The Lost Post on Iceland

Lost. With the click of a button, my latest post vanished fading into nothingness like a spilt pina colada into the digital sands of the e world. It was mostly rubbish anyway. Lacking structure and clarity, a few sparse witticisms drowning in a sea of travelogue dithering. Really it was largely me carrying on about all things Iceland, which are my new favourite subjects, being specifically:

• geology;
• economics; and 
• gastronomy

Allow me to precis myself very succinctly: The geology of  Iceland is very interesting and makes for many beautiful waterfalls and snow capped glacial peaks. The food is very good and the people are proud, helpful and friendly.

I guess I can do better than that, here goes in bullet point form:

• Iceland is at 66 degrees north latitude, also the name of a popular and expensive clothing brand
• The mild climate is a result of the gulf stream currents and air flows which keep the country generally free of ice and snow even during the deep long winter, whereas Greenland, which extends much further south is not blessed with the winds and currents is a large ice covered rock.
• The island is shaped by the parting of the North American and European plates that drift apart at 2cms a year. This may not sound like a lot but it is. Trust me. 
• There are heaps of volcanoes, with my favourites being the 2 rather boisterous ones in the Westman Islands that created the island of Surtsey and replaced a nice meadow on the main island with a 700 foot high mountain in 1970 check it out here 
• There's another volcano which has a glacier, known to the Icelanders as Mýrdalsjökull and tourists as "the M one", on top of it and occasionally erupts, much to the surprise of the locals who apparently awake to find a raging torrent of ice, water and lava where their wool shed used to be. We went snowmobilling on it, because we live dangerously!

Shell living dangerously on the glacier. The glacier was perhaps less dangerous than the snow mobiling which gets exciting when the driver hits the power whilst lurching over bumps on the snow.

• The Northern Lights are amazing. We lay in the snow for hours to get these photos!

• Icelanders are very nice, highly educated people that are pretty much all amateur geologists, capable of accurately explaining plate tectonics while serving you food or explaining igneous rock formation processes whilst checking the dents and scratches on the hire car. And they all speak about 19 languages
• The only fossil fuels they use are pretty much fuel for cars, which is on the way out as they attempt to hydrogenise their cars. The rest of their power comes from geothermal and hydro sources, which is cheap, basically inexhaustible and has the added bonus of meaning there is virtually no air pollution at all. On a clear day you can see more than 100kms!
• The effluent from one of the geothermal power stations (hot water) is used to create the nation's number 1 tourist attraction: the Blue Lagoon. The mineral mud is famed for its curative abilities. If one was able to have a hot bath on the moon then I'd imagine this is what it would be like.

 

• The food was tremendous. We ate sushi, sashimi, monk fish, flounder, dried fish jerky, rot cured shark that tasted like eating a shot glass with pure alcohol in it, horse, minke whale, goose, lamb, duck, langoustines with fois gras and truffles, a ham sandwich, croissants, waffles, some chocolates, yoghurt and these strange lollys called opals which were a bit gross but addictive.
• Reykjavik is a nice city and is dead easy to walk around. This is plus since when the wind picks up a normal human can stand to be outside for approximately 23 seconds before freezing to death and being blown away.
• I imagine that Iceland is nicer now with the effective bankruptcy of their country at the hands of 3 banks. Before October 2008, the Pound to the Kroner was about 1 to 120. To put this into context a bottle of beer was usually about 900 kroner, which works out to the princely sum of £7.50 for a beer, or for those back home, $15 which I think is a lot. In the end we were getting 1 to 200 which was pretty good and put most things on a par with UK prices. By the sound of things the whole Icesave banking debacle has stoked some national pride and brought on a groundswell of political activity in a generally subservient population. Apparently it has also had the benefit of curtailing a rather arrogant streak in the locals, but we didnt see any of it and found everyone friendly and accommodating to a fault. 

That was more or less it, although I think it was less interesting on the first pass with the possible exception of the bit about the Westman Islands which I thought I'd written in a lively and entertaining manner. Getting back to the matter at hand, Iceland was a truly amazing country. The scenery, the people, the emptiness and the chance to eat basically any animal unfortunate enough to come within range of an Icelander make this one of the most enjoyable trips on a very long and illustrious list.

Iceland

Vegas Exposed!

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, except for where my travel blog is concerned. So it happened that one night around October or November we were out to dinner with Haydn and Zaidee, who were leaving the UK to travel home shortly. The topic of Christmas and New Years came up, with us lamenting the fact we didn't really have anything planned this year. “Come with us to Vegas” they said and that was pretty much that. The seed was planted and the idea germinated into a planned holiday a week later as we booked the flights. Vegas was on and we were pretty excited about it!

26^th December 2009

Vegas is the Strip. From the airport driving into town it rises out of the desert like some computer generated fantasy land superimposed over the barren valley. A 3 mile long, 8 lane “boulevard”, it is ground zero for the adult playground of Las Vegas. Flanked either side by gargantuan casino and hotel complexes it is a sensory shock and awe campaign designed to dull the senses and shake the dollars out of the pockets of unsuspecting tourists. It is amazing, being especially unbelievable at night, with the ridiculous shapes of the pyramid of Luxor, New York, New York with its Chrysler and Empire State Buildings and a 2/3 scale model of the Eiffel tower managing somehow to not seem out of place.

We flew from Heathrow to Minneapolis at about 1:55pm, delayed for ages because some dickhead tried to blow up a Delta flight on Christmas day from Amsterdam to Detroit, meaning the airlines were searching every single passenger and bag going onto the aircraft. As we made our way west, the entire North American landscape was frozen and covered entirely with a blanket of snow. It was pretty. Minneapolis was under about 2 feet of snow and something like -10 degrees when we got there. I can't understand how people live in places like that, possibly it is simply to service the airport, which was huge.

Getting off the plane at 11:30pm we were confronted with our first chance of gambling, with slot machines right there in the middle of the airport. Welcome to Vegas, baby!

27^th December 2009

The sun was very nice and the strip really is something else. There is this sensory cacophony of lights, giant TV screens, blaring music and adverts and these unbelievably massive casino buildings. They are so big they don't seem real, with Ceasers Palace causing my brain the most trouble. Eventually I think I just mentally edited it out until I got used to the size of it. It was a bit like when you are a little kid and you meet an especially tall person for the first time.

