Le Stoefer

There's a new cosy hang-out in Chatelain serving original luxe fast food (the new trend apparently in foodie land), le Stoefer. To be more precise, their specialty are pittas with flair!

Be prepared to be amazed by some pimped out pittas with funny names in a French-Flemish composed language such as the Chike Dingues! (= Fancy Stuff) - a pitta bread filled with grilled chicken pieces, eggplant and zucchini in garlic, grilled onions and a Parmesan sauce - or  Dikkenek (= Big Headed) - a pitta bread filled with ground beef fillet with fresh herbs, string beans, carrots, foie gras and a tarragon sauce.

Yesterday evening I met up with some friends to indulge in these fancy large pittas and we really enjoyed the atmosphere of the place - the warmth of the interior with its wood paneled walls,vintage style light bulbs hanging from the ceiling, and antique bar stools (but be careful though when you go sit on them, you can really hurt yourself when you're as enthusiastic as  myself and sit down without properly watching :) just look at the picture of the bar stool and you'll understand)

Happy Faces Happy Pittas

the bar stool

Comfort food, cosy interior, comfortable bar stools once you sit in them correctly, and comfortable prices (at 9 Eur for a M-size pitta and 13 Eur for a L) What more do you want for a friendly night out in one of Brussels coolest areas!

Definitely going back!

De Stoefer

103, rue de l'Aqueduc
1050 Elsene (Brussels)

Brunch at 202 in Notting Hill

I'm a big fan of the Sunday brunch. It is the perfect moment to catch up with friends and hear about their weeks, or Friday and Saturday night escapades.

For a relaxed brunch with the uber-hip crowd in Notting Hill (always a fantastic spot to do some people watching - by this I mean look at their outfits, love the style there), I would recommend you to try 202 on Westbourne Grove .

Mix of concept store and restaurant, it offers a cool collection from clothes, accessories and books to home decoration items. The food in the restaurant is delicious in its simplicity and will leave your taste-buds very content. With personal favourites Eggs Benedict with Parma ham, Warm goat cheese salad with proscuitto, figs and toasted pistachios and Prawn liguini with chili and tomato.

Topshop - The Importance of Being Kate

In 2007, the fast-fashion chain Topshop began its four-year long design collaboration with top model Kate Moss. The collaboration was inspired by Kate Moss’ unique sense of style. The Autumn – Winter 2010 collection was Kate Moss’ 14^th for Topshop and her last. Reportedly Moss decided to end the lucrative partnership because of other commitments.

Notice hottest model of the moment Cara Delevingne in this AW 2010 campaign video!

But it seems that Sir Philip Green (Owner of the fashion retail group Arcadia with brands such as Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins) has found himself a new fashion muse, a new Kate, Kate Bosworth. 

The affair started in the winter of 2012 when Kate Bosworth was the face of Topshop's first ever Christmas campaign and fashion film directed by her fiance Michael Polish. She performs the song Winter Wonderland standing on a piano in a fabulous concert hall - a scene inspired by Michelle Pfeifer's piano scene in the film The Fabulous Baker Boys.

Now, Kate Bosworth has taken over Topshop's 2013 Spring-Summer Magazine which she guest edited with her fiance. In the editorial 'A Real Heart Breaker', the lovely actress poses in outfits styled by herself and she is photographed by her fiance Michael Polish. 

For now, she is not designing her own line for the brand, but it wouldn't surprise me if we can expect something to be announced in the coming year...

Coke Light - Marc Jacobs

Remember the article I wrote a while ago about the pimping of the Coke Light cans by Marc Jacobs? Well the advertising machine is coming to full swing with big adverts on those famous London double-deckers and a competition to win a Marc Jacobs bag! 

On Wedding Dress Shopping

I have had such an amazing weekend! A weekend full of laughter and one that made me feel so blessed and thankful for the fantastic friends around me!

It all started last Friday when I was sitting at home, having finished my article on Lichtenstein and wishing for the warmth of the sun, trying to heat up on the gazillion-th latte of the day, as the doorbell rang.

And there she was! The sunshine of the day!! My close friend Nadja suddenly at my doorstep hiding behind a bouquet of pink flowers. She had flown over London on her way back from NY to Munich, especially to go wedding dress shopping with me! You cannot believe how loud I screamed with excitement seeing her! 

This needed a good night out on the town for the much needed catching up! We started our evening at Mark's Bar in Soho for our first of many glasses of fine bubbly. Mark's Bar is really one of those sweet spots in London to enjoy a cocktail in its cool interior of leather chesterfields and soft lighting.  

Nadja at Mark's Bar

After our aperitif we headed to Yauatcha to meet Evi for little packets of deliciousness - dim sum! One of my favourite foods that I got hooked on when I was living in Singapore a couple of years ago. Evi, of course, had known all about the surprise and had made sure that I had already made the reservation much earlier :) If you make it to Yauatcha, be sure to try the Prawn and beancurd cheung fun! It is absolutely delicisious - it both melts in your mouth as giving you some sense of crisp with the tempura'd prawn woven through the roll! And if you like spicy, then you should really taste the steamed halibut with home made chilli and salted radish! 

at Yauatcha

We ended our night with a late night cap at the bar of The Connaught in Mayfair - relaxed atmosphere, again dim lighting, soft chairs and beautiful 20s decor. 

