Novikov

As thanks for organising her brother’s poetry reading at SOAS, my good friend Selma treated me to a dinner at Novikov’s Asian restaurant (there’s also an Italian side). Novikov is the restauranteur’s first foray into the London market. We weren’t disappointed. The bar is beautiful, sparkling with the light reflecting off the glass. There are fresh Asian flower arrangements throughout the dining hall, and the overall feel is sparse and simple. Likewise, the food was simple yet tasty: we shared the seaweed salad, steamed Asian vegetables, tuna tartar topped with royal beluski caviar, and black cod rolls dipped in a sweet, yellow mango sauce. On a quiet Monday evening we relished the wait staff’s eager attentiveness.

Quo Vadis

Bloomberg News recently published an article listing the UK’s top chefs’ favourite restaurants in central London. We’re fortunate to have enjoyed a number of meals at restaurant such as Arbutus, Polpo, Les Deux Salons, Barrafina, Bocca di Lupo, and Coq d’Argent, and recently committed ourselves to going through the remainder of the list. Last night was our first night embarking on this foodie adventure: we dined at Quo Vadis in the heart of Soho. I was immediately impressed with the service and smiles. Our meal was fresh, as if plucked from a garden and fished from the nearby English Channel that day, and well seasoned. For starters we had the beatroot with deviled eggs salad and crab soup; our mains were the cornbread served with goat’s cheese and carmelized onion and skate cooked in capers. On our way out of the restaurant I admired the generous display of oranges and lemons, flowers and greens.

London Fashion Week Feb ’12 – Somerset House

Last week I was a friend’s guest at designer Ashish G-pta’s catwalk show, “Bollywouldn’t”, at the Somerset House for London Fashion Week. It was my first “proper” catwalk show and it conformed to all my expectations from having caught glimpses of them in the news and movies. The designer, originally from New Delhi, holds contempt for media who profile him as an “Indian designer”, reminding me of M’s favourite contemporary artist Anish K who, likewise, doesn’t appreciate being described as a sculptor from the subcontinent. However, unable to escape India’s aesthetic influences after having recently returned from an extended, 3-month visit, it was clear to me that Ashish G was inspired by a multitude of stereotypes originating from Indian tourism and wealth: the hippie yogi in Goa, a wealthy Indian tycoon’s trophy wife, and an array of loungewear inspired by Untouchables’ universal garb. Smiley faces and sequins were twin themes throughout the collection, marrying low- with high-brow culture.

More than viewing the collection, I enjoyed watching the crowd – many of the attendees were better dressed and more pleasing to the eye than the models parading in front of us. Although I wasn’t impressed with the designer’s perspective on beauty and design, I thoroughly enjoyed the onslaught of colour, a refreshing break from the greys and blacks that all too often dominate couture fashion. Finally, I loved the quirky soundtrack in the background: what started as a mystic Indian’s soothing voice leading his listeners in breathing exercises soon morphed into a young American woman’s manic Kundalini yoga instruction pulsing to the rythm of Indian club beats. The fun soundtrack teased out the themes on the catwalk , a hodgepodge of contemporary disparate Indian styles of dress.

“The Changeling” at the Young Vic

It was our first time seeing a play at the Young Vic. When we arrived it was immediately clear that the theatre’s name informs the environment: our surroundings felt alarmingly “hip” with its huge bar, loud rock music and minimalist theatre space. We’re more accustomed to traditional (stodgy) theatres in the West End so it was good to mix it up a bit.

Since moving to London, Jacobean drama has emerged as my favorite period in English theatre history. I fell in love with Thomas M’s writing when I saw “The Revenger’s Tragedy” at the NT back in the summer of ’08, a performance which sparked my voracious hunger for Jacobean plays. “Voracious” and “hunger” are highly-appropriate words to use when writing about the theatre that came out of England in the early-17th-century. Much of it is sordid, dark, chaotic, extreme and tragic – I’ve reasoned my love for Jacobean drama by deciding the experience of watching a Thomas M play must function as some sort of deeply-cathartic Freudian release in my otherwise quite staid and law-abiding existence.

“The Changeling” did not disappoint. As in the NT’s production of “The Revenger’s Tragedy”, the cast kept to every word of Thomas M’s play; however, the dress was modern, music contemporary and even the dance choreography a la Beyonce. To top it all off, the director uses mainstream food products as props in the play’s most violent scenes.

What I love most about Jacobean theatre (and Shakespeare’s canon) is the play on language, the use of double entendres which serve as a double paradoxical function: to honour a young maiden yet objectify her, to agree with the man of the house yet laugh at his shortcomings. I left the Young Vic happy yet exhausted from the onslaught of language that is watching a Thomas M play straight through without an intermission. Also, I will never look at jello the same way again.

