typical Chinese restaurant is served in the center of the table, and diners will help themselves one mouthfull at a time from the serving tray.

 

Eating Chinese Style
Eating Chinese Style

A typical Chinese meal table layout with all the food in the centre.

In a few days I will be off to Malaysia, swopping places with the family visiting the UK. There I[will be eating only Malaysian food, as there are no British restaurants for me to visit. Oh Poo Poo. I better find one here in Kingston upon Thames for them to try and me to enjoy before I leave.

site index
Categories
Coaching Eating Out English Courses Memory Mind Maps NLP Phobias PhotoReading Recommendation Stage Hypnosis Travels Turkish

A Recommendation from a Participant

Sorry it is in Turkish, but I think he says good things about me.

Also it is unedited.


Mehmet Tanbas, 2007



See other recommendations (click here.)

Categories
Eating Out Travels

Another Day, another Breakfast – 2

Thinking about how we eat our meals the wrong way round, (click to read), I try to follow my own advice, and have good breakfast every day, and cut down, eat less in the evening, but this is difficult when you see wonderful desserts on the menu, chocolate gateau, ice cream, cheese and biscuits.


Yes I know I should eat fruits. But I am a fresh meat man.


Many of my breakfasts are taken in different hotels around the world, and I find it quite interesting to experience the cultures and what is offered in the different countries. Each country have their own traditions of what is to be eaten as the first meal of the day.


In England we would have an English breakfast, consisting of egg, bacon, mushrooms, fried tomatoes, sausage, backed beans, maybe black pudding, fried bread. We would also have a cereal, cornflakes with milk, ending with toast and marmalade or jam, washed down with and English cup of tea or coffee with milk.

                                                        /images/71606-62901/bfast3coffe.JPG”>     /images/71606-62901/bfast1.JPG”> Cooked meat?

Turkey, will serve an egg, scrambled or hard boiled, some form of processed meat in the form of a sausage served in a tomato sauce, slices of cucumber, cheese and more processed meat and olives, black or green. There always seems to be a French loaf and jam. To wash this down, there is the tea, Turkish tea, so strong that you have to water it down with 50% tea and 50% hot water.  

         /images/71606-62901/bfast5turkey.JPG”>

Otherwise it is a glass of tea and a bread roll sometimes containing a little amount of cheese or black paste, or just a simit bread ring covered with sesseme seeds. Very dry.

         /images/71606-62901/bfast8turkey.JPG”> 


Each culture has its’ own traditions, ways of eating and doing things. It is fun to experience these, but gets very confusing when entering hotel breakfast rooms, working out how and what to eat.

Categories
Eating Out Travels

Another Day, another Breakfast – 1

It is said that the first meal of the day, the breakfast is the most important meal of the day.


I think they are correct, but how many of us go without breakfast? We seem to put the priority of meals on their head, by putting the importance of the best meal as the evening meal.


During a normal night in our sleep, the body shuts down, and the plasticity of the brain, the learning of the brain takes place. The body does not need much fuel, (for the food intake, what we eat is fuel for our body), to operate during sleep. When we wake-up, we need the fuel to kick start our day, to run our body.


What do we do? We have no fuel intake, no breakfast, no boosters to get us going, perhaps just a coffee to give us that high of caffeine, thinking thatn s good. Then at lunch time we may have a sandwich, a light snack, to see us through the afternoon. In the evening we perhaps go out to meet with friends over a meal, perhaps not meeting until 8pm, and sit down to a three or four course meal, a soup or starter, a main meal, and then a dessert, all sold to us by an eager waiter, trying to get our bill (invoice) as high as possible, as the restaurant is there to make money.


The undigested food sits in our stomach waiting to be broken down into the chemicals needed to power our body and brain, which it does whilst we sleep, the very time the chemicals and nutrients are not needed. So we store them in the body, leading to high cholesterol, fats, heart disease, diabetes and indigestion.


Categories
Eating Out

The Basil Diner, Kingston upon Thames – More Food. Sorry.


A restaurant very close to the flat of Norbiton Hall where I live, has recently opened its’ doors to business.