We didn't do much on our first day, just got a bite to eat and did a spot of shopping taking in the Vegas vibe which is best described as odd. People tend to wander around a bit aimlessly during the day, which makes the crowd as interesting as the pirate ship casino. Vegas is very egalitarian to judge by the all sorts getting around. Fat guys walk around in shorts wearing Iron Maiden t-shirts (12 degrees Celsius!), alongside flashy and well dressed, who give way to old people wearing sneakers. I guess this is Middle America on display.

Jo and James were arriving at 10pm so we had a few beers in The Venetian and The Palazzo casinos, got Maccas for dinner and saw some of the best old person dancing I've ever seen all to a band made up of old blokes with clearly fake hair.

28^th December 2009

The main feature of eating is Vegas is the Buffet. Everywhere does a buffet, dining somewhere is judged by the size, availability and even sometimes the food quality of the Buffet. We had our first attempt at it, deciding to try out the Wynn for breakfast, which is widely reputed to be the best on the strip. When we finally made it there are around 12:30 the line was unbelievably long. We gave up in frustration and ate at the other salient feature of Vegas food, fast food in the food court.

The main feature of shopping in Vegas is the outlet mall. There's the Fashion Show Mall, the Miracle Mile Mall, the Las Vegas Outlet Mall and a million other variations on the mall theme. The shops are actually pretty good, the staff, as with practically all retail staff in the US were excellent, helpful and attentive and everything is SO CHEAP!!!!! We followed up our brunch some shopping, this time finding a really cool leather jacket for Shell from Lucky and I got some new and badly needed undies.

Haydn and Zaidee had arrived in town about 4pm so Shell and I headed up to the fading flower of the Las Vegas Hilton. This place was not the bees knees. Nor was it the bees feet, hands, head eyes or anything else. It was a bit tired and lacked many of the amenities customary to the better casinos such as staff on the check in desk. What it did have was many strange wind like noises in the room which turned out to be the elevators that it turned out could be heard in every room in the hotel.

Brock's Guide to getting free drinks in Vegas

1. Find a casino
2. Track down the cocktail waitress that is serving the area around the 1 cent slots, and swiftly take a machine she is about to serve
3. Put a dollar in the machine and play 1 line with a 1 cent bet
4. When the girl comes around, and it is always a girl, place your order which can be one of the following: a domestic beer, an imported beer, a mixed drink such as a Gin and Tonic, an extravagant cocktail, a shot, anything else you could think of
5. Continue to play the 1 line for a 1 cent bet until the drink arrives.
6. If you want another drink, tip her. If you don't, don't!
   

Haydn and Zaidee had just arrived from Costa Rica, so we caught up while waiting for check in. We'd decided to have another go at the Buffets, with the Paris buffet being widely regarded as the best value for money. Again we had wildly underestimated the waiting time involved for a buffet with the line this time being about 200 metres long outside the restaurant. We drank instead, getting a few freebies from the 1 cent slots, and went out for dinner at Mon Ami Gabi, a French themed but clearly American run and priced casino restaurant. The cheap steaks, $23 each, disappointed James, Jo and Haydn, being a poor cut of meat beaten flat into submission and covered in a uninspiring bearnaise sauce. The expenso steak, a $39 Rib Eye enjoyed by Myself, was brilliant! We ate, gambled, got some more free drinks and had a good time.

29^th December 2009

Learning to gamble in Vegas is a bit like learning to drive in Bangkok. It may be possible, but there will be more casualties than success stories. It is more of a place for experts at the top of their game. At least in Vegas it is only money that is at risk. But if you can find the right teacher then anything is possible, and so it proved with our team versus the Golden Nugget.

We tried for $1.49 breakfast at the really shit looking Best Western motel down from our hotel but we got there about 5 minutes after they switched to the lunch menu so we left and thought let's head to Downtown, which a bit paradoxically, is actually uptown from the strip. "To the Palms!" declared Michelle to the taxi driver with all the authority of a Melways author. Unfortunately for us the Palms is neither downtown nor at the Strip, being in its own little satellite casino complex west of the strip. We realised we were heading the wrong way as we got over the Interstate and confirmed with the driver that the Palms was not downtown and we in fact wanted to head to the Plaza. It was pretty funny and "To the Palms!" eased into our lexicon, describing the enthusiastic embrace of incorrect information.

Time for the lessons. Popping into the Golden Nugget we finally hit the tables, starting with roulette. We cashed in $20 for chips, everyone picked a number and lo and behold the 29 popped up with Zaidee's $1 chip sitting on it. We won! $35 in the pocket and we thought lets have another go, so everyone picked another number. I got on 12 because I thought that was Chase's birthday and we came up trumps again! Another $35 in the sky rocket and, knowing when enough was enough, cashed out and set about losing our winnings. With no $5 blackjack tables to tempt us, we ended up asking a few craps dealers that were standing around not doing much how to play. With our dealer more or less playing for us, we learnt the basics – roll the dice. 7 is good to begin with and then bad after that. 2, 3 and 11 are bad to begin with and harmless later on. The others are harmless to begin with but make the money. With expert instruction from the dealer - “ok, now give me $5. Put $6 there. Give me another $10” we won a few times, then we lost a few times probably losing half of our newly found roulette winnings, due in no small part to Shell's inability to throw the dice on the table. The pit boss to Michelle - “This table cost us $40,000 and you keep throwing the dice on the shitty floor”.

But cometh the hour, cometh the man. Haydn stepped up to the dice and rolled us to victory and beyond. By the time he lost the throw we had turned our $40 into $329 which was a pretty good, with our half share of the winnings putting my lifetime gambling balance firmly into the black. With our ill gotten gains we headed to the outlet mall and spent up big on sunglasses, watches and high end audio equipment.

Now we had a big night planned with dinner at the Seafood and Sushi Buffet, and tickets to see the Black Eyed Peas at Mandalay Bay. We finished off our shopping extravaganza at about 5 and thought “we'll just get a quick cab”, however the other 400 people that had the same idea at the same time were preventing us from getting on with the night so we ended up running for the bus, which we made and got home in time for a quick shower, which would have been really nice had there been any hot water.

