Stockbridge Market

A market needs to either have charm/atmosphere or be functional and/or profitable. With a little more space inside but without doubt all around the outer edges Stockbridge market has all three (4!)

a mixture of luxuries/gifts, art and (cooked) food, the clothing is novelty and/or specialist e.g wool 'chicken' hats, knock off M&S cashmere.

There is so much to see and admire but, it is so busy, with people buying their specialist cheeses, meats, olives and bread (for their gourmet work sarnies), organic veg, condiments and of course eating that it is strenuous to negotiate.

We missed the pulled pork! The queue was actually one of the shorter ones, then I shillied and shallied, dillied, then it was all finished and I was gutted. However the people running the store were a wonder to behold, shit hot planners and executors of the market trade. While most of the food stalls were visibly under stress, the Pulled Pork people has their system DOWN! As I said no long lines, they maintained a level of clockwork efficiency that waxes here lyrical. Repaid by being able to pack up early, (efficiently), clearly harmoniously and happily completely sold out.

The brownie lady put up a sign 'away for 5 minutes'. I checked back 4x and tried to have a giggle (joke/contact) with all the other people who came up in the (timed) 90 seconds I waited. the results Yes/No Scots 60/40, Spanish (speakers) 85/15, Yanks 0/100, English accent (English or Edinburgh) 20/80 - she didn't show up.

Had a lovely exchange with the guy at Fishuality - will do a separate blog on him and his artwork. There was a cheese and meat stall that was pristine. Everything looked fabulous - products, display, it took a while to get a photo of it, there was a supper chatty very helpful, lovely lass selling couture skin products.

boThe art is varied, lots of painting, jewellery, sewing. One woman with some quite exquisite work should either be nicer to her customers - I had to buy one piece and would have ught two but she was such a **** - or she's a bigot and she didn't allow photos!
The paella was the most popular dish everywhere you looked  (there were lots of Spanish speaking people) people carried the well sized containers packed with fluffy, golden-yellow rice all around the outside of the beautiful, tree'y, green, stoned walled and stepped, metal fenced space to sit and enjoy. The portions were unfortunately too large for my desires for the evening!!

In the end I had the gyoza's 6 for 5 quid - they were not great but may have been better early before the guy cooking them got the totally stressed out energy in which they were prepared. One of my imagination fairy's got forebodings at the well planned but stressy execution of the big white man and the two functioning nervously on automatic pilot small South East Asian women 'working efficiently....

I loved all the many different paintings of Scottish cows (kooos), but only took a photo of one because the lass was super friendly and helpful
"All the paintings are on the website, here's the card, don't use up your phone storage!"

Shyam Mehta - master thief!

What a rip off!

I am so angry I can barely write

This guy describes himself as a yogi but he is just a thieving, talentless swindler!

The book is not a book it is a pamphlet with a cheap, meaningless picture of some flowers and an old metal watering can on the cover. The 'Stories' in total cover 8 pages - with double line spaces between every line - Actually probably about 3 real pages of story in total!

The vast majority of the book itself is lists of other titles (single line spacing) with ISBN numbers and blank pages!

I bought the Spanish edition to read while baby sitting friend's children. Total reading time not even 15 minutes - in a language I am not brilliant at!

There is more detail and better story telling on the last page where this Cambridge crook waxes lyrical about himself. 

Despite his Christian upbringing in England he has the gall to describe himself as a yogi and an Easterner. He not a fan of 'Western modern influences' but he sure as hell knows how to play the capitalism game for all it's worth

He guffs about children needing love and happiness in their lives which if you're robbing their carers and parents is utter bullshit.

The children were at best sorely disappointed, very frustrated and didn't find the tales lovely at all "silly," "boring", "too short", were their words, with lots of "No!"'s and "Is that it?"'s.

It was a full 15 minutes of misery just before bed time!

"Irritating beyond words, pompous, banal" in my words.

This excuse for a piece of humanity is clearly in for some serious karmic  backlash

Exhibition "Stilte" @ Galerie de Witte Voet

It must be said; I do have a penchant for the curating of Siobhan Wall!

