Scandinavian restaurant Kensington

Tasty food and good company at Madsen in South Kensington on Thursday evening.  It was another Couchsurfing dining club evening D for Denmark although the restaurant has food from other Scandinavian countries too. 

 I had lindström as a starter - a ham, horseradish and chive salad in a sour cream dressing with salad and bread. This is a dish from Sweden.

 I moved to Denmark for my main course - frikadeller with red cabbage and gravy.

Cool poster for Politikens Jubilæumsplakat 1 Oktober 1984 (not too sure what the event is, having not understood any of the Google results).

I would say the decor is more on the chic side of concrete chic.

Costa Dorada Spanish Bar and Restaurant

Costa Dorada is down a small street off Oxford Street.  They have live flamenco shows and other Spanish themed events throughout the week.

I went along with the intention of seeing a flamenco show, which was unfortunately cancelled and I ended up in a language exchange instead.  It was still fun, and I got to practice my very basic German with a patient guy who is working freelance in London.

You can check out Costa Dorada's events on their website:
http://www.costadoradarestaurant.co.uk/

Asadal

Asadal is a small Korean restaurant right next to Holborn station.  It's a very stylishly decorated place but the prices are reasonable.  We had some rice wine with our meal.  It was a brief visit so not much to report, but an enjoyable dinner nonetheless.

There are also some decorative dolls on the way to the toilets.  I like this mix of cool and kitch.

14 juillet

The French celebration of 14th July is marked each year in London.  This is hardly surprising when you take into account that London is considered to be France's sixth biggest city in terms of population.

2012 is the first year since I moved to London where the Bastille Day fun has been on a Saturday.  Since I don't work Saturdays I was able to finally go along.  Unfortunately this year some bad weather also decided to show up.  This didn't seem to dampen anyone's spirits although it did damage our free white paper hats somewhat.

 The event I went to was at the Physic Gardens in Chelsea, worth a visit in themselves for a quiet stroll amongst plants and sculptures.

 People queued to buy hot crepes covered in chocolate.

 The event was sponsored by Ricard so there was plenty on sale.  For those who have not had the pleasure (or misfortune, depending on your tastes) of trying Ricard, it's an aniseed drink a bit like Pastis or Uzo.

There was also a pétanque tournament taking place in several locations in the gardens

Out of Focus

Out of Focus was a photography exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery featuring work by artists from around the world.

Untitled Vodou series by Leonce Raphael Agbodjélou from Benin, who has had work displayed at the Jack Bell Gallery

 Untitled by South African artist Mohau Modisakeng

The Saatchi Gallry also recently hosted work by finalists from the Google Photography Prize.

 Quiet Departure by Zhao Yi from China

Colour of Nights by Dana Stirling from Israel

 Another Israeli entry - Adi Sason

Balázs Máté from Hungary with Unmade

Kyrre Lien from Norway took this photo of a Chess tournament in Oslo

Coco de Mer at Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens is a vast place and also a great place to have a picnic whilst the rest of London's visitors are in Stratford doing Olympic things.

They also have a huge range of plants in their glasshouses for the intrepid world traveler in London, including a Coco de mer tree from the Seychelles, a Chilean wine palm and some Madagascar periwinkles.

Chilean wine palm

International Cheese

International Cheese is run by an Irish/German couple and has three outlets: in Liverpool Street, Victoria and Marylebone stations.

They have a range of cheeses from around Europe including from Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Switzerland.

I stopped for a look and ended up chatting for about 15 minutes with the owner about the differences between life in Germany and the UK.

You can also check out a selection of the cheeses that they have on their website: www.internationalcheese.co.uk/

African Fashion Week London

African Fashion Week London is taking place this weekend in Spitalfields Market Hall.  I could only go in the morning and the catwalk was empty, though a crowd of mostly young women had already gathered to wait.

Southbank Crates

As part of the cultural Olympics the Soutbank Centre has a series of crates on display which promote some of the events that are taking place this summer.

 The Phare Ponleu Selpak is the Cambodian circus school I have mentioned before in my blog.

The South African musician Eugene Skeef taught two Bosnian musicians how to play the Nigerian udu drum.  If you go to this crate and listen you'll hear a song called Cosmic Genie

A Uruguayan mural project from 2008 - 4000 people created 131 murals to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

 Photo by Oscar Monsalve. A music project in Colombia called Batuta - a network of educators, musicians and children.

Casa Grande - a Chilean based art collective who drop poems from aircrafts over cities that have been bombed in the past during military action.  This photo is of poems being dropped over Guernica in Spain.

Qatar Olympic Cultural Centre

Qatar have really gone to town with their cultural house. It's quite a full-on promotion of the country and there's a whole dedicated to real estate (clearly I'm not the target audience). Nevertheless it was an interesting free visit.

 Etching by Ali Hassan

 Lusall City

All Eyes on Korea

As part of the All Eyes on Korea summer festival the Saatchi Gallery is hosting Korean Eye, an exhibition bringing together work by lots of Korean artists.

I think this is by  Hong Seung Hee - the labelling was a bit confusing in this room

 Chair II by Jung Seung

 The Photosynthesis by You Myung Gyun

 The Structure of #1, #2, #3, #4 by Je Baak

 Above the Timberline by Lee Jiyen

Wherever you will go by Lee Jiyen

This piece of art is so overwhelming that I forgot to make a note of who it's by