The buffet was as expected, except there was no line which gave us a bit of a shock. There was tons of sushi and sashimi, many cooked delights and some very strange little crème brulee things for desert. There were these giant crab claws that looked good but didn't actually taste that nice and even some non seafood and sushi buffet standards like roast turkey and teriyaki chicken. We ate till we were full and then ate a little more and then had some desert, after which it was time to hit the Black Eyed Peas.

They were awesome. I was surprised just how many of their songs I knew almost by heart, which was pretty much all of them. The stage had a cool light and laser show and there was a sort of catwalk stage which allowed those of us in general admin on the floor to almost get dripped on by the singers sweat. It also afforded a very good view of Fergie's legs, which are pretty sweet. So it would have been a very good gig even if they had of just sang their songs and danced around, but they didn't. Nope, the best bit was when Will-I-Am walked out onto the catwalk bit alone as a mixing deck appeared from the stage. He asked “Do y'all mind if I turn this into a club for a bit” and proceeded to whip the crowd into a frenzy while his DJ deck raised up into the sky. It was pretty cool, iced with some Chilli Peppers and Sweet Child O'mine.

After the gig we had a look around Mandalay Bay and then headed over to Luxor to have a drink. Now Luxor is exceptional, even for Vegas. It is a giant pyramid maybe 35 storeys high lined with black glass, topped with a super powerful spotlight shining from the apex. Most unbelievably, they have managed to make it look like council flats on the inside, all grey concrete. After our beers we were all a bit sleepy so we went outside to grab a cab back to the hotel, where a limo had just dropped some people. The driver came over to us and said “Hey look, you guys don't want 2 taxis, just come with me. I'll take you for $50”. We cunningly negotiated asking for $40, to which he countered with $45. Fine we said, $40 with a $5 tip and it was agreed – and we had our limo ride down the strip! Pretty funny. Unfortunately there was no sun roof for us to hang out of the top of but it was still a perfect way to top off a big day.

30^th December 2009

Outside of pursuits founded on very adult vices, Vegas' location in the middle of a vast desert means there is some amazing scenery very close to hand. Today was all about the car. We had planned to pick up a car, head off to Hoover Dam, drive over and check out Red Rock Canyon and then perhaps take it some sort of magic show that involved tigers. I went down and sorted out the car at 8:15 and we met up with everyone at 9 and drove straight down the strip. We stopped for some photos at the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign then got on the freeway heading for the Hoover Dam. I managed to get off the freeway straight away and we had to do the mother of all u turns but we finally got heading the right direction. We stopped off for Maccas breakfast in some far flung Vegas suburb – Shell had a McBiscuit which was a strange scone thing and I had a McGriddle which was a rather disgusting pancake contraption. Sufficiently greased up we headed back onto the freeway and were making great time until we hit the 6 mile traffic jam that apparently constantly surrounds the Hoover Dam. We sat in that for an hour or so until we finally got to see the dam. Unfortunately we didn't see Megatron but we did see a gigantic concrete structure which is pretty impressive.



Surprisingly it isn't vertical; it almost looks like you could skateboard down it albeit very quickly with a pretty sudden stop at the end. We oohed and ahhed it the dam for a while and then got back in the car and drove back to Vegas. We stopped off at In and Out burger for lunch – Double by Double Animal Style – with the half of the Vegas tourists that weren't in the casinos and then decided we better sort out some tickets if we wanted to see a show in the evening.

We had some basic requirements for seeing a Vegas show:

1. It had to be tonight

2. It was relatively cheap

3. It would contain some kind of magic and or illusions

4. It would have some tigers

So we rocked up at the half price ticket booth and lo and behold “The Magic and Tigers of Rick Thomas” was simply screaming at us. We bought our VIP tickets (there weren't any normal ones left) which entitled us to hang around after the show, meet Mr Thomas and pat the tigers, and had it sorted, as well as some half price tickets to dinner at the Planet Hollywood casino. Buzzing with excitement we headed off to get some more desert scenery at Red Rock Canyon, which is a canyon with some very red rocks. Luckily for us it was America so there really wasn't any need to get out of the car to see it, we just drove around the scenic drive. Pressed for time we headed back to the Strip in a rather roundabout fashion, taking in a grand tour of Las Vegas freeways.

So it was time for “The Magic and Tigers of Rick Thomas” at the Sahara. There were dancing girls. There was magic, sort of. There were tigers, briefly. There was way too much of Rick Thomas. It was also total rubbish. His magic consisted of hiding things up some very large sleeves while they 'disappeared' and then magically 'reappeared' which was actually him taking it out of his sleeve. The tigers, which looked really cool, ran across the stage. Apart from one time where a tiger kind of stood up next to him, that was it. Just running from left to right over the stage along a wire. Complete crap, but it was exactly what we were after, although I had did have trouble staying awake. We did not take up the offer of meeting with either Rick Thomas or the tigers. Back down the strip for our dinner which left me with another interesting experience, this time food poisoning.

31^st December 2009

It was Grand Canyon scenic flight day and I woke up feeling sick, thinking 'I really need to spew'. After wandering around for a bit, I managed to get that out of the way and we all rendezvoused at Jo and James's room to sort out a venue for bringing in the new years. After much research including a couple of field trips, we decided on the Rum Jungle bar at Mandalay Bay that was $150 entry with all drinks included, which was about the best deal going for the night. We purchased the tickets and I thought some food will make me feel better, so we had a quick bite at the coffee shop . It did not make me feel any better and was back within less than an hour.

The scenic flight left from Boulder City airport which is down near Hoover Dam so we got picked up at about 1pm for our 3pm flight. I wasn't feeling super but at least I didn't feel like being sick again. At the airport I thought perhaps some sports drink will help me recover so I bought some powerade and sipped on that.

The flight was great. The Grand Canyon is amazing, just this monstrous crack in the earth. We approached from the west over Lake Mead, which is the lake formed behind Hoover Dam, and did a kind of hourglass pattern over the western edge of the Canyon. There's not much point in trying to describe something that your brain can't really comprehend when it sees it, suffice to say it is quite grand. Surprisingly there was quite a bit of snow on the edge of the cliffs and on the higher ground out to the east. My state did not improve during the flight.

As I got off the plane, the cold air hit me and unset the fine balance that had allowed me to remain kind of ok on the plane. I ran away from the plane and set off the biggest vomit in the history of vomits, with many loud man sized “ARRRRRGGGH” bursts there was blue Powerade all over the tarmac. It was gross, however all the other passengers seemed to think it was quite funny.

