Drink, Shop and Do. We drank, anyway.

I thought I should update you with a quick post to follow on from our Azeri experience. After going to gorge ourselves on Azeri cuisine we thought it only proper to go and get some coffee, because falling asleep at lunchtime is just not the done thing. We went down the road to an establishment called “Drink, Shop and Do” (www.drinkshopanddo.com, 9 Caledonian Road, London, N1 9DX, tel: 020 7278 4335). I say establishment because it really is thoroughly modern in a hipster sort of way and thus rather hard to say exactly what kind of establishment it is. You wander in through what looks like a gift shop (with an adult section downstairs, just to add to the curious post-modernity of the place) and into an airy section with an arched glass roof in the back, where you find a bar/café sort of affair. Apparently it used to be a public bath house, which must have been a long time ago, because I don’t remember it and I grew up near there. It looks something like a cross between a bar, a coffee shop and a charity shop, which we were told is because you can in fact buy everything in there, even the cup you’re drinking from. It was certainly novel.

Here it is, from the deceptively small looking exterior.

We ordered a macchiato each, which was a bit pricey at £2.80; it also took quite a while. However, they were extremely good coffees and worth the wait and money, I believe they get all their coffee from a small supplier somewhere in London, clearly contributing to the excellent quality of the caffeinated delight we were served. I remember attending a short introduction to particulars of coffee at a university event once, where a specialist informed us that the way to tell a really good cup of coffee is that it has a certain sweetness even when you don’t add sugar. Well, that’s exactly what I found with this cup, it was special, and I drink a fair amount if coffee.

 The charity shop-cum-coffee shop-cum-cocktail bar interior.

I had a little scan of the menu and they had some really interesting cocktails ranging from £6.50 for the cheapest one, to a slightly frightening £9.50 for the most expensive one (maybe I’ve just been living in a ridiculously cheap country for too long). There were classics like Hot Toddies and more interesting ones like Christmas in Manhattan, a mixture of Buffalo Trace bourbon, mulled berries, Evan Williams Cherry Reserve and orange bitters. I always like it when I find drinks that have things I’ve never heard of in, I hope one day when I’m feeling flush I can return and sample some of these Dionysian delights. For those of you who are of a similarly curious bent, Evan Williams is a brand of bourbon and I think this particular one is a cherry liqueur version. One more interesting thing about this place: they do nights for over 18s in the evenings, things like classic dance music and indie nights, and craft activities of various sorts in the daytime, which I think are free. So, really a pretty conceptually modern place, if expressing modernity through mashing up lots of familiar concepts. Interesting stuff, a bit Hoxton yah perhaps, but interesting nevertheless and definitely worth a try.

  

 Evan William Cherry Reserve, sweet and strong no doubt.

Azeri Cuisine-great value food from Azerbaijan

My father has obviously missed me and my ravenous ways since I’ve been in China, he’s decided that now I’m back he wants to go on what can only be described as a restaurant safari. The safari started earlier this week at a very interesting little place known simply as ‘Azeri Cuisine’ on Caledonian Road in London (95 Caledonian Road, London, N1 9BT, telephone: 0207 278 0206). This place served food from Azerbaijan, which, even with my somewhat varied experience of international cuisine, I have not experienced, so I was pretty excited to try it. First I’ll just let you know a bit about Azerbaijan (what I know, anyway). Azerbaijan is a country on the west side of the Caspian Sea, north of Iran and south of Russia. When you walk into the cafe-restaurant (it’s only a small place) you’re greeted with an enormous picture of what the proud chef told me was Baku. Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan, nestling on the coast of the Caspian Sea. It’s been known in the past and is still very much known by the oil industry for its vast oil reserves, but is rather bad at distributing this wealth. In any case, it’s a pretty interesting part of the world, but not one you hear of that much.