Cecconi’s Mayfair

It’s ironic that six years after moving to London I’m finally writing about Cecconi’s. Considering the fact that it’s my favorite restaurant in London and ideally what my own personal Heaven will look like when I pass on, I’ve been holding out for a long time on writing about Cecconi’s Mayfair – it’s probably due to the pressure of having to describe what makes it my favorite dining experience. Rather than try to articulate the magic that is CM, I’ll just say that the Venetian Bar is stunning, the service impeccable, the Northern Italian cuisine rich and flavorful, the prosecco intoxicating, and the there’s always an energized vibe. It’s the 2nd year in a row that I’m in the doghouse for traveling for industry events during V-Day so I attempted to compensate for my absence by taking M to brunch at CM followed by a play at the Young Vic later that evening. As expected, our starter (zucchini fritti) and mains (winter salad, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs) were delicious, but the highlight of the meal was the authentic tiramisu. Neither of us are ones to order desert that has any kind of coffee-flavoring or alcohol, but when in CM one should order in such a way as to play to the chef”s strengths – we weren’t disappointed.

Soweto

One evening I hired an all-in-one driver/tour guide/bodyguard to take me to Soweto for a private tour. We left Sandton and made our way through Johannesburg which looks like any other city: densely populated with tall skyscrapers, billboards, and bright lights. It was clear we were entering Soweto when the streets were “paved” with dirt, there was no industry to be seen, and the houses reminded me of the shanty towns I had seen in North India: small and made of corrugated steel, their inhabitants hanging out on the sidewalks drinking and talking to neighbors. I don’t recommend Soweto unless you are deeply interested in recent South African history. For me, before visiting Nelson M and Desmond T’s houses (they lived one block from each other), SA’s apartheid history was peripheral to American slave history and the mid-20th-century Civil Rights Movement I learned about in school, movies and print. Just like visiting Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria inspired me to ponder European migration to countries other than America, visiting Soweto raised my consciousness about civil rights movements around the world. Finally, we visited the Hector P memorial which commemorates the first person, a 13-year old boy, to die in the 1976 Student Uprising in Soweto, what had started as a peaceful demonstration against the mandate that Afrikaans (a Dutch-derived language) become the teaching medium in SA.

It was my first time in Sub-Saharan Africa – I left impressed with how gentle and welcoming, helpful and kind, the locals in South Africa are towards foreign visitors. Sandton’s slow pace and the city’s greenery contrast Jo’burg from most of the otherwise granite cities I’ve visited (Edinburgh is an exception).

Pretoria’s Voortrekker Monument

During a brief visit to Pretoria, we stopped by the Voortrekker Monument which honours the Dutch immigrants who moved from SA’s Cape Colony to the country’s interior in the mid-19th-century. Inside the monument are slabs of marble depicting images of this trek, reminding me of similar visuals of late-colonial migration in the States (wagons, bonnets, big dresses, overalls). Visiting the monument got me thinking about global migratory patterns, wondering how Europeans looking for religious freedom and opportunity decided whether to migrate to Canada, the States, South Africa, etc. – what inspired some families to venture to Africa versus North America?

Sandton, Jo’burg

The night before leaving for Jo’burg, my mother reminded me of Mahatma G’s history in South Africa: living in SA was consciousness raising and gave him the opportunity to develop his litigation and community organisation skills that would come so handy in leading India to its independence. While Jo’burg’s history is etched on every street sign, plaza and most major buildings, it’s all in homage to Nelson M who fought against apartheid. I stayed in Sandton, Jo’burg’s financial district on a recent business trip. Mandela Square is just one of many examples of how the city celebrates Nelson M, their local hero and the nation’s source of pride. As you can see from the size of Nelson’s statue, it captures the man’s “larger than life” presence.

Chihuly on Park Lane

After yet another delicious meal at our favourite restaurant for Spanish tapas in London, El Pirata, we took a short walk to Park Lane to view the newly-installed Chihuly Torchlight Chandelier. Inspired by the Olympic torch, the larger-than-life-sized sculpture took my breath away. In the dark traffic of central London sits this bold, beautiful and colourful work of art.

SOAS reading

Tonight we attended my good friend Selma”s brother Dr. Rafey Hab-b’s poetry reading at SOAS. It was great to meet all of Selma’s family (her brothers, children and extended family) as well as finally meet Rafey who I profiled and whose book I reviewed a few years ago for NIT.