The bus got us back to to the hotel about 5:30pm, doors at the club were around 8 or so leaving me 2 hours to have a bath and get some sleep/rest/recovery. Had I not paid $150 for the ticket I wouldn't have moved an inch all night however I dragged myself out of bed and we cabbed it down to the other end of the Strip. New Years is a pretty big deal in Vegas. They get something like 300,000 extra people head into town just for the couple of days, close off the strip to all traffic, turn off all the escalators(!) and have all of these dumb rules like no sitting and no glass.

So we hit Rum Jungle at Mandalay Bay like a Mack truck. Everyone was full of ideas about how I should approach things and we settled on a shot of rum for starters and if that sat ok then just crack on. It turned out to be sage advice. My stomach was calmed and we proceeded to work our way through the $150 worth of booze. It was a funny night, improved no end be our pretty embarrassing attempts to copy the black girls dancing which is something else indeed. Haydn came out with the best effort, making a bit of a spectacle of himself as he got down low to the beats. Crowd watching proved especially entertaining as there were all sorts in the club doing all sorts of things. Fat old guys clearly there with some “hired help” who were dirty dancing at 9pm, a couple of white trash bogans in trackie dacks who were cutting it up on the dance floor which unfortunately James did not manage to get on film and some very boisterous african american women with booty who were shaking it for all it was worth. All in all it was very entertaining.

We hit the strip for the fireworks which were good, but we all got distracted by a camera and took many photos of varying quality. As we headed back to the club the girls got waylaid by some flashing lights and turned up about 30mins later all giggling and very excited, which more or less typified the night. We managed to jump the very long taxi queue by getting a limo back up to the hotel and that was it. Well almost, Haydn needed to have a quick spew as we got out of the cab and also tried to souvenir a picture from the wall of the hotel which was fixed a little more effectively than he guessed and ended up ripping the frame apart and smashing the glass. Pretty funny stuff and no one got hurt or in trouble!

1^st January 2010

And finally it was time to go home. Finally, after a week managed to sit down for breakfast with Jo and James. After brekkie we all decided we should gamble what was left of our US dollars so we hit the Roulette table and won again! Maybe it was only $2 but we finished as winners. 17 hours of flying later and we were home in London having greatly enjoyed our time in Vegas. While it wasn't easy – i.e: getting food, getting around, getting a drink at a reasonable price – it was well worth the effort. New Years finally lived up to its billing as the biggest night of the year and we took the house to the cleaners on the tables so we were very happy.

Vegas for New Years

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I don't subscribe to that and intend to relate the trip as fully as my memory and the laws of the United States will allow me. Flying from Heathrow we set out to Vegas on Boxing Day, hitting the Mirage casino right off the flight.

..Scene Missing..



..Scene Deleted..




..Scene Removed by casino security..



..Scene confiscated by Department of Homeland Security..

finally flying home on the 2nd, what a trip!

It's food Jim, but not as we know it

Dining at the Fat Duck
An odessey in one part
By Brock Mills

Present:
Mrs Michelle Mills
Ms Kirsty Smith
Mr Steven Bennett
Mr Rick Green

Apologies:
Ms Leesan McLeish (ill)

They say it's not the best restaurant in the world, which quite frankly defies comprehension to think that a dining experience could be better; as far as a meal goes, this was the whole box and dice and batteries and whatever else you get with board games these days.

Since we came to the UK, Michelle and I have had very little in the way of responsibilities and lots of disposible income. Now for a younger man or woman in a city like London this could be a recipe for trouble, but we are grown up and adult like so instead we have found ourselves spending money on things like holidays and fancy meals. Not that we didn't treat ourselves occaisionally back home, but in London we have taken it to the next level.

The Waterway in Little Venice does an excellent Rib Eye Steak and a excellent Corn Fed Chicken Risotto. Terroirs near Trafalgar Square is routinely excellent, with very nice duck scratchings a selection of petite plats that are all good, even the ball of anchovies. Hotels in Mayfair are pretentious but deliver the goods and we even happened upon an excellent Ethiopian restaurant in Kentish Town one evening where they serve curries on a big pancake thing. We had a tasting menu at a restaurant in Stockholm, not for any special reason, but just because it sounded nice. Michelle has even begun to appreciate red wine! As with any amatuer who thinks they can keep up with the professionals we decided to try our collective arms at a true fine dining establishment and, when you are talking Michellin stars, why settle for 1 or 2 when 3 are on offer. So we decided on taking on Heston Blumthal and The Fat Duck. I'd floated the idea with Shell and Steve and Kirst, who all agreed it would be good, so I decided to just book for as many as we could and back fill the spots with whoever was will to come along and shell out for the not incosiderable tarrif. This is our story.

I shall start with the reservation. You can book 2 months in advance of the day you will be dining, which is to say exactly 2 months beforehand is the only time you can reserve a table. I booked a meeting in my work calendar so no one else would expect me to do anything and spent an hour on the phone trying to get through to the reservations desk. It was like trying to get tickets to a music festival, I just kept ringing and ringing and finally got through, only to sit on hold for about 15 mins listening to someone narrate a story about Humpty Dumpty, no doubt designed to ensure only those who really want the booking stick it out.

Finally I got through and requested dinner for 6. No worries, but 9pm is the only sitting we have available she said (The lady may not have actually said "No Worries" but you get the idea). There's basically a contract that you have to sign in blood to actually make the booking, including a holding fee of £100 which they sort of refund off your credit card when you confirm the reservation. Complex and involved but it gave us something to look forward to. I raised the flag to the potential diners who all accepted the invertation enthusiastically, especially Steve whom I suspect had been researching the wine list and had a strong buy recommendation on the good wines.

Dining that evening we had Michelle, Steve, Kirsty, Rick and Leesan. Leesan went to school with Pieta and we are all mates from Uni and Rick is another Aussie from down the pennisula somewhere who is engaged to Leesan. Leesan couldn't actually make it since she was close to death with the flu, which actually caused a bit of a ruckus as we tried to fill the empty seat - one does not let these reservations go to waste - but in the end just cracked on without her. As we met at Paddington station, the rest of us were as keen as a certain brand of mustard.