Azerbaijan

“So, what’s Azeri food like?”, I hear you ask. Well, think sort of Turkish, but also Russian and eastern European. In fact, the menu was really interesting. It had things like borscht (Russian beetroot soup), grilled kebabs, various cabbage things and kotleti (look out for these in the plethora of Polish places in London) and even Iranian dishes like fesenjan (a dish with pomegranate and meat in-sorry for the spelling!). Something that will probably pull in a lot of customers during this time of cuts is the lunch deal, you can get a kebab with bread and rice or chips for £5.30 between 12 pm and 3pm, amongst various other things. I was curious about the more Azeri things, so I ordered various things from the standard a la carte menu. To start with, me and my father ordered Azeri Assorti, a mixture of pickles, some of which were homemade by the chef and his wife, and Blinis with mince and fried onion. The Azeri Assorti was a real hit for a pickle lover like me, there was pickled red cabbage, some gherkins and, most interestingly, some aubergine that had a really strong salty pickle flavour infused with a none-too-subtle mint kick. Very different. The blini were different to Russian ones, they were wrapped up a bit like a burrito with a tasty fried meat and onion filling, with a cumin touch. For those of you who don’t know, blini are small pancakes made using baking powder, which are often eaten with caviar, red onion and sour cream in Russia, so something of a delicacy. These were much more down to earth, less expensive and, as you’d expect, somewhat less delicate than their Russian counterparts. They came with a good amount of sour cream, served in a separate little bowl.

The Azerbaijani flag

For our main courses we had Dushbara and Kelem Dolmasi. Dushbara is a vegetable broth with tiny meat-filled dumplings and I found it a little bland, but a great winter warmer nevertheless. Kelem Dolmasi comprised of four large, steaming pieces of cabbage stuffed with fried meat laced with delicious spicy flavours, they were somewhat reminiscent of all-spice or cloves with cumin. I’d really recommend these dishes for those after a hearty dish on a cold day. Tasty, no-fuss, down-home ethnic cuisine-my favourite. We had an ayran each to drink (a yoghurt drink a bit like a salty lassi, but a little thinner, available in most Turkish shops). I asked the chef a few questions afterwards about the food and he was extremely friendly, the service in general was very good and the staff were all friendly, there was a real family feel to the place. The food was all served in courses and they brought all our dishes at the same time, so none of those problems you sometimes get in cheaper cafe-restaurant establishments. The meal was very filling and very good value at £29, which the proprietor gave us a £2 discount for, for no discernable reason other than that he was a thoroughly agreeable chap. If you’re on a budget but you still want a really good warming meal head down to this place. They also do grilled kebabs and other dishes to take away.

Kelem Dolmasi

Next post: I’ll tell you a bit about the coffee we had in an oddly modern place and a tasty fry up joint on Upper Street in Islington.

Muslim Noodles-A Little Bit More

                                             After having a chat with a friend about my last blog post I realized I hadn't really fully explained Muslim Noodles. For example, why do we call it Muslim Noodles? Well, as you may have guessed the owners are Muslims and members of an ethnic minority, although I'm not sure which one. If anyone could shed some light on this that'd be great. I'll just quickly explain this for those less savvy about Chinese ethnicities. China is roughly ninety percent Han Chinese, but there are various other ethnic minorities who come from other parts of China and look a little different to the Han Chinese. There are the Uyghurs from Xinjiang in the north west of China (it is, in fact, a semi-autonomous region, similar to Tibet), who, having read some stuff about there cuisine, I believe are the creators of the aforementioned culinary delight. I may well be wrong and, as I said, any information would be great. The amount of Muslims in China surprised me and their food is almost always delicious, including many kebab type dishes, stews and barbecue dishes. As you get further over to the west I believe the food becomes less and less “Chinesey” and more like something Middle Eastern, as you'd expect when moving towards central Asia and the various Stahns (Kyrgyztahn boarders China). Anyway, to get back to the point, and before I meander off on a geopolitical tangent. the people who make lamian are largely slightly less Chinese looking and are almost always Muslims, it is a typical Chinese Muslim cuisine.