On the London Road, leaving Kingston upon Thames, is The Basil Diner, rather a strange name for a restaurant, but having Chinese writing over the door, one would presuppose this was a Chinese restaurant.


On entering the restaurant is clean and inviting, it seems always having an available table to choose from.


The waitress greets the guests with enthusiasm, and is eager to please. As does the management, who will take time to talk to the diners.


The first one has to know that this is a Malaysian cuisine restaurant, giving different tastes and ingredients to the traditional Chinese food. See the menu. click


                                                         

From Wan Ton soup, pork and prawn dumplings in a clear soup with the green vegetable pak choi, or the Tom Yum hot and sour soup from Thailand, to Malaysian Mee Goreng, a stir fried noodle with chicken, fishcake, egg, garnished with coriander, chilli and lemon, the food is served in good portions, and the quality is the best.


For me I cannot take the taste or smell of the Sambal paste which seems to be a basic ingredient in the cooking of Malaysian cooking, and the curries play havoc with my stomach, so I keep clear of those. But there is plent to choose from.

Unlike traditional Malaysian or Chinese serving, the food is delivered on individual plates to each diner, so each person chooses their own meal. No sharing of the central dishes.


The tastes and cooking is traditional Malaysian, with the staff all originating from Malaysia.

Very good food, and good value for money.

                        

On this occasion, apart from my food left-hand picture, and on the right of the of the right-hand picture, food was served in the center of the table for all to serve themselves.

                           The Basil Diner, London Road, Kingston upon Thames, UK

RETURN to NEW BASIL DINER article click here

                                                      Click here to see menu as of 8th June 2007.

Categories
Eating Out

The Basil Diner, Kingston upon Thames – The Menu

This is the menu of The Basil Diner in Kingston upon Thames as of June 2007.

Very good food, Malaysian Chinese cuisine, at a reasonable price.

/images/71606-62901/thebasilmenu1.JPG”>


                           The Basil Diner, London Road, Kingston upon Thames, UK, Tel:- 02085469757

                                                      Click here to see menu as of 8th June 2007.

                                                                        ENJOY YOUR MEAL.

Phillip Holt, NLPNOW.

Categories
Eating Out

Dim Sum

Dim Sum is a traditional Chinese light meal or snack, served from morning to late afternoon.

Usually served in small steamer baskets or small plates, the food offers a variety of choices, from fish, meat, vegetables, noodles, desserts, and gallons of Chinese tea, mainly a flower or yellow tea. No milk.

Dim Sum at the New World Restaurant, London China TownNew World, where the food selection is taken from table to table on trolleys, and as they pass, you can chose what you want. Perhaps not the most elegant restaurant, but good food, but the atmosphere is good..

Categories
Eating Out

A Relaxing Meal?

A new day in Kingston upon Thames and London with so much to do.

I have not driven my car for about two months as I have been out of the country for such a long time, and Mee Len wants to see her two sisters, Mee Chee and Mee Wah. Mee Wah is visiting for a few days from Dubai.

I go down to get the car, and the battery is flat, no power. These days there are so many electronic parts on a car that the batteries run down, even if it is not being used. I spend more on batteries than petrol, having to replace them every year as I only do 2,000 miles a year, they never get enough charge.

Eventually I get the car to start, and we go to Leatherhead, for a quick lunch, and then the girls go of into London to the Victoria and Albert Museum, not for me, so home I go.

The internet is not working as my ISP has been taken over by another company, and I have to move once again. It goes wrong. The more I try to get it going the less it works, but I do not have time to work on it, I have to meet the family in Fulham, near the Chelsea Football Ground, at a restaurant called the Blue Elephant, based on the Thai cuisine.

This restaurant has many branches throughout the world, London, Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Lyon, Dubai, New Delhi, Beirut, Malta, Kuwait, and Bahrain, and as the list of locations would indicate, the cost of the food is expensive. Ok the atmosphere is good, lots of flowing streams with fish, criss cross the restaurant floor, were even the eating assistant, let me call her that, as she was allocated to me to show me to the table, as she got lost between the array of split levels and small little sections of tables, in this dimly lit place.