The restaurant itself is in a small village called Bray which is about 40 miles from London, so we headed out on the train to Reading where we booked some cheap rooms at the Novotel, about a 20 min drive from the village, and prepared. Michelle and I had spent the day cleaning up and finishing off moving out of our flat, so we had been a little bit stressed out earlier in the day. We had got all of our tasks finished though and it was hoped that dinner would turn a productive day into a great one.

Heston Blumthal has a pub in Bray village across the road from the restaurant so the plan was we would cab it out to the village about 7, have a couple of cheeky ones beforehand and then make a grand entrance for out 9pm sitting. That is what we did, although somehow we managed to get the bar tab to 50 quid in one and half hours for 5 people. Finally the hour arrived and with a few photos underneath the sign out the front, a knife, fork and spoon shaped from duck parts - clever! - we entered. The building is one of those ancient wooden framed jobbies they do so well in UK that was probably built in the 17th century and is all sagging beams and crooked walls. It fitted the theme of the night. We were all in very high spirits and keen with anticipation, partly because we'd worked ourselves up with how cool are we going to his place and all that, partly because we knew we were up for a fortune and partly because it was genuinely exciting to be eating there especially after we watched a couple of documentaries/reality style tv shows starring Heston and his cooking.

So we were completely in the thrall of celebrity and wern't we all very excited about it. The rule on cancellations is that you pay £100 per no show, so we hadn't actually informed them we were one short and on getting there we had to wait a little while as they reset the table for 5. We sat down and were introduced to the maitre'd, our waiters that would look after us; there was 2 of them and they alternated courses unleses the maitre'd was required for a particularly complicated peice of serving - I've a feeling he was the only one qualified to cook with the liquid nitrogen. That wasn't to mention the servers who would not say anything and clear the dishes en masse. Oh and then there was the young Frenchie sommilier who was in command of the wines.

So we sat down and they served us some bread and still water, which is usually bad idea as they sting you about £10 a bottle. But we were all still a bit over awed and got it anyway. The bread was very nice and they provide 2 types of butter, salted and unsalted, made in the kitchen of course. No little foil wrappers on the butter here! We all became butter connisuiers for 15 minutes as we analysed the different types and ate more butter on 3 bits of bread than I would usually eat in a month. The consensus was the salted butter was better. It is quite funny how much more attention you pay to something when it is served with a refined french accent and a description on where it came from and how it was made.

Now when dining on a Saturday night at this sort of place you dont really get to choose what to eat. They only serve the tasting menu which is a fixed cost, £130 per head, but where you do get some choice and the chance to show a little individual flair is the wines. There was a wine list book the size of the Times Atlas containing some extraordinary wines matched by extraordinary prices. Or, if one is so inclined, you can take the degustation option which consists of the good wines - £90 per head - apparently matched very well but not A1 quality, or the really good wines: > £90 per head. Now this may seem a lot, but there was 13 courses ahead of us and it was 1 glass of wine to every 1.4 courses. Generally the wines were not what you would expect. There were Pourtugese reds, a Bulgarian tokay, a Kiwi white and other assorted bits and peices.

Prudently, we all went for the good stuff.

So finally we got to the food. The first course was for the cleansing of the pallate with "Lime Grove". Old mate the maitre'd rocked up with his little wooden push cart trolley thing that would come to hold our attention like a tennis ball holds a dogs. On it this time he had a whipped cream dispenser, you know the sort with the little co2 cylinders that we used to set off as bombs, filled with a lime mousse, and a metal bucket filled with liquid nitrogen. He squirted a bit of the mousse mix into the nitrogen and sort of stirred it for 20 seconds. He then dusted it with this bag full of green powder that turned out to be green tea and served it on a plate, instructing us to put it in your mouth and kind of swallow it before it dissolves. The final piece of theatre was a spray of a lavender scented perfume thing in the air in front of your face just as it was eaten. But eaten isn't really the right word for how it is consumed. It was really cool - both literally and conceptually. This thing - a little frozen ball of deliciousness - just kind of vanishes in your mouth with a bit of freezer burn and all this cold smoke coming out of your nose like a dragon. The pallette was cleansed. It was tasty, fun and of course there was a wine that perfectly complimented the taste.

The next course was a sorbet, eaten with less excitement Lime Grove but it did allow us to relax, settle in the swing of things and treat it as a meal.

The next 4 hours was filled with more of the same, food presented in a way that you wouldn't dream of. Licorice poached salmon, fois gras, an unbelievably good wood pigeon with black pudding that was more like a delicate sauce than stodgy chunk of charcoal sausage. We ate truffle toast! The truffle toast was superb, even though it was the size of a stick of wrigleys chewing gum. It actually got to the point where you would think "well this particular dish is amazing, but I'm glad it's only the size of a 50 cent peice since to eat more of this would mean less of something else that might just be so good that I will lose my mind altogether, rather than just partially and temporarliy as is happening right now"

The sensory overload was something else. The tastes, smells and textures all conspired to deconstruct expectations and desires until you were at the mercy of the restaurant. And then, when you came to accept and appreciate the food, the wines stepped it. Now I am not afraid to admit I am hardly a wine connisuer, however much, on receiving a bottle of the second least expensive wine on the menu, one may make a scene of gargling and swishing, considering the tanins and generally making the waiter wait whilst ensuring the wine I had just ordered is up to my expectations. I do this, not for the exacting quality I have come to expect, but as a bit of show for my fellow diners or as a warning to the serving staff I am know my stuff and am not to be trifled with. I could probably pick a red from a white in a blind taste test. Once in Cuba, I almost sent back a bottle of wine that had just being opened (In the end we drank it after I decided that it wasn't corked or faulty from some production process, just of very poor cuba standard quality). I do, however, know what I like.

I liked the stuff we were served at The Fat duck. We drank a Hungarian tokay that smashed apart dessert wine expectations ingrained through years of Army dining in nights, which is to say not great expectations, in one mouthful. A portuguese red that was soft like a nerf ball, yet strong like a gorilla. A Marlborough Chardonnay that broke down years of predjudice to oaked Whites. A sake that tasted like sake, despite the waiter assuring us of its high quality "although traditionally served warm, we serve it cold so you can actually taste it". Oh well, they couldn't all be loved. If I were a bit more educated I could probably quote some poet or monk on the nature of wines and their ability to improve life or something, but I can't. All I can say is the wines certainly added to the enjoyment of the entire experience. And they assisted in getting us drunk which was a added, if not entirely unexpected benefit. 9 glasses will do that.

