Drink your milk

“Then there was the matter of the milk, a drink I detested however it was served, and at whatever temperature. It made me gag. There was no allowance for such distastes in the home’s régime. This resulted in a great deal of time spent in the dining room, with its sour odours of curds and [...]

The Cube

I didn’t know anything about The Cube until my wife called me on Friday to say that due to a cancellation there were places free for lunch on Monday. A quick look at the site and my schedule confirmed that I was willing and able, so she booked. This temporary structure seats 18 diners (or [...]

Fine dining, Futurist-style

I can’t resist – another excerpt from John Dickie’s history of Italian cuisine, “Delizia!” (see here for the first). The Taverna del Santopalato was opened in 1931, following the publication of the Manifesto of Futurist Cooking, which aimed, among other things, to abolish pasta. “For the Futurists, pasta was ‘Italy’s absurd gastronomic religion’. It was [...]

Dream

Night. Aliens are invading, but they are nowhere to be seen. Instead, they are using some kind of ray to weaken the population first by robbing them of their senses. I run out into the street to find many people milling around, going blind. I find a woman who used to work with me as [...]

Only 4 senses

We had a lovely dinner last night. Take a look at my photos! The starter: Here’s the main course: And check out the dessert! No, I don’t have a problem with my camera. This is dining in the dark, first launched in Paris in 2004 at Dans le Noir. Similar restaurants have opened up in several [...]

L’Air Du Temps

L’Air du Temps has been on my restaurant list for a little while now. I’ve read reviews in magazines, seen the recipes on websites and drooled over the photos in the book. Last night we went to see if it could live up to expectations. After a forty minute drive from Brussels into deepest, darkest [...]

In the swim

The other day I took my daughter to the swimming pool. We stayed in the small, splashy-fun pool, but I could see (and, more importantly, hear) the main pool. I hate swimming pools. I always have. I didn’t learn to swim until I was 12, and I’m still a fairly weak swimmer now. Before that, swimming [...]

Eating Japan

Food, like many things in Japan was both familiar and unexpected. Brussels has a decent selection of restaurants offering different styles of Japanese cuisine, but eating in the country itself is always going to be a different experience. Firstly, the bad: I was disappointed by the kaiseki cuisine I tried. Some of it was lovely, but [...]

Kodò

On Friday night we saw Kodò in concert in Antwerp. At first I wasn’t sure if two hours’ worth of drumming would hold my attention, and yet I found that whenever they broke up their set with something different like a dragon dance, or a geisha song accompanied by a shakuhachi, I found myself thinking “Well that’s [...]

Fisheye

“a lot of people get AIWS when they’re six or seven and grow out of it“. A fascinating article, found via Warren Ellis’ blog, which suddenly reminded me when I read it this morning that I used to suffer a very occasional, very mild version of the same syndrome during my childhood and adolescence. All of [...]