Candy by Prada - short film by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola & Lea Seydoux

Who wouldn't want to look like Lea Seydoux, wear Prada, eat all that cake and have two very handsome men at their feet? :)

Episode 1

Episode 2

Kopapa - Fusion for Sharing in Seven Dials

If you like the concept of sharing food (some people really don't , remember Joey Tribiani ;)) you will really like Kopapa 'the home of the most exciting and innovative fusion food in Seven Dials' (near Covent Garden). It is an all-day café, bar and restaurant serving breakfasts and weekend brunches together with a lunch and dinner menu featuring small plates, sharing dishes, main courses and desserts. 

I love sharing small plates, it allows you to taste everything and makes the dining experience much more of a joint experience. The only thing I don't share is dessert ;) I'm of the chocolate-caramel type and if there is too much fruit in my dessert I just consider it less of a treat, it's just too healthy :), it's just not sinful enough. 

We made it very easy for ourselves, we were a party of four and basically ordered all the small plates on the menu with the exception of the Miso sweetcorn and the Tempura spicy dhal inari pocket, and the addition of the salmon salad and two bread baskets. And of course dessert after - not for sharing :)

I find fusion food exciting! It usually means that you will get served combinations you have never had before, or get to taste ingredients you have never even heard of!  And as Kopapa is a sister restaurant of The Providores - which I love - I was expecting good things!

I think it was quite unanimous at the table that the squid was the best dish! The salmon salad was amazing too as were the scallops. We had ordered the Buffalo mozzarella with tomato salad, mint & black vinegar Medjool dates   as well, but that was a bit disappointing due to lack of flavouring, it wasn't seasoned to our taste and lacked some kind of vinaigrette or marinade. Dessert wise I could definitely recommend you the peanut butter parfait with Original Beans 75% Piura Criollo chocolate delice, sea salt caramel & chocolate crumble - it was presented beautifully and tasted like a pimped-out super deluxe snickers :)

Bread basket for 2

The bowl of squid was amazing! Deep-fried sesame & Urfa chilli salted squid, sumac mayonnaise   

The salmon salad

Pomegranate glazed lamb breast with Turkish yoghurt   

Spring rolls of slow roasted tom yum pork, coriander & wombok with lime mayonnaise 

Queenie scallops, sweet chilli sauce & crème fraîche (left) and Warm individual potato & caramelised onion tortilla with black olive & feta dressing    (right)  

Slow-cooked venison

Hansen & Lydersen smoked salmon cone with goat’s curd & tomato 

Peanut butter parfait with Original Beans 75% Piura Criollo chocolate delice, sea salt caramel & chocolate crumble

Two scoops of sorbet

Kopapa Café and Restaurant
32-34 Monmouth Street 
Seven Dials, Covent Garden 
London
WC2H 9HA

Be a Good Egg this Easter!

For the Lindt Big Egg Hunt in support of the charity Action for Children, a 101 giant Easter Eggs were hidden in cities throughout the UK,  and I found a couple in Covent Garden! I took pictures of my favourite ones and looked up the artists on the Big Egg Hunt website. You can bid on one of the artworks and support the charity on the website: http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/eggs

My Favourites

Hello Cheeky

Hattie Stewart is a London-based illustrator originally from Colchester, Essex. A self-professed 'professional doodler', her playful style extends itself through art and fashion, working with designers such as House Of Holland, Marc By Marc Jacobs and Adidas. Recently her notoriety has increased due to her project 'Doodle-Bombing', where she draws over the covers of influential fashion publications such as Vogue and i:D. Hattie has recently completed a new project doodling on 14 vintage Playboy magazines.This was approved by Playboy who shared the project on their facebook page. Her current work involves more high-end collaborations.

Dieter-Norbert

Chinese-German artist Peter Ibruegger is best known for his product design range of moustache mugs, sugar bowl hats and bow tie mugs which are being sold in exclusive boutiques in more than 30 countries. 