"So what was your favourite?" I hear everyone ask. Well there are 2 dishes that are forever burnt into my memory. The Not So Full English Breakfast was ace. In keeping with the theme of never matching a preconceived idea, breakfast was served for dessert. It began with a bowl of cereal that looked like cornflakes but was in fact parsnips with milk that wasn't milk. It was nice, but the real treat was the Egg and Bacon ice cream. Jaques, or whatever the Frenchie Maitre'd's name was, rolled his trolley over again. We all sat, rigid, eyeing it off and waiting to see what would happen next. He again produced the liquid nitrogen cooking bowl, but this time he had eggs with him. Accompanied by a little spiel about the special fat duck chickens and their special diet and methods of rearing etc etc, he cracked the egg into the nitrogen and sort of pushed it around a bit for 20 seconds or so. He then served in on a plate with some French toast with caramelised pancetta. It looked like ice cream. The texture was like ice cream, but it tasted like Bacon and Eggs! I knew this was coming up and thought "I wonder what bacon and eggs tastes like when it isn't actually bacon and eggs". The answer my friends was right here on the plate. Unfortunately the best description I can come up with is that it tasted like bacon and eggs. I loved it. Shell thought it was a bit strange.

The second one was name Sounds of the Sea. The serving staff attacked en masse, this time with two plates: on one sat a large conch shell with some headphones hanging out of it, on the other was what can only be described as the beach. There was sand. There were those funny seaweed things that spurt water when you squash them, There were peices of fish and, just to make it complete, foam that looked just like the froth left on the sand after a wave has broken and water retreats back into the ocean. Left alone by the waiting staff, we all put the headphones in, which was just a soundtrack of waves and seagulls squawking, and started to eat the beach. The sand was made of tapioca and tasted sweet. The fish was bits of white fish, perhaps smoked, or perhaps not, I can't really remember. The foam was delicious. I have no idea what the seaweed thing was made out of but it was tasty. It was quite surreal as we all sat in silence, listening to the waves crash and the seagulls carry on as we ate the scenery.

It was very, very good. If it sounds like I am carrying on a bit or perhaps laying it on a bit thick, which I am, it is deserved. This place really is like nothing else I had ever experienced as far as eating was concerned. And like a Beatles best of it was hard to pick a favourite, because each courses had some defining characteristic that made it memorable. Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely, so much so we hit the cheese board and got another bottle of red for good measure. When the time finally came for us to leave, which was 1:35am, we were very content. And then to top off the perfect night the minicab driver couldn't find our hotel and I got to have a vigorous debate about his knowledge of where he was in the world, his personal hygiene and many other interesting topics. It was the icing on the cake, where the cake was a beach and the icing looked like seaweed.

The Menu
TBC

References
www.fatduck.co.uk

Havana Nights (and other cuban tales) - Part 1

I would not vote for the mayor. It's not just because he
didn't invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the
airport there were such enormous potholes.

Fidel Castro

And nor would I vote for Fidel, on the strength of the pot hole argument alone. It is also a fair bet that neither would 11 Million Cubans, given the chance. But, earlier than usual, I digress. The two things they do properly in Cuba is cigars and pot holes. The cigars are, provided you go for the good ones such as Cohiba or Romeo y Julieta, excellent. With the pot holes there is no need to be discerning; they are world class and they are everywhere.

It was a cold and pretty miserable March day in London when we set out for the tropical communist paradise of Cuba, to enjoy a well deserved 2 week holiday of sun, sand, rum and 30th Birthdays. With my 30th brithday bearing down and Bennett's following 5 days later we thought it appropriate to bring in the new phase of life with a bang in Castro's Cuba. Steve had organised a group of 10 inteprid travellers and Steve's girlfriend Kirsty organised the trip (Cubatour!), Shell had booked the flights and I had organised a month off from work

Brock to boss: "I'm taking a month off, I hope that's ok..."

so before I knew it Michelle, Steve, Kirsty, Paul (Divey from here on in) and I were sitting in bland high street chain coffee shop at Heathrow waiting to get on a plane. 2 other friends from University, Jo and Marie, were already in-country and Todd and Zoe were flying out the next day. Damo was the last of the group, joining us 4 days later mid tour in Cuba. We flew via Paris and after a long arduous flight, with only 1 meal I might add, we finally arrived in Havana.

Cuba is an interesting place. Muy, muy interesante, as the locals would say. The largest island of the Caribbean, a world power in the production of sugar and women's volleyball and a thorn in the side of US politics constantly for over 100 years. They have one of the world's highest literacy rates, a highly advanced biotechnology industry and a average monthly wage of about $20. The entire country is steeped in history, especially so in the exciting bits of yore, with towns ravaged by pirates, a US cavalry charge, a government effective controlled by the Mafia and finally a communist revolution that gave rise to the "New Man".

I like the concept of the New Man. Che Guevra's raison détre, it drove large parts of the revolution, especially after the military victory. It was a typically flawed socialist ideal of a worker who toiled for love of the state rather than personal gain, with typically socialist results of people that didn't love the state nor do any work; predictably ending up in widespread economic depression and politcal repression.

As the revolutionary fervor passed and Cuba entered the long dark reality of centrally planned economies and never ending 3 year plans, the rich and varied history became a homogenous lump of failures - the 10 million ton sugar harvest, artificial trade supports - Huge amounts of Soviet money for whatever crap the Cubans could churn out, and failed revolutions elsewhere in the world - over 450,000 sent to fight, 10,000 dead in Angola! Angola for goodness sake! Why would Cubans need to go anywhere near Angola? I understand the need for the communists to search build new markets for their revolutionary fervor and soviet arms however the very idea that Cuba would need to fight a war that in terms of manpower was about twice the Australian commitment to World War 2 does boggle the mind and lead us to ask - are these people insane?

Before I search for the answer to that question, I shall recount our travels which I hope will convey my impressions of what Cuba has become in the modern world since, as the saying goes, the proof is in the all inclusive, repetitive and stale pudding.

