Natural, fresh and ready

I've been eating out quite a lot since I arrived in Brussels, but I don't really have the time or inclination to post about all the restaurants and cafés I've tried out so far. The one I do want to mention, though, is one that I've actually only got take-away from so far, but which has already become one of my favourite Brussels places.

Exki is a Belgian chain of cafés/snack bars that sells good quality, healthy 'fast food' - not burgers and chips, but salads, soups, sandwiches... and delicious cakes and cheescakes, all sold by the slice to eat in or take away. One of their specialities is speculoos cheescake - a bargain at €3.45 for a big slice.

Its by-line is 'natural, fresh and ready' (in English, of course, because English is cool. Or something.), and it's only been around since 2001, but already has 16 branches in Brussels alone. I saw a report on TV that their turnover is down due to the economic situation, but it's always been fairly busy when I've gone or looked in so far, so I'm sure they're not in trouble.

They also do breakfast - fresh pastries, yoghurt, fruit salad, freshly squeezed orange juice... As there are two on my route to work, I can see myself succumbing to temptation rather more often than is good for the bank balance.

The exception that proves the rule

It is a well-known "fact" that all odd-numbered Star Trek films are pants. Until now. I just went to see the latest one, number 11, and it is awesome. The way the cast manage to be so recognisable as younger versions of the characters we know, without descending into outright impersonation, is very impressive indeed. Zachary Quinto is particularly good as Spock - he has the voice dead on, as is obvious when he's on screen with Leonard Nimoy (who is, of course, a legend) - but in my opinion they're all great.

Only Star Trek could get away with a prequel in which the essential premise is that the original series is now not going to happen as we saw it. The Spock/Uhura thing is particularly intriguing: I haven't seen enough of Star Trek:TOS to know whether there are any hints of this relationship, but I do know that it's actually Kirk who kisses Uhura in one episode.

Plus, it's funny, it's well-paced, the special effects are good, and the science is suitably silly.

Take note, George Lucas, this is how you do a prequel.

Welcome to Brussels/Bruxelles/Brussel

The capital of Belgium, (one of the) headquarters of the European Union, and home to over one million people. Including, as of Tuesday, me.

The whole point of starting this blog in the first place was to record my adventures in the city. I don't have a huge amount to say so far, except that the food is good, the beer is excellent, the TV is very multilingual and my French is gradually getting better - but watch this space!

Is it just me...

or was Norway's Eurovision song actually not that good? I mean, it wasn't bad (though I'm sure he was singing sharp for a lot of it), but 387 points seems a bit excessive.

Honourable mention for an Honourable Member

In the midst of the outrage over MPs' expenses, I'd just like to draw attention to the Honourable Member for Luton North, Kelvin Hopkins. I've always rather liked Mr Hopkins: I disagree with a lot of his politics, but he has always struck me as having integrity and principles, unlike a lot of his colleagues.

And it would seem, according to the revelations in the Telegraph, that his fellow MPs could learn something from him. He doesn't have a second home, and instead travels down from Luton every day, claiming occasionally for a hotel room - and not expensive hotel rooms, either, judging by the fact that he's claimed only £4513 over four years. All of which sounds entirely reasonable to me: thousands of people commute into London every day on this line; the trains aren't particularly pretty, but there are 4 of them an hour for most of the day, they run until gone 1 a.m., and they even still have first-class carriages, unlike some commuter lines.*

Compare and contrast his parliamentary neighbour in Luton South, Margaret Moran. She lives in the same street as Mr Hopkins, and yet felt it necessary to claim £74904 over the same period. Apparently, what a Luton MP really needs in order to do her job is a house in Southampton. Who knew?

*ETA: However, I'm told by someone who used to travel regularly on the same train as him that he puts his feet on the seats. Which is clearly appalling and scandalous and he should be deselected forthwith!

City living

Went out for drinks with a friend in the City the other night. He's worked in the area for a while now, and knows his way around, which was great, because we ended up in a couple of out of the way places that I would never have found by myself.

We started off in The Samuel Pepys, which was, inevitably, quite busy with people in suits, but we had no trouble finding seats, and it was quiet enough to talk comfortably. It's in a great location, but unfortunately the restaurant section, with views of the river, was all booked up.

Instead, we went to eat at a nearby Turkish restaurant. It's ever so cosy inside, with fancy wooden carvings on the ceiling, and the kitchen is open, so we could see them cooking - which seemed to involve an awful lot of flames, I suspect more for effect than culinary necessity. The food was very tasty: their main speciality is pide, a sort of Turkish pizza, but the dough seems to be a bit lighter. I had the kayisili, which was filled with apricots, peppers, cheese and mint - a pretty unusual combination, but it worked really well.

Mystery music

Brighton Festival. Over three weeks of art, theatre, music, dance, discussion... Marvellous.

Pretty much on a whim, I went with a friend to see the Takàcs Quartet at the Corn Exchange. Because it was just a random impulse, neither of us paid much attention to what the music was going to be, and we couldn't be bothered to buy a programme, so we spent most of the concert 'blind', as it were, with no idea what we were listening to. It was quite an interesting experience. One of the pieces was Bartok's 4th String Quartet, which was written in 1927, but we both thought it was much more modern than that. I hadn't heard the piece before, and I'm not usually a great Bartok fan, but I liked it a lot, especially the slower third movement, which was very atmospheric. The other works were Haydn's last quartet, and Schumann's A minor quartet, so a real mixture of periods. I thought it worked very well as a programme, and they played it all very well - some quartets very much specialise in a particular period, and you can tell when they're out of their comfort zone, but the Takàcs seemed perfectly at home in classical, romantic and modern.

The Corn Exchange was a good venue for a chamber concert. It's quite a big hall, but the acoustic is very good - resonant, but clear, so the sound never got lost. I did think the sound of the viola got slightly lost at times, but I suspect that might just be my bias as a viola player showing.

And afterwards, we went to Terraces, and sat on the terrace looking out over the sea drinking our first Pimms of the summer. What a lovely way to spend a bank holiday Sunday.

Alphabetical Order

The other night I went to see Michael Frayn's early (1975) play Alphabetical Order at the Hampstead Theatre. I'd never heard of it before, though I know and like some of Frayn's other stuff, so I didn't really know what to expect, and I enjoyed it very much.

It's based in the cuttings library of a provincial newspaper, which dates it straight away, because I would imagine such archives are kept digitally these days - and there are also a few political references that place it in the 1970s - but it didn't actually feel dated in terms of the theme, the characters and so on.

I thought the set was effective, particularly the transformation during the interval from chaotic mess to organised sterility. The acting was very good - Imogen Stubbs was the only one of the actors I already knew, and she was great, but I particularly liked Jonathan Guy Lewis as John (and it turns out that I have seen him before, because he was in Soldier, Soldier, which I used to watch religiously, but I don't remember him at all).

I guess the theme of the play is the tension between order and freedom. I got the impression that Frayn is rather coming down on the side of freedom - efficient, organising Lesley is the least sympathetic character, seeming to ride roughshod over the lives and feelings of the others - but he does show that it's not quite as simple as that. Lesley recognises that her organisation is 'compulsion', and the chaos of the first half is not entirely positive - they rather seem to be stuck in a rut. Maybe that's just my instinct for tidiness biasing me, though!

I'd never been to the Hampstead Theatre before, and I was impressed. The current theatre was only built in 2003, and it's very well designed, both in the theatre itself and in the other areas, with a lovely outside area at the back. It's a small space, and we felt very close to the action, but it didn't seem cramped at all. And the staff were very friendly when we arrived with precisely 1 minute to spare, having missed the train from Richmond.