                                                   

                                      The places I went to in Hangzhou were largely advertised as Lanzhou noodle eateries. Lanzhou is really in central China, but because so many people leave in the east in China this is, relatively speaking, in the west. I'll just take you through some of my favourite dishes, where the centrepiece is the noodles, but the food that goes with is often pretty tasty. My personal favourite is tudou niu rou gai chou mien (too-dough nee oo row guy chow mee en), which means potato and beef over noodles. There is usually some green pepper and onion in there, too. There is a certain way they cook it that makes it salty and delicious and it always comes packing a garlicy punch. However, I like it because as with most of the other things you can order none of the flavours become overwhelming and there is a flavoursome cohesion to every order. Another favourite is xihongshi jidan gai chou mien (she-hong-shir jee dan guy chow mee en), tomato and egg over noodles. This one is good if you don't fancy quite such an assualt of carbs and is a little lighter, however it really will only fill you up for six hours, as opposed to the eight of the aforementioned repast. As my vegetarian friend Ed discovered you can pretty much rattle off a list of any vegetables you want and they will usually cook them up with noodles for you, but there are always the pictures if you want to have a point punt. Pleasingly, they always come with a side soup, usually a clear broth, sometimes with some greens in (qingcai or ching t-sigh). For anyone who lives in Hangzhou, I thoroughly recommend the branch on Xin Hua Lu, near the Feng Qi Lu kou (junction). For anyone who doesn't, I thoroughly recommend visiting to sample this tasty local cuisine, it's delicious and probably fairly different to any Chinese food you've tried. That's enough about Muslim noodles for now, I think some musical musings might be coming next, although I do have lots of other tasty stuff to go on about, so we'll just have to see... 

 

A map of China, showing where Lanzhou is.

兰州拉面 Lanzhou Lamian, Your First Muslim Noodles

This being my first food related post I thought I'd introduce you to a Western Chinese culinary artform. This isn't strictly a review, but I thought it would be of interest to food lovers out there. I've recently been living in Hangzhou, China, a city fairly near Shanghai. My experience was pretty good and I discovered many things to be fond of. One of my favourite things was something we all came to know simply as 'Muslim Noodles'. These are small cafes where noodles are served at high speed to hungry people ready to slurp and burp their ways through a steaming bowl of fresh Chinese fodder. They are something equivalent to a working mens' cafe in the UK, which I guess doesn't sound particularly special. Well, these places probably don't seem very special to most Chinese people because they are just cheapo lunch establishments designed to fill a gap in a small time frame and for a minimal financial outlay. However, for me they are places of wonder, establishments that are the workplace of skilled artisans weaving dough related magic.

 

Now, picture yourself in China, quite confused as you don't really understand anything and people keep staring at you like you're either a celebrity or some sort of leper. As you walk down the street you will see an unremarkable looking noodle joint (millions of these in China, apparently Chinese people are quite keen on noodles) with green signage that has the characters for Lanzhou Lamian (兰州拉面 -pronounced “lan joe la me en”). There might be an inordinate amount of steam emanating from it, depending on where their cauldrons are. You will walk in and realise to your delight that there are (usually) pictures of some of the most popular dishes, so that if you are still at the pointing furiously and saying “Jigga! Ee ger Jigga!” (“This! One of this!”) stage of your Chinese you will not have to take a chance and point at some Chinese characters hoping that you won't receive, just for example, a spicy duck's head (very popular, but perhaps not that filling or appetizing even to the more adventurous westerner). So, you will then point at one that looks pretty inoffensive, the good news is it probably is (inoffensive, that is) and will not contain any snails, heads, spiders or the various other things that can make China somewhat exciting place to eat in.