The next morning, on Saturday, I had my appointment at Temperley in Notting Hill to try some of their exquisitely flowing wedding dresses! Four of my friends joined me as the bridal fashion police to give me their honest opinion. Priceless :)

Temperley in Notting Hill!

Temperley Wedding Dresses

Evi trying on a veil :)

I'm sure you're wondering which dress Natalia, Camille and Evi are looking at ;)

Trying on all the different styles of wedding dresses is just a blast! How cliche it might sound that you do feel like a princess - well I was feeling more like an Oscar worthy actress ;) but close enough and much more glamorous ;) And they all tell me that I'll know when I will have found 'the one'.

Of course I will not reveal....still a fitting at Browns to come and the groom cannot see the dress before the big day - so you will have to wait too ;)

Lichtenstein - A Retrospective

Yesterday, Tate Modern opened its new exhibition 'Lichtenstein - A Retrospective' to the public. What I like about a retrospective like this one is that it introduces you to those lesser known works from the artist, some of which I find more interesting than the ones so often referred to. But that of course is personal taste, not to be discussed - like the French proverb says: "les goûts et les couleurs ne se discutent pas"

Lichtenstein, probably one of the most recognized artists of the American pop art movement, and a contemporary of Pollock and Rothko, broke with those artists' movement known as abstract expressionism to develop a new concept, one of painting inspired by comic strips, advertising and mass culture imagery.

When asked about Lichtenstein the works that often come to mind are his comic book paintings. But Lichtenstein wasn't a fan of comic books per se, he was rather intrigued by an underlying principle in art, namely what is the underlying force that makes a painting of a certain image more valuable than that same image in the comic book? He was intrigued by the nature of the cartoon, an image as far as possible from an artistic image and how it could be turned into a formal painting, a formal art work with only minor changes. 

Don't you like the painting on the left? :) It's titled: The ring (Engagement) and dates from 1962.

But as you might already have inferred from what I wrote at the beginning, my favourite paintings on show in this retrospective weren't the comic book ones - rather his take on Monet's Rouen Cathedral is what caught my eye. 

Monet wasn't the only artist Lichtenstein gave his own interpretation to. He also engaged with Picasso's, Matisse's and Mondrian's work for example, each time staying true to the stylistic convention of the movement but letting it emerge through his pop art filter.  

Another one of his series that I really liked were his Mirrors. Here the painting is not only a painting, it is also a sculpture as the form of the canvas has taken on the form of the object represented, and it is conveying its intricate characteristic, i.e. reflection, through a composition of well placed dots. But it is a mock object, a mirror showing no reflection at all of the object put before it.  

I would really recommend you this exhibition! It is very accessible art, very pleasing to the eye and actually just very fun!

Tate Modern has a great audio guide system which is really worth taking along! You hear stories about the art works, and commentary from the curators and even from Lichtenstein himself. And you also get access to his biography and additional material like e.g. his scrap books ( he never worked from real life objects, he always started working with 2D representations)

The exhibition runs until the 27th of May 2013! So plenty of time for you to get there and like me make new discoveries about this artist, like his fascination later in life with the simplicity of Chinese art!

For more information go to the Tate modern website

Reading History

Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending and Niall Ferguson's Civilization both shared my bed the last months. (Since I was very young I have developed one of those habits where i really cannot fall asleep without reading, as a result my nightstand is a heap of books and magazines to the agony of my fiance who just finds it a bit of a mess and doesn't understand this need to read) Two very different books, the first a work of fiction and winner of the Man Booker Prize, the other a work of non-fiction. But both with some common red thread - history.

Ferguson's Civilization is a historic account of how the "West" ended up being the dominant civilization and questions are raised on whether this will remain the case. The combinations of competition, property rights, medicine, consumer society and work ethic are cited as the catalysts for growth and growth in power. What I really enjoyed about this book was the light it shone on the non-western civilizations - their power, strength and demise. Not only did I enjoy reading about history in China, Middle East, Japan, South America ... (history that really isn't part of the high school curriculum in Belgium, at least not 10 years ago) , it also points out how once dominant civilizations can crumble when bad decisions are made,  and that the equilibrium of power is in that sense a very fragile and sensitive one. 

Barnes's The Sense of an Ending is really one of those books that just engulfed me. Where Civilization took me 3 months to read its 325 pages, The Sense of an Ending just took me two days to read its 150 pages. Of course, very different types of books - Civilization for me was a book that I could more easily put down in the evening - requiring more concentration when you read it, it made me more tired and was hence ideal as a kind of lullaby putting me to sleep - by which i really don't mean that it was boring :), it's just the type of attention that it required. 

The Sense of an Ending drew me in so much that I really wanted to know what was going to happen in the story, and I loved the tone of the narrator in the story and his description of the characters and philosophical notes. 

Tony Webster - the narrator of the story - is a retired man and is recalling events of his youth - the friendships and love affairs he lived through his school and university days - when he is faced with a peculiar letter... What really runs through this story - and what is also the link with history that I want to make here - is that he starts to realize that his memory is imperfect. Not only did he interpret certain events from his own background he also gave them meaning based on his current state of mind, without considering that he did not even have all the facts to come to a 'correct' conclusion...

So is the same with history - which version are you being told? Who interpreted the events? Which facts were taken into considerations and which were knowingly or unknowingly omitted...? I believe that's worth remembering when reading works about history...