Coffee in London and Melbourne, compare and contrast...
Good day faithful readers. Coffee in Melbourne is great, while coffee in London is crap! In Melbourne there are cafes all over the city, and in pretty much every one of them you'll be able to buy yourself a coffee that will make you just want to sit down, close your eyes and savour the taste. In London there are pubs... pubs don't sell good coffee.
London has many, many qualities, but supplying its inhabitants with good coffee isn't one of them.
I read in the paper the other day that Starbucks plan on opening another branch in London every two weeks for the next 10 years! Given that I am already aware of a two places in London where there are two Starbucks separated by less than 50m, that's a lot of stores! In Melbourne, just like when I'm in continental Europe, I wouldn't even contemplate going to somewhere like Starbucks for a coffee. I look at them with disgust as I walk past. In London I see a Starbucks and think "oh, I should go in and get a coffee". It's not that the coffee is in Starbucks is any different here to anywhere else, it's just that in comparison to most other places in the city the quality of the coffee is quite good.
When the Starbucks first opened I'm sure that they must have based their entire business case around places like London. "We'll target places that sell revolting coffee and flood the market!"
I was recently advised of a cafe in Soho called
Flat-White, which was opened by two New Zealanders who share my opinion of London coffee. Now, I've never really regarded New Zealand as one of the great coffee nations, but I thought that I'd give it a go. I have to say... it wasn't bad. Certainly better than any coffee I can remember having recently. That being said, it still fell short of my favourite coffee places in Melbourne on the banks of the Yarra where I used to go regularly for breakfast.
That's another thing that I miss about Australia. Whereas pretty much everyone in Australia goes out for a late breakfast on a Sunday morning, when I've tried to do this in London I really struggle to find anywhere that even sells breakfast, let alone something appetising like sticky black rice with coconut milk and fruit with a freshly squeezed glass of orange juice!
he's so sweet, he wouldn't hurt a fly
Good day faithful readers. I don't why it is, but no matter how hard I try to stay clean I seem to be constantly getting stuff on my clothes.
The other day I was coming home from somewhere and I was dying of thirst, so I thought that I would stop in and buy something to drink from the supermarket. I ended up getting a 1L carton of Innocent black current and blueberry fruit smoothie, which someone had recommended to me on a previous occasion.
While I was waiting at the bus stop I pulled it out of the bag and unscrewed the lid. Underneath was one of those pull tabs that they use to 'keep in the freshness' and ensure that no-one has tampered with the product. You can see what's coming can't you? Trying to pull the tab while continuing to hold on to the various bags that I had, when it eventually did come out I ended up spraying juice all up my arm!
In disgust I threw the tab back in the shopping bag, had a quick drink and threw the carton back in the bag too.
The next morning I decided to run into work. Generally when I do this I pack all my stuff (eg. work shirt, wallet, phone) into a plastic bag before putting it into my backpack so that it doesn't get cover in sweat and/or rain. Lacking anything else I had to use the shopping bag that I had used the day before. So I removed everything that I hadn't put away yet and placed my shirt etc in there.
When I arrived at work I had a shower and got all my things out to get changed. Pulling my shirt out I noticed a little red dot on the collar. "Hmm, what's that?" I thought, "I only washed this shirt yesterday". It was then that I took a closer look and noticed that not only was there red on the collar, there was red all down the front too. It suddenly occurred to me that when I had taken the shopping out of the bag before I left home I had neglected to take out the pull tab, which covered with smoothie, had been merrily dancing around with my white shirt inside my backpack for the last hour.
Bloody Innocent smoothies! I don't think that they're so damn innocent after all!
Second place is the first loser
Good day faithful readers. In my family I am the oldest child. I was the first one born, I was the first one to come into this world. This strikes me as being very ironic because sometimes I feel like its the only time that I've finished first in anything, and that I've spent the rest of my life coming second!
When I was younger and used to race go-karts I can still vividly remember proudly hanging the flags that I had won on my wall. I had red and green (second and third) flags coming out of my ears, but there was only ever one blue (first) flag.
It's not just sporting events though, it applies to all sorts of things... relationships for instance. I've gone out with my fair share of women, but never have I retained top spot in any of their hearts, I've always taken one of the minor placings. I've even gone out with women who have gone on to get married in the next relationship that they've had! Now if that is not coming second I don't know what is!