Flying into to Havana was exactly what I was hoping for - Sunshine, warmth and friendly enough immigration control who didn't seem to mind our handwritten visa's. We managed to get from the Airport to our first hotel with out too much trouble. Except for getting cash, that was a bit of trouble. Cuban money is fraught with problems and beset with trouble. The root of our present problem were, as with lots of things here, of Fidel's doing. Cuba, being a managed communist economy, shares much in common with other managed communist economies. Deciding on a value of their currency right at the forefront of the issues faced. Since the government manages, or at least attempts to manage, the prices of everything they can retain a vice like grip on the domestic value of the peso, in the case of the Cubans the Peso Moneda Nacionale (MN) or as I will refer to it from now on, the Worthless Cuban Peso (WCP). Since the WCP can't really be exchanged for goods or services no one actually wants any of these. They do get around though as all salaries are paid in the WCP. Oh sure you can purchase stuff with it; the following list is what I saw available for sale

• a burlap sack with some rice in it,
• a very cheap flight from Santiago to Havana (subject to availability: current waiting time about 3 years)
• some tinned food including black beans and white beans
  
• counterfeit cigars

Unfortunately for the Cubans, that is a comprehensive list. And whilst US$1 will get you 24 WCP's or so the fact you cant buy anything you want with it makes the peso functionally worthless, especially when they deal with foreigners who are certainly not interested in the beans and rice, and only marginally interested in the conterfeit cigars. This led the Cubans to introduce a new parallel currency (masters of financial innovation!) for people with real hard currency (US dollars, Pound Sterling, Argentinian Peso, you know stable money) to exchange - the Convertible Peso (the CUC). The convertible is pegged to the US dollar at about CUC$0.92 to US$1 and can be used to buy things: Dinner was generally about CUC$10; we bought a round of Mojitos in a crappy bar in Havana for CUC$5 each; a 750ml bottle of olive oil can be purchased for about CUC$60. With the notable exception of Rum (CUC$3 for a 750ml bottle) and Cigars (about CUC$2-4 each) Cuba is very, very expensive.

But I digress. We were at the airport and needed some cash - any sort would do - to get into town. We'd done a bit of research before leaving and I'd found a couple of websites saying that there were lots of ATM's in Cuba and they worked well as long as your Card wasn't issued by a US company such as Visa. We'd bought some pounds just in case (about 500) but were planning on using the ATM's for most of our purchasing needs. So we found the cash machine at the airport and I tried my card (RBS). No joy. Shell tried her card (Barclays). Nope. Hmmmm, we started thinking. Steve tried his card (HSBC, Premier account no less). No. Divey tried his card (NatWest), and lo and behold money magically appeared from the machine, with us none the wiser as to why our cards failed. We found a taxi driver, negotiated a price in spanish and we were on our way.

Havana was just like I'd imagined it. Ancient cars spluttering along highways bereft of clutter such as line markings or traffic signals, a bus that was well beyond full, beautiful sunshine and all sorts of people taking it easy. Our first night was spent in the rather salubrious Hotel Parque Central, one of the newer and better hotels in Havana, notable for it's rooftop pool with excellent city views. We hit the pool to try and wind down after the long flight and, after a shower, met up with Jo and Marie who had arrived from Australia the day prior. We had a refreshing Mojito and admired the views and enjoyed the warmth. The city is like nothing else you can imagine. There is the huge Captitolo building, built in 1929 and modelled on the US Congress, but bigger and with more bits falling off. The rest of the city was a visual cacophony of ancient buildings that were either in the process of or had just finished collapsing, nasty 60's style 6 storey concrete horrors that were stained with age and neglect and occaisionally a lovely old buildings such as the Telegrafo Hotel that had been looked after and restored.

We headed out for dinner and found, with the help of a tout, a rather strange restaurant on the 2nd floor of a old building that looked like a construction site from the outside but turned out to be quite a nice place inside. I had a smoked pork loin, Shell had something really garlicky and the general consensus was that it wasn't too bad, if a bit more expensive than we had thought. The next morning we had a nice hotel breakfast and day to explore the sights of Havana. We set off walking around the Capitol building, found an old Cigar factory and wandered around marvelling that a place like Havana can exist in 2009. I can't really do it justice in description, it needs to be seen, smelt and tasted. The roads are in a terrible state, families live in apartments in buildings that would be condemned in Cambodia. But still there are shops selling popcorn and ice cream and we even saw an Adidas store. Later on we found out that we had been walking through Havana Centro, a nasty part of town which is pretty much last on the list of Havana suburbs schedule for restoration. We still had fun walking around, trying to dodge the rubbish and gigantic old cars that tore up and down the streets.

We found a small bar along some back street and thought let's get another mojito. We walked in and caused a rucus! Such excitement, people running all over the place babbling in spanish trying to get 7 chairs sorted out for the gringos. Getting caught up in all the excitement, no one really asked how much a drink would cost so we bought them for anyone that would come and sit near us. It was actually quite a lot of fun. They spoke no english, we spoke very little spanish but we talked. Everyone was in good spirits until the crusty old guy Divey and I had been trying to talk to - me gusta cerveza! - decided it was time for us to go and meet his cousin to buy some cigars, much cheaper than at the shops. We weren't really interested, which got him a bit agitated and then he started carrying on a bit. He eventually settled down but I'm sure he tried to put some voodoo curse on us or something. At the very least he got the bar owner to charge us about 10 times the value for the drinks; the bill showed $40 CUC for a round of 8 mojitos, which worked out to roughly $85 Australian dollars. A bit annoyed but putting it down to the fresh tourist tax that all must pay, we cracked on.

Eventually we found some hotels that had a restaurant attached and had lunch that again wasn't bad as long as you didn't get fancy. I wasn't too hungry so I thought I'd get the Bread with Tomato, Ham and Cheese. I've no idea what I was thinking: I guess I wanted a bruschetta sort of thing with some nice bread, fancy proscuitto and good cheese and perhaps some olive oil, who knows? We already knew that nobody goes to Cuba for the food. Read it a million times. It's usually the first thing people say when you mention you are travelling to Cuba, but I'd forgotten all that, and ordered the Bread with Tomato Ham and Cheese. Imagine you asked a 10 year old who had never seen a sandwich to get you a plate with bread, ham, cheese and tomato. That's what I got. A plate with a bit of bread (stale) on one side, 3 half slices of the standard evil cheese of cuba - it's a bit like kraft singles but more processed and plasticky, half a sliced up tomato and cuban ham. For all their acheivements, one thing they do not do well in Cuba is food. And among the things they do worst with respect to food is ham. It looks bad. It tastes bad. I doubt it is made out of pig at all, or if it is the pigs must lead a hard and unpleasent life. They must be especially punished and tortured to really ruin the animal before it goes to the ham factory. Or maybe there is only one ham factory for the whole country and they don't have a very good recipe. Whatever the causes one thing is for sure: if word got out to the cuban population at large about the sort of ham you can get in the real world there would be civil unrest, coups and revolution. It is that bad.