The most-likely skull cap adorned youngster will then scream a drawl of Mandarin that even the most devoted learner of Chinese will have difficulty deciphering. It will basically be the first word of what you ordered followed by a meaningless shout, but from this unlikely cacophonous beginning will come delicious things. If you're lucky you'll be able to see the noodle chef at work, he will pull a lump of formless dough from a big bag and begin to pull it into a long stretch of flowery sinew, he will then fold it and spin it in order to make a thick plait. He will continue to work it like this for a while and then suddenly transmogrify it into long strands with his fingers. At this point you'll realise that he's actually making your noodles to order, all of which takes about one and a half minutes. He then chucks them all into the steaming cauldron, puts it with soup or simply fries it with whatever you desire, if you can speak Chinese you can just list some ingredients and they'll generally make it to order. Not the place to go if you're a fan of pork and beer, mind, but you can't beat it for freshness.

Now, take a moment to think how much this would be worth in the UK, imagine someone making your noodles to your personal order and then creating a delicious fresh dish. Worth a bit, I think. 

Well, be prepared for the wallet shattering bill of 7-15 yuan (about 70p-£1.50). If there's anyone in the UK who's a Lanzhou lamian noodle extrodinaire I think they're missing a trick by not opening a place. If there is, where the hell is? I miss my noodles! A word of warning for the faint of heart: they will present you with a frighteningly mountainous steaming Everest of noodles that will keep you full for a good eight hours, even if, just for example, you had to teach small Chinese children English for a good portion of that. You will be fit to bursting after this meal and ready for another onslaught of the famous Chinese work ethic! Thank you Muzzer's.

That's the description for now. I'll put up a review of some of my favourite branches, dishes and a little more information about them in a bit.

Here's some guy doing what I just described:

Review of the 'Slacking' EP by Spare

Artist: Spare

Release: Slacking EP

Label: Well Rounded Records (Well Rounded individual)

Format: 5 track 12”/digi

Release date: TBC

This EP sees Spare’s first release on Well Rounded Records. You could be forgiven for not having heard of Spare before as the artist is relatively elusive beyond a hunt on Soundcloud or Myspace. The release delivers a varied and highly original take on the current garage, breakbeat and dubstep tinged sounds pervading dance music. Spare is from Nottinghamshire, but the record label is based in Brighton and has delivered a pretty mixed bag itself, it often delivers an adventurous and experimental take on modern dance music, putting out releases that are clearly influenced by house, techno and garage, but that are refreshingly original and genre bridging in a music scene that can at times be formulaic and unimaginative.

                       

This release certainly sticks to this ethos and delivers five tracks with highly distinctive flavours, to the extent that they could all happily belong in different sub-genres of dance music. The first track, “Slacking”, delivers a mood reminiscent of a dubstep track, but a little less defined. It has a muffled, thunderous beat and a creepy, subtle synth line to accompany it. It doesn’t go anywhere too quickly, as the track name would suggest, but it is an innovative take on a dubstep rhythm whilst delivering something that is much less definable. “This Weekend” again holds true to its name and delivers what I’d call a garage track. It has a really strong two step beat that breaks down into a heavy four-four section and delivers a garage feel with modern production values. This one is definitely a track to work the club dance floors. 

“Makin’ Em Seen” brings a bit of a surprise, it’s a much more techy track and delivers a hard, complex electro beat. The beat is relentless and over-laid with a driving vocal sample, it’s certainly very different from the other tracks. “Kankle” is another great garagey track, with a shuffled feel and a massive bass line-definitely one for all the bass junkies out there. It’s well put together and provides another strong dance floor track. “Spare Room Offense” has a really strong beat, displaying cut up breaks and synth stabs reminiscent of an old skool hardcore track. Unfortunately, the track’s production lacks the cohesion of the others’ on this release, and it definitely isn’t my favourite. Having said this, it continues to experiment with genres and this is always welcome.    

