Rudders at Home

…on a jet plane…

Nope, not us this time! It’s my friend Kevin. He’s headed back to the states imminently, and last night was another (!!) of his leaving dos. It was a nice night out in Paddington, and we were able to buy Kevin one final pint. He’s not leaving us quite yet.

Currently he’s traveling around Europe, having one last fling with the continent before moving back to the good old USA. We get to see him one more time before he’s off for good. Hopefully we can give him one last hurrah worth remembering.

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Check out this pelican. This is another photo from mom and dad’s trip over – just another of the small wonders they saw while we took them around London.

We saw this particular pelican during our stroll through St. James’ Park. This was on the last day we spent touring London. We had done the open top bus tour, getting off at Buckingham Palace to have a gander. After getting our fill of seeing where the Queen spends some of her time, we headed through the park down to the Horse Guards Parade and Whitehall. This is where dad got some really cool pictures of the horse guards, but we’ll save those for another day.

St. James’ Park has a pond/lake in the center of it, which has a large number of waterfowl. While we walked through, we were able to see quite a few birds, especially as the weather was fairly nice – one of our nicest days in the city!! This pelican stood out simply because it was so much larger than the rest, but also because there are signs around saying Please don’t feed the pelicans, or something that effect. I don’t think either mom or dad believed that there would be pelicans in the park until we turned the corner and here this fellow was!

We were all pretty impressed!

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Last night Paul and I went out in Clapham Junction. Clapham Junction is ages away from where we currently live. Well, not really ages, but it certainly seems like it when you’re out late, the Tube is closed and we require a night bus to get home. The transportation issue is the reason we normally stick around Central London. However, sometimes we have to make allowances, and this Thursday night had to be one of them. A friend of ours is leaving town. He’s headed back to the states after a measley two years in the country and we had to have one last fling. He recommended two places in Clapham, which we hadn’t been to before. Khan’s and Microbar.

Because we are always earlier to places than our friend is, Paul and I were also able to get in a second pub for a quick drink while we waited.

We headed up to Khan’s for a curry. It didn’t disappoint. I do love a good curry, and this was especially good. They advertise themselves as being low-fat and colorless. I, however, probably got the most fattening dish on the menu, made with cream and all sorts. But hey, what can I say? I don’t normally go out for a curry. Usually we’re so lazy that all we do is call for our local to deliver. So, I splurged. Big deal! And let me tell you, it was worth it. And I have to say, Kevin has good taste in food. Even if he was drunk when he was last there.

Then we headed off to Microbar. I should probably say rolled off. It was a filling meal. It wasn’t a bad pub and I can certainly see the appeal. While they seemed to have a nice selection of beer, I wouldn’t go back to Clapham just to go there. It was nice for a night, but the journey for us just doesn’t make it a possibility to go often! 

Overall, it was a pretty good night out. The ride home was eventful – bus back into town, and then another bus back out. We didn’t get to bed until nearly 2am! But we had fun, and the most important part was that we got to go out with a good friend who’ll be leaving us soon. I think we’ll miss him when he’s gone!

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So, Paul and I went out for an anniversary meal last week. It was five years to the day that he and I met in the middle of a street in London. We’re a bit sappy, yes.

Anyway, we pretty much always mark the occasion in some way – not with gifts, really – this isn’t a gifty anniversary, not a wedding anniversary. We only like to say, hey, we met and wasn’t it cool?

So, enough about our silly little traditions, the important thing is we usually have a nice meal to mark the day. This year, we went to a new Mexican restaurant called Wahaca.

We’d been passing by this restaurant even before it was a restaurant. Literally, we walk by it every day on our way to work, and had watched it morph from a dingy old place into something nice and clean. Once I found out it was Mexican, I decided we had to try it. I don’t get very much Mexican or Tex-Mex here in London, and well, frankly, I really wanted a margarita. Apparently my night at Cubana didn’t satisfy me.

So, we went in and were seated right away. The waiter was friendly and we ordered a selection platter to share. This meant we got two of a number of the “street foods” that were on the menu. Two steak tacos, two fish tacos, two different kinds of quesadillas, etc. The food itself was pretty good, even if there wasn’t much kick to it. I don’t really mind that, but Paul thought the salsas could use a bit of something.

The restaurant itself was all right. We’ll probably go back, in fact, I’m sure we will. It’s “local” for us – ie, on the way to the train station – and it satisfied a bit of that craving I get every now and then for Mexican-ish food. The margaritas weren’t bad, but next time I’ll probably opt for a beer. However, happy as we were with the place, we both decided that, just as we won’t wait in line for Wagamama’s, we woudn’t wait in line at Wahaca, either. There are plenty of other options and it just wasn’t special enough.

As a side note, I did see two people from UK television. Thomasina Miers, who won MasterChef in 2005, and I’m sure I saw Gregg Wallace – one of the judges from MasterChef. Thomasina Miers was in the kitchen cooking away (she owns or runs the place or something along those lines) and Gregg Wallace was speaking to her. That’s the great thing about London, is sometimes you just never know who you’re going to see!

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Last Friday I went to Cubana with a girlfriend. Not only was it a fabulous night out with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages, but it was a fabulous night for a margarita. And they do them well there. I was not disappointed. So happy with it all in fact, I’m already planning another visit. Maybe we’ll check out the food this time.

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