The service is fantastic, there are so many waiters and waitresses, that the plates are taken away and the next course would be put in front of you before you could say “Jack Robinson”.

The food was good, certainly better than airline food, but quantity wise, you got less. We did get a complimentary soup, small in quantity, about two table spoons, which started the meal.

The first round came with about five Dim Sum type offerings, spring rolls, a green jelly with coconut cream topping, a banana paste wrapped in a banana leaf, and something else again wrapped in a banana leaf. 

As always, I hardly ever know what is served to me on my plate, I eat it and wait until I have digested it before I ask what it is. 

                                                      

Categories
Eating Out Travels

Infinitea Tastes

Anyone reading my writing will think that all I do is eat. No, I do work too.

Today is day one of the PhotoReading course here in Bangalore, I am about to prepare myself, pressing my suit, cleaning my shoes, ironing my shirt, getting my course aids together. Just as much work goes on prior to the start of the course as does in the presenting of the course itself.

I love my job, but I have to eat, and Ashlesh and Monica have really looked after me.

I was taken to the Samarkand Restaurant, Registan Square in the Gem Plaza, Infantry Road, Bangalore, for food that has its’ roots in Central-Asia, Samarkand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. Though a heavy wooden door, opened by a traditionally dressed guard of the region, we entered a dimly lit restaurant, with low tables.

The menu was in the form of a four page newspaper, the front page giving information of the origin and style of restaurant, the inner and back pages listing the menu as news items, with interesting snippets of information of health, food and culture of the region.

A small starter of colourful sticks and a creamy cheese dip arrived, the sticks hard as rock, followed by stuffed mushrooms with a variety of spices, not too hot or spicy.

The main course was ghost Ki Dum Biriyani, cuts of baby lamb, cooked with the finest basmati rice, “Dum” style. This is the rice and lamb, cooked in a container covered with a pastry, which is cut open at the table. The lamb was so tender, and the flavours mingled together. Wonderful.

/images/71606-62901/bangloremeal11.JPG”>
We have infinitea tastes available to us.   


Categories
Eating Out Travels

British Airways flight BA119

The flight from London to India was just another flight. The more I fly the more it becomes like catching a bus or train.

It is good to sit back and observe the personalities and states of the people who take their seats. Why do people insist in bringing into the flight cabin their roll-on bags, why not put them in the hold. OK some airlines have restrictions on the number of bags you can check in, and if the main luggage is over the weight limit of say 25kgs, load the heavy stuff into hand luggage, often that is not check.

I had a friend in Saudi Arabia who would carry his scuba divers weight belt in hand luggage, as this one item would weigh more than his total allowance.

This weight allowance does not take into consideration the weight of the person,  I have in the last few months lost two stone, 28lbs, 12.5Kg, but my baggage allowance does not reflect this. I heard pf a report of a man turning up at check-in, only to find that his baggage was well over weight, and the airline wanted to charge him excess charges, or he was to leave his extra clothes behind. He emptied his bags of his clothes and put them on, wore them. His baggage now was below the limit, it full filed the airlines requirements. Once through security, he took all the extra clothing off and placed them in his hand luggage, and nothing was said.

These extra pieces of hand luggage are never opened during the flight, they are difficult to stow away, heavy to lift up, and stop me putting my coat, computer bag as other people take all the space.

We had two meals on board, being an Indian flight, I suppose I should have expected Indian cuisine, because that was all there was available. My body cannot tolerate too spicy food, I like it, the taste, the heat, but for some reason, my body does not. I could have requested special food, as it seemed the flight attendants had a lot of special meal requests, unlike me who does not like to make a fuss, and goes with the flow. The couple next to me finished their special meal eating with relish, (perhaps they had not eaten for weeks), before my standard meal arrived. I did get a choice, vegetarian or chicken. I like meat.

                                       /images/71606-62901/banagloremealba1.JPG”>

At 4am in the morning, I just ate another airline meal. I love flying.