Quiet/Stilte is to be seen until the 14th of August - I am still undecided and sorely tempted to attend the finnisage, despite the challenges to do so!

Unfortunately the gallery still have info about the last exhibition on the website - hopefully that will change soon!

This exhibition satisfies my heart in many different ways - Firstly because it is three women, secondly, thirdly enz. because the contrasts between the works, the quality of the works, the calibre of the artists and the emotional gamut that they draw the observer through are of the highest order.

The paintings of Tamar Rozenblat are evocative, intricate, monochrome, adventures that throw you into a weird, but strangely recognisable landscape or flick your eyes, is it representation of bubbles, DNA, ideas, concepts? all of them, what ever you like. Inside and also in the garden the black backgrounds, net'ie or stark outlines tell little stories as do the works of all these artists

Sujata Majumdar is one of very few photographers who work is without question art. The photos look like paintings. Simply mounted, layered landscapes. Representations of moments, spaces. Subtle observations that seem to speak.

Siobhan Wall's work at this exhibition is powerful, intense, dark, sombre, sometimes a bit scary and again sooo recognisable. The moments you know you are falling apart and just have to keep going, keep it together, blur yourself to serve your surroundings. Or maybe that is just what I see.

This is an exhibition I would really like to recommend women go and see, having said that there is no earthly reason why men shouldn't go or wouldn't appreciate in the same way.

Even at an opening, surrounded by chatter and laughter and the clinking and slurping of drinks each thoughtfully chosen and placed piece, pulls you into a moment where the background noise disappears.


All the pieces in this show placed before me the recognition of the importance of silence and quiet, making their absence and the challenge of finding and creating quiet moments in our lives so poignant, so present, so current, so real.

Dabka Restaurant - Nieuwezijdskolk

What a rip off!

Dreadful food, horrible service

Before I went to the restaurant I checked a couple of reviews. One thought it was great, one thought it was over priced and noisy both said the staff were great and very friendly.

Was with a large party and from the outset, the staff did not seem happy about it. I asked immediately for a separate bill, when I went to order some food - didn't want to join in the  bill sharing, I was told that my drinks had been added to the tables bill and it was 'too late' for a separate bill now.

The waiting staff are not unfriendly, but they are also not very good at their jobs - most orders took and age. They couldn't remember that one end of the table was ordering wine and the other end of the table beer - unintentional but it should have made it easy for them to deliver the drinks. Instead, after the drinks sat on the bar (arms reach away!) for 10 minutes - the wine getting warm, the beer getting flat!, they would wander up and down the table.

They didn't have any flat bread (in a Middle Eastern restaurant!). The bread they did bring took 25 minutes and was undercooked! (Can't cook bread in a Middle Eastern restaurant!)

What pissed me off the most was that more than a third of our order was swept off the table with the food still on it! All the salads were cleared away all the dips that came with other things were whipped off the table as soon as whatever they had been served with was eaten. e.g. Kibbneh come with a huge dollop of delicious yoghurt sauce, much more than you need for the measly four they give you. As soon as they were gone the waitress - despite being asked twice not to clear plates with food on them without asking - would sneak in and run off with it.

When I asked them not to clear plates with food on, without asking the waiter immediately came up asked if he could take a plate - there was an empty serving plate in front of me but he also took the plate I was eating from!

When they said they didn't have to type of bread we wanted, I asked the waitress what kind of bread they were offering - she couldn't tell me or describe it apart from to say "You want a sort of Lebanese bread that we don't have, we have another also Lebanese bread, cooked fresh." I asked her in Dutch and English if she a bit more of a description and she just repeated the last four words like either she thought I was mentally retarded or she actually is.

The salads are tasty - but I have better, cheaper elsewhere in the city. They tasted pre prepared rather than fresh which makes you wonder why it takes so long to put some slush on a plate.

The meat was appalling, absolutely dreadful, over cooked, tough and bloody cold!

The woman who complained about the air conditioner - it was not even vaguely warm last night was completely on the ball.

My only assumption is that the people who rave about it, don't know jack shit about Middle Eastern food - or any food or good service in general!