Dance music and, to a lesser extent, music in general does well either to create definition or to entirely escape definition through its pure innovation. This release does the latter and provides a welcome challenge to those wishing to pigeon hole it. Spare should be applauded for avoiding sticking to one genre by giving an innovative mixture of styles, whilst also providing some really fresh, dancable beats. I hope to hear more from this artist in the near future. 

Originally written for Now Then Magazine:

http://nowthenmagazine.com/  

Review of 'Reeling Skullways' by Bass Clef

Artist: Bass Clef

Title: Reeling Skullways

Label: Punch Drunk Music, UK.

Format: CD/LP/Digital

Release: 30.04.12                          

Bass Clef (Ralph Cumbers) brings us a varied journey through the sounds of jacking analogue techno and melodic ambience with this release. It was a pleasant surprise for me as I’ve not heard much of this artist before and, whilst being reminiscent of lots of things, has a fairly individual style. It causes the kind of analogue hypnosis I always enjoy from the less full on side of techno. It is a release that techno lovers and acid and analogue lovers can certainly find something to fulfil their needs. It certainly has an insistent beat to it and is seemingly devoid of samples. Bass Clef gives us a consistent jacking funk combined with a mellow ambience, peppered with some great acid lines and analogue dirt. The album is a good builder and definitely speaks to the techno head within me.

                        

The release opens with a synthy, ambient intro track and then goes straight into the second track that consists initially of a bare beat, giving us a taste of things to come. The track “Hackney-Chicago-Jupiter” is very aptly named, it has a really jacking Chicago acid sound, somewhere in between acid house and analogue techno. There are harsh snare hits interspersed with floating synths at points, there is nothing gradual about the sounds, they hit you with a jack that moves your body. The record continues to build up to “Stenaline Metranil Solar Flare” (great names on this release), where there is a very well placed synth and slow broken beat interlude that provides a good contrast to the build up so far. It then returns to a slightly less intense jack and “A Rail is a Road and a Road is a River” takes the meandering feel of the record to its fullest extent. It’ll be a little over long for some listeners, although if you persevere you will be rewarded with some lush sonic landscapes. “Ghost Kicks the Spiral” is one of my favourites as it provides a really unique sound. It has a melodious ambience and is imbued with a real mournfulness, it also contrasts effectively with this generally jacking release.

                     

The sound of Bass Clef is perhaps not the most original, but it does what it does very well, it’s very well put together record whose contrasts work really well. The most interesting tracks are certainly the more ambient ones and I found them very emotive at times. It is a solid and well made release, although it doesn’t break too many boundaries. It is a very good listen if you enjoy analogue explorations, a bit of melodious ambience and some jacking funk, too. 

Originally written for Now Then Magazine:

http://nowthenmagazine.com/   

Review of Synesthesia #3 on Senseless Records

Lenkemz / Poirier / Walter Ego

Synesthesia #3 Tactioception (Touch)

Senseless Records

Release date: July 9^th 2012

This is the latest release in the “Synethesia” series from Senseless records. This record label has always impressed me with its open minded take on modern bass music. Senseless records tends to supply very danceable music that is often not by the numbers and almost always has an interesting quirk to it, and this release continues in this vein.

                             

Lenkemz comes in with an extremely grimey assault. “Hotline Riddim” is characterised by tough techy beats and a two step flavour, certainly a track for urban grime and harder breakbeat fans. “Murder Micz” features the same instrumental (riddim) overlaid by the breathless non-stop vocals of Dialect, delivering rough and grimey lyrics at top speed. It’s not for the faint hearted, but I love the relentless dark style, delivering a fearless two step barrage. I generally dislike the term “urban music”, but I think this track encapsulates what people are driving at when they use the term: it stands up for itself and takes no prisoners.

