Gotta love the smoothies from Crussh at Kensington High Street. I had a smoothie with a blend of raspberries, strawberries, banana and apples. I can't get enough of that!
I saw this cute statue in Chinatown.
If you have not been to a Salsa bar, you should.
Basically, everyone dances salsa! It was amazing to watch the more experienced dancers doing their thing. Its also cool to see random strangers partner each other just to salsa dance to one entire song and they gel so well together!!
I finally managed to spend some quality time in Chinatown before salsa classes. I had my duck rice for dinner at a restaurant next to Four Seasons. Four Seasons was always the recommended restaurant to go to for roasted duck on Google and other sites. But, I did not really fancy their roasted duck. Maybe the reviews written were outdated. There were plenty of restaurants selling roasted duck in Chinatown so I decided to try my luck with a different restaurant - the one located next to Four Seasons!
I highly recommend this restaurant which I unfortunately forgotten its name. The roasted duck was so good and the price was much more reasonable. My roasted duck cravings were satisfied that day.
After dinner, I popped into See Woo, the Asian supermarket and lol behold, there were durians for sale! It is durian season afterall back home in Malaysia. I already had my share of durians a few weeks back therefore I did not buy any this round.
The reason I was in See Woo was to buy fish balls. I miss eating something so simple as fish balls so I just had to get some. Besides that, I also wanted to make dried shrimp sambal because I craved for spicy food too. Dried shrimp sambal was one of my favorite recipe thanks to my mum. Its such a simple dish to cook and it goes well with everything from bread to rice to vegetables or meat. Just yesterday I made pork loins salad with the sambal. The sambal gives the necessary 'kick' to make food taste fab.
Heres the salad:
Five minutes away from Chinatown was where my salsa classes were held - at a Salsa bar. The teacher taught a really interesting dance set that day. It was worth recording. Video at the end of post.
The weather has been a bit chaotic here. It has been cold and wet the past few days. But, the heat will be back tomorrow again. Truthfully, I am not really sure if I prefer the heat or cold.
A new cider I tried which was absolutely to die for is Rokorderlig cider. It wasn't very sweet like other ciders and it had this crisp to it which was amazing. It was like drinking a fizzy juice or champagne. The flavour was wild berry and best of all, it is pink! So feminine and gorgeous just having it on the table :)
I took a walk around the River Thames in the evening and it was a sight to behold. London's summer heat has left and the cold and rain has returned. In a day, it rains lightly for ten minutes, stops for 5 minutes, then continues to rain for awhile again. That was during the day. But when evening came, it was breezy and it was raining cats and dogs. I reached home just in time before the storm and on the way home, I saw rainbows.
An evening walk around the River Thames calls for a beautiful colored skye because the sun was setting. Nothing could be more beautiful than a sun set. Even our face complexion looks better during sunset. I took photos of course :)
Aberdeen beach is more happening than Balmedie beach. Both are situated in Aberdeen, 20 minutes drive apart. But Aberdeen beach is nearer to the city, hotels and it has rows of restaurants nearby. It lacks the sand dunes that Balmedie beach has. Summer time at Aberdeen Beach was packed with people if its a good weather and there will be a long wueue at the ice cream stand.
The beaches are really clean and the sand is better than the ones down south of England.
My cousin was kind enough to organise a Luxembourgish evening for me by inviting a few of her friends over and preparing a few Luxembourgish delicacies. I am thankful for her kindness and effort in prepping everything. It was a good experience to try Luxembourgish treats.
Food served included:
1) "Fierkelsjelli" (pork in aspic/salty jelly) Salted jelly with cold pork on bread - I must say I am not a fan of cold meat and salted jelly was salty! At first I thought the salted jelly was coagulated fat.
5) "Iertsebulli mat Mettwurscht a Kiischtercher" (soup of peas with a Luxembourgish kind of sausage and marinated & fried pieces of bread) - it was a mixture of peas, celery, lorre and topped with sausages and fried bread, like croutons. That soup was good and warm.
It was the first day in Luxembourg where I could be jacketless because the temperatures outside pretty decent.
It was my second trip to Trier so this time round it was not about touring the place but to pick up my friends. It was burning hot with the clear skies and sun shining that one of my friend already had 9 scoops of gelato ice cream by 3pm.
Trier is filled with shops and nice architectures. Most shops were closed on Sunday though.
Trier's cathedral was massive and beautiful inside. It was also free entry making it a more worthwhile visit than other cathedrals in UK i have been to which charges a fee for entry and photography.
The next stop was Luxembourg City. Again, I have gone through the tunnels and toured the city previously when I was in Luxembourg in Easter 2012. This trip was mainly to show my friends around with the short amount of time they had.
One new thing I learnt during this trip was that some buildings in the city had the year of when the building was built made of metal hung on the walls of their building.
The day ended with barbeque at my aunt's place and a walk around the neigbourhood.
Met some slugs on the pathway while walking. My friends and I were walking with our eyes on the path as to not step on any of those slugs.