His extended practice is focused on drawings and deals with questions of identity and desire.

Smiley Stop

Jack Brindley is an emerging young artist living and working in London. Currently studying Painting at the Royal College of Art, Jack’s body of work spans painting, sculpture, photography and print. Interested in the construction of visual and verbal languages, his work explores how expression is generated in relation to its position in society and culture.

His group exhibitions in 2012 included ‘Bloomberg New Contemporaries’, ICA London and Liverpool, and ‘Dromology’, South Square Gallery, Bradford. In 2011 he was awarded a residency by the Architectural Foundation at the South Kilburn Studios

Untitled

Cassie Howard makes paintings that examine the interaction of people within society. She is interested in the role the artist has in directing the viewer.

Cassie’s subjects are people. The figures are sometimes paired with separate paintings of public objects such as park benches, sheds, and rows of trees. The people and objects are always presented within a white space devoid of any surrounding context. The viewers bring their own history to imagine what is missing

SS Eggterprise

Chris Martin spends much of his working day deleting emails from misguided Coldplay fans, but any remaining time is spent tongue to cheek and crayons in hand. Chris also has a vicarious fascination with notions of friendship and love, things he is yet to experience thanks to his unwavering dedication to his art.

His fledgling, yet already impressive career, has seen him work for many major clients, as well as somehow managing to pick up a D&AD Yellow Pencil along the way

Also cool

A Frugal Meal

Charlie Billingham studied Fine Art and History of Art in Edinburgh and then continued his studies in Fine Art at the Royal Academy Schools. His work involves painting and printmaking, as well as making installations which use these disciplines and combine them with objects. Much of his recent work has used sections of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century etchings by James Gillray and George Cruikshank. Charlie’s work has been exhibited and collected both nationally and internationally.

Because this is the one I wanted to unwrap the most :)

Lindor

For more than 165 years, the Swiss Master Chocolatiers from Lindt have dedicated themselves to crafting the finest chocolate. Their dedication, passion and skill have led to the creation of the exquisite Gold Bunny and Lindor truffles, amongst many other delightful chocolate experiences. Lindt believes in the magic of families and is proud to join Action for Children in The Big Egg Hunt as Headline Sponsor. This egg is a creative representation of our irresistible Lindor truffle filled egg, the perfect blissful Easter treat - sampled throughout the events

All the content about the artists is from the Lindt Big Egg Hunt website, 

photos here are taken by me.

Test Drive - Hilarious Pepsi Max Commercial

Laugh out loud commercial by Pepsi Max - a zero-calorie cola in disguise ... Brilliant :) 

Test Drive

The Fault in Our Stars

I started reading John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars on Sunday, a cloudy rainy day in London, one of those lazy Sundays characterized by a typical pub roast lunch and the inevitable afternoon roast induced coma :) But somehow, I managed to stay awake and I started reading The Fault in Our Stars that I had just picked up from the book store on the way home from the pub.

Written as a young-adult novel, (for which I am probably not the target group anymore, but then again the term young adult is a stretchable concept I suppose) it is written in a style that reads very fluently and is very accessible. I suppose you’re wondering now why I would choose to read a young-adult novel. Well, I was curious to read this novel because it deals with the universality of falling in love and the ‘abnormality’ of cancer – more specifically it tells the story of a sixteen-year old girl – Hazel – and how she experiences falling in love knowing that she is a terminal cancer patient.  Also, the novel is a #1 New York Times Bestseller, so chances were it was going to be an interesting read.

I really enjoyed the story and finished the novel’s 316 pages in a day, partly because of the never ending downpour and a 4 hour train journey. Nevertheless, the main character, Hazel, and her object of affection, Augustus, are very charming and draw you in with their flirtatious behaviour as well as their brutal honesty and doubts concerning the looming presence of death. 
For example, Hazel is scared to fall in love, well not necessarily scared to fall in love but scared to be loved – she compares herself with a grenade, one that can blow up at any time and hurt the ones loving her. Her going away would not only harm her boyfriend, but also her parents for who she is the centre of their universe. They would be her casualties, and she knows that her parents are inevitably going to be victims, but she wants to minimize pain by not allowing herself to be loved by someone else. But then again, love often doesn’t wait for permission….