The two waitresses are great to look at. One was blonde, Polish (I asked) and didn't speak much Dutch(!) The other was dark haired, arrogant, rude, surly and generally seemed to feel that she was doing us a favour when she deigned to listen; lots of eye rolling and hair tossing when something was ordered.

Most importantly they were slow. Maybe because all three were so busy with their mutual admiration society, the customers came a distinct second!
 

Camper Place, mini camping Lithuania

Not only the best, also the friendliest, nicest and cheapest place we stayed and although most things are works in progress it had the best facilities. Two large, clean, airy shower/wc's one with a guests washing machine (€3) and another toilet at the reception cum bad weather hang out and apothecary!

There are two distinct camping areas to the East and West of the house. The one on the West has two rows of evergreens which provide shade for the vast majority of the day.

We chose the West side which had the best cherry trees, the strawberries, plus a table and two benches

There are numerous cherry trees, plus strawberries, herbs, n veg. We were told to help ourselves to herbs and fruit - in a year when Daiva has been working on them they are (may be) sold.

The hospitality of Kees and Daiva is mind boggling, it would be exceptional in the Netherlands, in Lithuania it was like entering a magical world. 

Daiva an ex teacher has encyclopedic knowledge of the local flora, great relationships with the local fauna, including a family of hedgehogs, a grass snake, cats, a dog, sparrows, swallows, flies and mozzies!

This was the first ever designated camper site in Lithuania. The main difference between this one and all the others that we stayed at was the intention. It is not perfect, many things show the lack of available capital, with inventiveness and creativity often replacing professionalism. In contrast to some places where the cash obviously flowed like water into the projects, the clearly felt aim here is to give the guests the best possible (ecological) experience of the camping, the hosts and Lithuania. e.g. This was the only campsite with soap, where the w.c. and hand paper didn't run out! One other had dispensers (for show or summer maybe). On arrival Daiva brought us a cup of her excellent 'abracadabra' (same term in Lithuanian!) herbal tea with a massive teaspoonful of creamy honey.

Daiva has made a hand drawn map of the locale, she collects, dries, packages and sells local plants providing the Latin name and where possible the name in up to 7 languages, there is also (cheap!) delicious, natural honey from their farm available.

There are numerous rave reviews of the site and Kees and Daiva. Having described the place as perfection - my idea of being told to eat as many cherries as I want and can - and heaven - getting to sit in shade, with wifi, cherries, strawberries, local beer and having no time on the internet due to the possibility to learn from a generous master! The least I can do is add my own praise

Europos Parkas

An expensive day out by general Lithuanian standards: €8 entry pp €2 parking €1.50 to take photos!

Like so many things here excluding the nature, disappointing. 

The park is beautifully laid out. Huge, generous grounds, lots of space for each art work, carefully placed within an environment. Lovely walks from one piece to the next, nice mixtures of shade and sunlight. 

It's silly things like the silver plates with artist info, some unreadable cos of the sun reflection, even more are faded. 

Lots of what I call 'wank art'; (popular?) artists who get huge grants and make big HUGE meaningless crap instead of small meaningless crap that they can bullshit about til the cows come home about.

The aforesaid are interspersed with deep, amazing, clever, tricksy, subtle pieces.

You can buy a postcard to send to friends with a special postmark for Europe it costs €2! 

The lady at the gate recommended the restaurant, which is over priced, has a very badly translated menu and nothing we were interested in (e.g. soup of the day?!) is available today. The waitress speaks fair American English, she is polite but typifies my experience of Lithuanian attitude in a sort of off hand coldness, that doesn't invite any attempt at warmth or friendliness and doesn't issue any. 

Our visit is cut short by my mate (who is always late insisting we return to Vilinius exactly at five - I said we'd be back 'around 5' - got phoned at 1 minute to. 

Himself didn't mind was already fed up of my commentary

I didn't take photos of the pieces I really disliked!

 

Rinkusˇkiai Restoranas Alaus Kelias

We are staying in a fab campsite with no eating facilities, it was super hot and I felt disinclined to cook, so we decided to have huge bought lunches and easy evening meals (hence some weight loss).