And there it was, my $5 CUC lunch staring me in the face. A peice of bread, half a tomato, cheese and this ham. Not really what I was expecting but exactly what I had ordered. Abd you don't go to Cuba for the food, do you? Shell got homestyle chicken which was ok, Steve got fish which he said was good so I must have just been unlucky I thought. But I did learn an important lesson - our expectations on the food would need to change. On the flip side, the beers were good, the company good and the taxi we got back to the hotel only broke down once and ran out of petrol once so it was all looking up.

We got back to the hotel, and although we had actually checked out as we were staying in a different hotel that evening, we went for a swim anyway and had another drink on the rooftop bar! Some guy asked us if we were staying at the hotel - of course we are. At least we were.... Anyway we needed to find the new hotel so I again got to employ my newly aquired spanish language capabilities. Picking one of the few hotel employees that wouldn't speak spanish I wandered up and said

Me: "Excuse me, where is Hotel Plaza?"
Him:

Maybe I should try a yes no question

Me: "Is it far?"
Him: "No", which I understood. And then he started laughing a bit with his mate
Me, brandishing a very poor map: "Where?"
Him: "It's next door", of which I kind of picked up the gist
Me: "In front of this?" - I don't know how to say next door in spanish
Him: "Yes, just left" - but I struggle with the word for left. I am, however, good at the word for right
Me: "No right?"
Him, still thinking this was all very funny, walked out the front so he could point it out to me: "There"

And it was across the road, perhaps 12 metres away. But at least I'd found it. Finally Todd and Zoe arrived, we checked into the new hotel which, was a bit more "real" insofar as Cuban hotels would go, and we headed out for some Italian, which was ok with the exception of the ham. After dinner some of us headed out for a drink whilst others conserved their strength because tomorrow, with our travelling group almost complete, we were ready for the next phase: The tour!

Coming up in Part 2 - The Tour we meet Carlos, Mike and the bus and we head west to find the real Cuba!

Parisian adventures with Aunty Libby and Alex

My Aunt Libby and my cousin Alex stayed with us in London for a few weeks in February, we all headed to Paris together for an amazing but cold long weekend.

I'm not being lazy,but I have decided to publish my Aunt's account of our weekend, as I think she has summed it up better than I could have. Also its nice to hear it described as seen through the eyes of someone who's not at all sick of looking at European churches and likes pastries almost as much as we do!

Paris, what can i say, it is the most magical city. It's streets are all cobble stones and narrow, there are patisseries on every block oozing with all their wonderful pastries and breads. We went to Norte Dame and the Louvre on the first day.

Notre Dame is a peaceful place, although there would have been 200 people in there looking around at the time there was still an amazing sense of peace and calm. There is no talking allowed when inside so even though it was full of people the silence made it even more special to reflect on the feelings you felt. I again lit a candle for my family and friends and a special one for Tash and her family. The Notre Dame is still a running church where it has small services everyday and it's traditional one on Sunday's.

We proceeded onto the Louvre, again what a place! It is big big big, we covered a lot of ground but really you need the whole day there if you want to see it all, maybe 2. We visited the famous painting of Mona Lisa and many more interesting paintings, statues and jewels. Not only are all the art works on display amazing but the building it self is worth the look.

In Paris everywhere you look they have amazing statues, lamp posts with statues, you turn a corner and look up and there is a building holding statues covered in gold leaf or green copper. The history in Paris is everywhere. I am glad we were there with Michelle and Brock, Alex and I can not speak French let alone read it, Brock and Michelle could read a couple of words and say some phrases, the waiter was very helpful. (Finding somewhere to eat dinner was an interesting experience, but we picked somewhere that was full of locals and were well rewarded)We had tea and called it a night (Exhausted, I have to add - ed).

2nd day in Paris, we went on a walking tour of the village of Montmatre, on the north side of Paris up the hill. The girl who was our guide was an excellent story teller. She took us to the house where Picasso, Toulouse-La Trec and Van Gogh , and told us of their lives. On the tour we started in the middle of hill and worked our way up.

As we walked up the hill over the cobble stones and through the narrow streets, our guide talked of all the history of the place. When we reached the top there was yet another church - the Sacré-Cœur, the hordes of people as promised by our guide, tourist stands with all the cheap tourist crap and a view of Paris that was fantastic. We worked our way down, this time 'til we came to a street full of strip joints, where the Moulin Rouge is. It was horrible and seedy. It was amazing how a little hill on Montmartre can hold 3 different kinds of lives!

Next stop was the Eiffel Tower (which i was calling the Leaning Tower all day daaaaa!). We took the lift up to the 2nd level as the top was full...

I am glad we only went to the 2nd level, I found the lift ride quite scary i had to close my eyes. Once we were out side on the level it was OK. It was now night fall and the tower lit up as did the city, what a spectacular view! You can see all of Paris from every different angle. You could even see down the long stretch of the river right up to the Sacré-Cœur on the hill in the village of Montmartre! On our last day in Paris we walked the famous road of fashion, a lot of beautiful stuff but with a big price, I took some photos of some shoes to show Xenia the fashions, even if I could afford to buy any they are much to nicer to anything in Tassie! The Parisian food was as good as you would expect, the pastries even better. People in Paris seem to all have dogs they take them every where, there is a lot of dog poo on the footpaths but you learn to watch your step as you are walking. Paris on a whole is a beautiful place, I would highly recommend it to any one."

We all had a great weekend in Paris, it really was cold, snowing even at one stage. It was great to spend time with Libby and Alex seeing as she has now returned to Australia(for the time being?). Brock loves France, I think mainly for the food, but you know what they say "the way to a mans heart is through his stomach". I think both the city of Paris and I have that under wraps!