Archives for March, 2009

How to survive Brussels

Brilliant, observational and dry blog about Brussels. A series of tips, with photos, on simply surviving. This advice on moving to Ghent:

ghent isn’t only the city of good music like soulwax or isabelle adam, there is also a big population of pussies who didn’t survive in brussels. feel free to join them.

go see –> How to survive Brussels

03/27/2009 | Belgium | No Comments

Non! Monsieur is not dead!

Seen in a recently vacated shop window on Avenue Louise, and prompting many more questions than it answers:

Monsieur has not expired! Non!

“FOLLOWING THE MOST ABSURD RUMOURS, NON, Monsieur has NOT DIED.

It’s the END OF THE LEASE. It’s the END OF THE LEASE, he has RETIRED!”

03/27/2009 | Belgium | 1 Comment

A cut-out-and-keep Belgian Menu

Bored of waiting for service in your restaurant? Afraid of an interminable wait between getting your menu and ordering? Visiting Belgium for the first time? Don’t speak the language?

Never fear! The Kim Bah Lee cut-out-and-keep pocket-sized menu is here! Never be lost in a restaurant again!

Based on extensive research, the trusty dining companion can be used in ANY Belgian restaurant! Just point to what you feel like eating, be it prawns OR beef, and your waiter will bring you the freshest prawns or beef available!

It’s in French and English, good for dining in any Brussels-based establishment! And what’s more, it’s FREE! You’ll never need to look at another menu again*!

Belgian Menu*not for use in bars that *also* serve food. In such cases, please memorise “spaghetti bolognaise” or “croque monsieur”

03/23/2009 | Belgium | 1 Comment

Wood Flavour Ice Tea

Wood Flavour Ice Tea

Seen at the Hilton in Malta. Very popular with the Maltese, along with plastic flavoured cola and concrete flavoured gin.

*Edit*

“Quench your taste with a freshly made shaken ice teas”?

Don’t get me started.

03/19/2009 | Malta | No Comments

Kokob: Ethiopian

Appetising?

Kokob, Ethiopian restaurant downtown. On the basis of rave reviews, I booked a table for four on a Saturday night without hassle.

Free rum-based aperitif. There wasn’t much rum in it, but it was appreciated.

It’s a concept restaurant. The concept is that you eat with your hands, off a shared, edible plate. Which makes for less washing up. And is, thus, green. Eat at Kokob and save the Ethiopian Panda!

There is also an awesome Dyson hand-drier that alone is worth a trip to the bathroom.

The menu was complex, and interpreting it required cross-referencing the transliterated Amharic with the index, and a degree. Without any further education between the four us, we went for the McEthiopia Bumper Meal Deal: three meats, three veg and half a bottle of wine and water per person, for 30 euros a head.

The chef chose the food, which was satisfactory, if lacking in texture. The tables next door, presumably clever enough to interpret the menu, had big lumps of flesh in gravy and the occasional hard-boiled egg. We had large dollops of minced meat, spicy, and not so easy to eat with bits of flat bread.

Apparently it was lamb and beef. Which was fine, but it could have been anything. The bread-cutlery was filling and there was more of it when we asked.

The coffee came with great ceremony, was home-brewed, ground and smoked. It was served in tiny cups from broken pot with a lump of tin-foil in place of a lid. It was weak and pissy. Which is fine, if you’re an American. Or, presumably, Ethiopian.

The overwhelming feeling was one of distinct apathy. The service was good, the food was ok, the prices very reasonable. Can’t not recommend it, but won’t be rushing back. Try it. Or don’t. You be the judge.

03/18/2009 | Belgium | No Comments

Michael Jackson is a bleedin’ chancer

Michael Jackson. What a bleedin’ chancer.

Announces a new tour. The “This Is It” (promise?) Tour. Ten dates in London – last ever gig in London. Grand, belated, farewell extravaganza.

Mmmm, those tickets will be worth a few bob, thinks me, and registers for a pre-sale secret code to get first access to the rarer-than-gold-dust bits of paper.

Four hours of internet queuing, work neglected, coffee drunk. Finally my turn.

Tickets for first ten gigs already sold out. Don’t worry! He’s added another five.

Finally get them. I feel like Charlie Bucket. I won’t make the gig, but I don’t mind. I’ll make a killing on the resale.

Viagogo have already got tickets going for 500 quid a pop. On Ebay tickets are selling at five times face value. My 360 pound investment will reap sweet returns, paying for me and Mrs K to go and eat swan by a beach this summer.

BUT.

I wake up this morning and he’s not doing ten gigs any more, not doing fifteen, or twenty, but FIFTY FUCKING concerts. Bleeding chancer. The classic bait and switch, with me the willing mark.

Resale value diluted to almost nothing.

So if anybody wants four tickets for Michael bloody Jackson, you can have them at cost price.

03/13/2009 | Omphaloskepsis | 1 Comment

  •  
  •