We picked a brewery to go to with a well recommended restaurant attached.

When I saw the building, the full car park and the car loads of trendy, budding Lithuanian elite, I tried to persuade Himself that we should go and look for the other place our hosts had suggested to eat at. Luckily for me, its proximity to the brewery and his hunger (due to my tardiness with time) meant that he over ruled me. "Just have a look at the menu and if you hate it I will just have a kvass n you can hv a beer!"

First the waiter surprised me; professional, open, polite, helpful, eager to be of service, no hint of attitude, toadying, patronising or arrogance - the kind of waiting on that Americans hope/dream of giving, that Germans and Austrians take for granted.

I will start with the pointers for improvement so I can freely wax lyrical about everything else.

The net chairs outside are too low for the tables. I noticed it as soon as I sat down and  my deep dish of soup compounded the issue!

The waiter didn't gone back often enough and left too soon missing orders for at least three drinks, another kvass for Himself and my usual 2 glasses of wine. I did get a last beer for during the brewery visit.

I got a completely different meal to the one I ordered! Didn't matter, however both were supposed to be served with mash. What I got came with very bad chips. Unfortunately the roast potatoes that came with the lunch ordered by Himself were also way below par for the rest of the meal.

Complaints over! More or less. 

I started with a beer an Alaus kelias and Himself a kvass* both were delicious. I can't do kvass when I'm wanting alcohol but for a refreshing non alcoholic drink, I haven't found much better.

We ordered, me, Thai tom yum, Himself, beetroot soup. The beetroot soup was mild, earthy, thin, creamy, light, a gorgeous purply pink colour, flavoured with dill, cucumber, a half boiled egg and served with hot boiled potatoes with a dill garnish.

My tom yum was pinky red, richly filled with carrot, paprika, mushrooms, I think there was pesto or something like it. It arrived with a green oily dollop that looked great but as far as I could tell left no trace of flavour. Though the soup was tasty, spicy, well flavoured none of the usual Thai flavours (lemon grass, laos, lime leaves) jumped out and I had to add some of my own chillis in oil to get it up to speed. All that not withstanding, the soup was a perfect introduction to Asian flavours and warmth for unaccustomed palettes and those, like Himself who like spice but mild.

I ordered pork tenderloin with prune sauce, roasted garlic, cheese crisps and mash with a side of vegetables. I got grilled tenderloin, with peas, (dried) cherry tomatoes, crispy bacon, horseradish sauce and mash.

As I said the mash was marked by its non appearance, the peas were very badly cooked, I am guessing by their cracked bullet like exterior either reheated or not cooked in water.

Himself ordered the ribs supposedly with vegetables and wedges. The wedges were (old) roasters which like the chips we took one look at and left to their own devices! The veg was sauerkraut. 

Let's please ignore the supreme let down of the veg. The sauerkraut went amazingly with my pork tenderloin, far better than with the ribs, the dried cherry tomatoes were actually perfectly roasted as was the bacon garnish. The horse radish sauce was unnecessary and didn't contrast brilliantly with the drizzle of light beer marinade.

Ignore everything else I have said about the meal because everything I have mentioned faded into insignificance with the meat. When I put a piece of the ribs in my mouth I felt pity for every practicing Jew, Muslim, Hindu, 7th Day Adventist and all the other non pig eaters of the world ever born!  At the same time my mouth sent praise thanks and gratitude to the pig eating forest dwellers of Northern Europe! Both ribs and tenderloin were delectable perfection. So well cooked, moist, aromatic, tasty but with completely different textures, flavours and feel in the mouth. Generous portions without being over the top, that completely satisfied. The side order of vegetables were a good sized bowl of the mind bogglingly delicious Lithuanian cucumbers, sun ripened tomatoes, just enough red onion and a simple vinaigrette, it was the perfect accompaniment to both meats, especially considering the state of the spuds!

Everything I read agrees with me, this us an excellent place to eat. Most say it is more international than Lithanian I think it's fusion, which takes the best of traditional Lithuanian cooking - methods, ingredients and international standard recipes and ingredients and gives them a tweak in each other's direction.