Monday 11 November 2019

Dhaba-Mira Pannierstrasse Berlin

The main problem with Indian food, is that however fabulous it tastes, it rarely photographs well!

On one trip to Berlin, I stayed in the same street where this restaurant is. Inadvertently I ended up eating here three nights in a row! Je regrette rien?

The first night I came here I had wandered the length of the street and seen all the restaurants. Some were closed as it was early evening, others were empty and there was another Indian which unlike this one looked very inauthentic.

I was actually drawn to the menu on the outside wall - I can read food in many languages I can't speak!!  It offered an aubergine curry!


Plus I discovered the guys here all spoke English.

paneer pakora!

I ordered a ginger tea and an Indian rum and mixed them - utterly delicious. Someone heard (saw?) me ordering and asked for the same on the first and third night! The waiters told me and gave me a free tea (so I ordered another rum!)

The second night I went back cos I really wanted to try the bindi (okra) it was amazing.

The third night I ended up here again because of my raving about the food I had to bring my friend who was also just in town for the weekend. I had the paneer jalfrezi.

I LOVED the food.

Lost my photos...

If you like Indian food - this place is good (and very cheap!!)

https://www.indian-dhaba-mira.de/index.php/speisenkarte


Friday 8 November 2019

Kema vlees/meat - kinkerstraat

If you're a filthy meat eater this place ROCKS! 

Shelves of pig, cow, sheep, (smoked) chicken and even horse! 

An impressive choice of pig products' fabulous marinated spare ribs, a wide selection of different kinds of Dutch bacon and sausage, fabulous black pudding. 

Everything that most meaty hearts could possible desire plus a butchers where you can order whatever is not to hand! 

The best thing about this place is the prices. Comparable to the halal butchers in the city (but then selling pork!), way below price wise and way above for quality compared to any of the supermarkets, unchallengeable by any other standard butcher in the city.

This is not the place for vegans, vegetarians or 'happy meat' (doesn't really exist) eaters. 

It is one of the few places where you get an idea of how many Spanish speakers there are in the city - they all come here so much so that it is the only place I've ever been where it's also got a Spanish translation and most Saturdays that is what you hear! 

Cheap and good - exactly what yr pocket n tummy ordered!

Sunday 3 November 2019

No1 Tourist Attraction at AmsterdamMuseum.nl



If you can’t get to the exhibition (Nov 1st to March 1st 2020) buy the book!
http://howtogoon.com/index.php/books/

This an exhibition that you can listen to, read, watch
This exhibition will make you think
This is exhibition is not for the weak willed or the faint hearted.
This exhibition demands and needs you time and your attention



This is the wrong exhibition if you are looking for light entertainment
This is the best exhibition if you want to be educated,
This is an excellent exhibition see and get an understanding of one shadow side of Western culture
If you enjoy being moved to tears, shocked, horrified, amused visit this exhibition
This is an excellent exhibition if you are on the fence about whether you support
the legalisation of prostitution, abolition or the Nordic model

Jimini Hignett has the stories (portrayed by actors) and the photos (masked) of prostitutes on one side of the small exhibition space. Facing them on the opposite wall and through the centre of the space are tourist trinkets – from t- shirts to snow globes, from clogs to a salt shaker and pepper pot set – all extolling Amsterdam’s ‘No 1 Tourist Attraction’ – the Red light district. In the middle ranged along the ceiling are the brown paper bag masks the women made (of themselves) and wear in the photos
All painting the trinkets create a warm, friendly, cosy picture, normalising the exploitation and sale of sex. Creating a vision (and a fallacy) where women choose prostitution as a viable means of earning their living and exploring their sexuality and boundaries while earning a good living.



It’s easy to skip by the close typed commentaries next to the trinkets, especially as they all begin by describing what you are seeing. If you get past that, it took me a while, then I went back and read them all minutely. They are texts from the book. They are the voice of the artist speaking. She is humerous, acerbic, sharp, intelligent and very clear.




I was appalled to discover that the cost of a session with a woman in a window in the red light district in Amsterdam is now 20 cheaper than it was 20 years ago. The cost of the rooms has also come down but still requires at least 12 johns before it is paid!



Prostitution is, in the vast majority (98%) of cases violent exploitation of individual women’s bodies. To cater to a belief that all women are and should subject to (the sexual needs, demands and desires of) men. There are no happy hookers who love their job and do it through choice. There are no prostitutes who would choose prostitution as a job if they were offered fair wages, an education, a pension, workers rights and protection and or the same ability to choose work times. I have yet to meet women who truly freely chose to do it, every single one has had at least one extenuating circumstance that led them to believe it was an inevitable or the best or the only option.



People who want to legalise prostitution, are asking society to give pimps and violent exploiters free rein to traffic women and children with impunity. The only achievement will be undoing every step towards female emancipation, equality equanimity and autonomy achieved over the last 120 years. People who try to convince young girls that the so called sex industry is a liberating or in any way positive place to try to function need to be criminalised.

What positive reasons are there (that do not centralise men their rights and their feelings above those of women) for the support and maintenance of prostitution?