                        The three tracks by Poirier are very varied and show a really impressive artistic flexibility on his part. “Festival” is certainly one for all those soca music lovers out there and those who like bumping to bouncy four-four breaks. Poirier’s other tracks are quite different. “Ladrillo Por Ladrillo” has an upbeat feel that really works with the Latino sounding lyrics of Boogat. These are quite varied and there are some silky vocal melodies laid over a pared down punching beat. It’s essentially a reggaeton track at the slower end of the genre, with a surprisingly melodious feel to it-a welcome slice of Latin rhythm. “What” brings us lyrics in a ragga style from Face T. This track is much more for those dubstep and grime fans out there and has a distinctly dancehall rhythm provided by the interplay between lyrics and instrumental. 

We are provided with a track from our very own Steel City by Walter Ego, who I hadn’t heard of before. I wasn’t disappointed as I was treated to the most inventive track on this release, laying down a crunked up style with percussion and creepy vocal samples flying from all sorts of unexpected directions, all backed by a ravey synth line. If vocals are your thing stay clear, because the only thing close to a vocal in this is a really weird pitch shifting and down right creepy sample. I hope to hear more from Walter Ego, as this track is really interesting and displays a lot of inventive potential.

                       

I’m used to a high level of variation and artistic integrity from Senseless Records and they’ve certainly stuck to their guns, giving us some great dance floor tracks whilst keeping the release varied and fresh. Everything from the interesting cover art to the breadth of Bass music and fresh artists demonstrates an admirable will to keep breaking boundaries. This is an interesting release all around and a welcome look in for a Sheffield artist who shows great promise.

Originally written for Now Then Magazine:

http://nowthenmagazine.com/            

Review of 'Libre Kult (Book 1 Ov 3)' by The Black Dog

Artist: The Black Dog

Release: Libre Kult (Book 1 Ov 3)

Label: Dust Science

This release from The Black Dog (currently Ken Dowdie, Martin Dust and Richard Dust) on Dust Science sees one of Sheffield’s Intelligent Dance Music pioneers return with a typically well sculpted double A side. Sculpted is certainly the word for the ambient soundscapes that appear on this record, although those who are fans of their previous album, “Music For Real Airports”, should be prepared for a thoroughly more techno oriented sound.

On the A side “Black Chamber Order” opens with a gentle ambience reminiscent of an Orbital track or some of the tracks from “Music for Real Airports”. The track then builds up with a minimal techno kick drum and an atmospheric bass line. This is all overlaid by rich synth textures with that characteristic simultaneous depth out of seemingly simple production. The subtlety of production and the work that has obviously gone into melding it all together is particularly impressive. Techno fans will be pleased to here a clacking bass kick/hi-hat combination giving the track a sound more characteristic of early The Black Dog releases, giving the track a pleasing techy ebb and flow.

“Bass Mantra” on the AA side certainly lives up to its name. The intro opens with a minimal rhythmical synth stab building a rolling tension with the promise of a hard edged minimal beat. A layer of exciting and edgy bass builds the tension further, the kick and hi-hat then introduce themselves, creating a pleasingly throbbing track. This one is most certainly on the techno side of the group’s releases and continually grows and shrinks in an even more rhythmical style than the A side. The synths and percussion give a moody character to the track and a much more heads down style with a rolling rhythm whilst preserving that hypnotic drift so characteristic of the group’s work over the years. This is definitely a set-builder of a track and is certainly the track on this release most suited to DJs and techno fans.      

This release shows a welcome return to the techno style that can be recognised as far back as their earliest releases in 1989 and 1990. For those who are keen on a dance floor style with the tight minimal production of The Black Dog this is a winner. Although both tracks are similar in style they are sufficiently different to form a strong double A side, more suited to techno fans than those who may have been expecting something like “Music For Real Airports”. As usual, The Black Dog don’t shy away from experimenting with their sound and we are treated to an atmospheric release full of promise for the dance floor. 

Originally written for Now Then Magazine:

http://nowthenmagazine.com/

Here are four music reviews I wrote for Now Then Magazine of Sheffield, UK. I will be adding more food and music related content soon.