Lately I've been looking for a new apartment to live in here in London. Having looked at many a place and discovering that they expect me to pay a fortune for the privilege of living like a battery hen, I was amazed when I found a place on the weekend that didn't expect me to pay much more than what I currently do for a beautiful, near new apartment in a great location. "Would I be interested?" she ask me. "Umm, yeah, sure", I said, trying to conceal the fact that I would consider paying double what she was asking. "I'll give you a call tomorrow then after I had a chance to think about it". Sure enough, I received the call the following day... "sorry, I was going to let you move in, but then one of my friends said that they would like to have the room"!
Over the last couple of weeks I've been to a two pub quizzes. The first time was with a really good team, where we expected to do reasonably well. The second time was with a... not so academically blessed team. On the first occasion we were leading the entire way, streets ahead of the second place team, only to be pipped at the post by a team which scored nearly full marks in the music round (which accounted for 30% of the marks). The second time the roles were reversed, with us lagging behind all the way, only to make a surge to the finish... and finish one point behind the winner! Two quizzes, two second places!
This sort of carrot dangling is about enough to send a guy insane. It's just as well I'm gracious in defeat, that's all I can say!
New York Part II - Food
Good day faithful readers. It's a well know and much quoted fact that Americans have the highest rate of obesity in the world. Having spent 3 days in New York and come away 10kg heavier with increased blood pressure and strange pains running down the left hand side of my body this doesn't really surprise me!
One of the things that I generally try to do when I go travelling is to eat as the locals do. You might think that as an Australian that I'd already pretty much eat like an American, and it's probably true to a certain extent, but when you sit down and think about it New York is renowned for quite a few foods.
The day that I arrived I had to wait around for a bit while they prepared my hotel room. I didn't want to go to a restaurant because having just arrived I wasn't terribly confident about my personal aroma. What do you do? Visit a corner food trolley of course. So I got to try my first two NYC delicacies, pretzel and hotdog.
My second delicacy came that afternoon after wandering around all afternoon. I was walking back to my hotel a bit sleepy and just wanting something quick when I spotted a place selling slice of American (pepperoni) pizza. I was feeling quite hungry so I ordered two, not realising quite how big they were. They looked small in the display. I can only think that then I was seeing them in relation to the huge pudgy hands of the guy behind the counter.
The following morning I made my way down to Greenwich Village to partake in french toast with maple syrup and fruit for breakfast followed by Little Italy and spaghetti bolognese for lunch. Yes, I know that they're not traditional NYC, but you can't not go to a cafe in Greenwich Village, and you can't not go to Little Italy and have something to eat.
Having eaten pretty well during the morning I decided that I was in desperate need of something light and fresh... a salad. It just happened that there was a place around the corner where I could get a salad, and what's more "the best cheesecake in New York City"... just like the place across the road! Anyways, I ordered my chicken caesar salad, thinking it would leave me with plenty of room for the important part of the meal. Yeah right! I'm sure they must have put an entire damn chicken in there! I have a good appetite, but even I couldn't eat all my cheesecake after that!
The following morning I was still suffering from the previous day's trials, so I thought that I needed to eat something healthy (this is probably the same logic as buying something on sale to save money now that I think about it), so I found a cafe and had a bowl of yoghurt, granola and fresh fruit, which was very welcome after a day of grease. Of course all that goodness was immediately undone by a visit to the Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes (I've never eaten anything so rich - it took me a day and a half to eat 4!) and then a nutella and banana crepe while I was walking around Central Park.
This left only two more meals before I had to leave. I filled the first with a gyro from another stall. The final spot, breakfast on the way to the airport, was filled with one of the most traditional NYC treats. A cream cheese bagel.
As I said, with a diet like this it is no wonder the Americans hold the record that they do. Although having said that, I doubt that even they try to eat everything over the space of 3 days!
I read in the paper the other day that Starbucks plan on opening another branch in London every two weeks for the next 10 years! Given that I am already aware of a two places in London where there are two Starbucks separated by less than 50m, that's a lot of stores! In Melbourne, just like when I'm in continental Europe, I wouldn't even contemplate going to somewhere like Starbucks for a coffee. I look at them with disgust as I walk past. In London I see a Starbucks and think "oh, I should go in and get a coffee". It's not that the coffee is in Starbucks is any different here to anywhere else, it's just that in comparison to most other places in the city the quality of the coffee is quite good.
