A record of doing a new thing every day in 2011
I always like to try to get a tortilla at the airport on the way home from Valencia, but no such luck this time.
However after getting the Gatwick Express to Victoria I thought I’d pop into M&S there to pick up a few bits of food and saw one in there. It was topped by caramelised onions which I haven’t seen in Spain, but washed down with some fresh Valencia Orange Juice it was very tasty indeed, if not quite the authentic thing.
My last full day in Valencia for a while, and I have have a few things to choose from, including my first Valencia derby (0-0 vs. Levante which suited both teams and we predicted - without placing the bet - beforehand).
However, the real highlight was a new vegetarian restaurant called Copenhagen - both new to me and to Frank and Josie - where I had a totally brilliant food as the post title describes.
It was a really nice restaurant and quite different to other places I’ve been to in Valencia with less of a Spanish feel, but the food was very good and definitely recommended.
Another day in Valencia, and after a very long lie-in we headed down to the beach for tortilla bocadillo - easily the greatest hangover food known to man - and then came back to try to find somewhere we could watch the Cup Final.
I’ve definitely never watched the Cup Final in Spain before, and we ended up in “La Salamandra” (spelling is now 100% correct!), a bar I’ve walked past many times but not been in either. It was a disappointing game (as usual), but the bar was an excellent choice.
In the Easyjet in-flight magazine this month there is a big article about the Russafa barrio in Valencia, and a mention of the Sporting Club Russafa, a combined gallery and workspace in an old Boxing club.
What I didn’t know was Josie had just moved into there as one of the artists, so yesterday I went there a couple of times - first to help carry some pictures and second for an opening night of a video installation of which I still know very little about.
In between a few (too many) beers and going to a combined Sushi/Tapas restaurant it was another great night out.
I’m in Valencia for a few days staying with Frank and Josie, which sounds like an easy source of new things but as I’ve been here a few times before it still needs a little “work”.
As usual as soon as I got here we ended up having a few too many drinks in the fine collection of bars on the square just down from their apartment. One had only opened in the last year since I was last here, so was new to me. It was called (I think) “Jamon Sessions” and was pretty good. We had some beer from Zaragoza called Ambar which I also hadn’t had before, so a double novelty - which in my sad world always seems like a waste!
After wandering around Soho looking for somewhere new for lunch, Paul and myself found Wheat, a new Thai takeaway place on Broadwick Street.
It didn’t look too promising, as they only had one veggie option (Red Curry), and when Paul asked for soup it turned out they didn’t have any. However, the food was actually quite tasty and in particular the rice was very nice, even though there was a little too much of it.
Reasonably recommended, although with all the competition around the area I don’t expect them to last very long :-(
Definitely a tabloid headline this one!
I’ve been getting sick of getting my hair cut in Hexham. There are 3 barbers there and all very cheap and all not very good. So I decided to go and splash out £9 on a hairdresser in that London. Well Mr Toppers on Old Compton Street, but even though I say it myself I do look more handsome than usual :-)
I’m on a diet/detox - although I expect to throughly retox on my upcoming weekend in Spain - so was looking for something healthy but easy to prepare. I went to Stamford Hill Sainsbury’s for a change and bought something I hadn’t seen before - an Mexican Sweet Potato Chilli Veg Pot from Innocent.
It was OK, a little bland for my taste, but reasonably healthy and quick to microwave :-)
During a busy day watching football I thought I’d play about with some ideas I’ve been having at work and wrote my first Chrome extension.
To be honest it doesn’t do much right now and it’s an internal thing at the moment so I won’t share what it does, but it was surprisingly easy to do. My extension will inject some JavaScript and CSS into a webpage and add things into it, and the “content scripts” functionality let me do that with no issues at all - other than my usual aversion to the crappiness that is JavaScript and struggling with the vague madness that is closures.
Now I’ve got the taste for extensions I may try to write a vaguely useful one next!
I seem to have been eating a lot of Japanese food recently, so I thought I’d have a go at making my own teriyaki tofu steaks.
I mostly followed a recipe from the BBC website I found although tracking down some sake in Hexham proved impossible at short notice. It turned out pretty well, and tasted really nice even compared to the Soho restaurants fare :-)