I will not reveal more, but I would recommend this novel for its ability to be both realistic and hopeful at the same time. It balances statements such as the dry uber-realistic

'The world is not a wish-granting factory' 

or 

'I (Hazel) guess I had been looking at the encouragement above the tv, a drawing of an angel with the caption Without Pain How Could We Know Joy? (This is an old argument in the field of Thinking About Suffering, and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries, but suffice to say that the existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate.)'

with lines such as

Dad: ... 'Also it was a bit hopeless,' he said. 'A bit defeatist'

Hazel: 'If by defeatist you mean honest, then I agree.'

Dad: 'I don't think defeatism is honest. I refuse to accept that.'

I do have to admit that sometimes I missed a bit of depth in the characters – I felt they could have been developed a tad more. The book sometimes read as a novel version of a script – a script where you as an actor would really have to work on completing other facets of the character. In my research I have read that the film rights to this book have been sold, so a Hollywood version is on its way. Does not surprise me one bit, and I even suspect this book is almost written to be made in a film. I imagine the film will be of the sorts of The Perks of Being a Wallflower… youth, introspection on the meaning of life and huge portion of drama (and hopefully also a good soundtrack). Curious to see who they will cast as Hazel and Augustus…

I suppose you could wait for the film, but if you’re curious and brave enough, read the book!

Sake No Hana - Japanese foodie heaven in London

You might have noticed that I really enjoy Asian food and last Friday I got a nice treat from my fiance when we went to now one of my favourite restaurants: Sake No Hana near St. James Park in London. 

(a new favourite in the category 'for special occasions' :) as it is quite a pricey restaurant) 

The interior of the restaurant was designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma who choose to use a lot of light coloured wood which gives the space a warm feel and blonde golden hue.

We started out with a white miso with wild mushroom and red miso soup with asari clams, followed by mirin marinated black cod with chili miso, Chilean sea bass with miso in toban and sliced rib of beef with vegetables, tofu and shiitake mushrooms which was cooked at our table. We choose rice and spinach as side dishes.

All of the food was absolutely delicious, but the beef especially was a dish where both of us just could not get enough from. The taste of the beef that was brought to our table in thin slices - carpaccio style was cooked in front of  us in a hot pot that contained vegetables, tofu and mushrooms as well as a large shot of a marinade based on soy sauce. Absolutely stunning!

Interior by Kengo Kuma

Open kitchen where all the chefs greet you in Japanese when you come in, at least I suspect they  said something like hello or welcome because I don't understand a word of Japanese :)

Love this warm and natural interior! 

Red Miso Soup and White Miso Soup

Top: the Chilean Sea Bass, Bottom: the Black Cod

Wooooo, the beef is being cooked at our table!

Smelling the deliciousness in the making...

Definitely one of the best things I have eaten in a long time! It tasted amazing!

My handsome fiance riding the escalator down from the restaurant as a Boris Johnson look-a-like ;) (for those that wouldn't know him, Boris Johnson is the mayor of London)

Form more information on Sake No Hana
visit http://sakenohana.com/london/

L' Eto Caffe: Afternoon Indulgence In London

What to choose, what to choose, I want it allllll - the cheesecake, the chocolate truffles, the tiramisu yum yum yuuuum - this was racing through my mind when I passed by L'Eto Caffe in Belgravia. 

And even though you can have an amazing healthy lunch there as well, I was most attracted by the 'caffe' for an afternoon cappuccino and dessert - oh I know cappuccino only for breakfast according to Italians, well forgive me this sacrilege ;) 
I guess I should go for a breakfast there and drink the cappuccino then ;) 

http://letocaffe.co.uk/