Breakfast / Brunch / Food in the Morning
The Breakfast Club
Regency Café
Duck & Waffle
I'm particularly excited / entrigued by Duck & Waffle. It's sort of weird that I'll have had Duck and Waffles before I've had Chicken and Waffles. I am a fancy guy.
I think we still need one more breakfast place.
Lunch
We'll be headed to the Tate Modern at some point and as such were looking for lunch somewhere in the area...
El Vergel
Masters Super Fish
Tsuru
Other than this I plan on pubbing it as much as possible. Please lavish me with meat pies.
Dinner
Sadly, most of the places I had my eye on have no bookings - I am a terrible planner. These should be good though.
MOMO
Ceviche
We'll have dinner in High Wycombe on Saturday and there weren't a ton of options. We went with Eat Thai. It sounds / looks good.
19.2.14
Day 419 - The in-house haircut
I have cycled through many hair "styles" - if you can really say that - from my teen years until now. New colors. New lengths. Goatees. Full beards. Lambchop sideburns. Blonde hair. Red hair. No hair. You name it.
Once-upon-a-time in Emily's above-Jimmy-John's-apartment, our friend Francesca asked Emily - repeatedly, when browsing framed pictures - and who is this? That's Collin. What about this guy? That's Collin. And this dude? Yeah, that's Collin. The questions and answers flew back and forth SO FAST YOU'LL FREAK.
So yes, I have, in a way, drifted through life without a "look" as it were. The most consistent "look" - and I might add the easiest and the one I most identify with - is the bald head (facial hair optional). Today it feels like "me".
This look started in 1995 or 1996, I can't remember. At this point I rocked a horrible horrible bowl haircut. Soon we wouldn't even need the bowl! (SPOILER ALERT, COLLIN SHAVES HIS HEAD)
There was an incident.
An embarrassing incident.
In my infinite wisdom, to deflect said embarrassment I had my friend Ken Sabino shave my head. It didn't necessarily deflect all embarrassment, but I was in a very high-school-way, new. Newly defined.
No longer was I the-guy-that-ripped-a-ridiculously-massive-fart-during-a-Spanish-club-meeting. Now I was also bald. Juan Carlos may have cut the queso, but now he had a new affectation, or lack there of. I dug it, not everyone did, but I was - and still am - a fan.
Anyway, fast-forward past more terrible hairstyles / colors to 1998. I had a live-in barber!
James. Custodio. Jay faded-me-up for the better part of two years. I've never looked better. Sadly, college ends and I lost my barber and had to cut my own hair or pay others to do so.
The paying others to do so bit...I am cheap. My paying others to do so resulted in trips to Hair Cuttery / Cost Cutters / others. Others did not include Fantastic Sam's and / or BoRics. It resulted badly. So I bought some clippers.
My clipper cuts were always one length. Always no-guard. Always bald. Easy. Cheap. Effective. Ridiculously-good-looking.
Occasionally, my hair has grown to very very very long lengths and I've thought, what can I do with this hair? Can I cut it myself? With clippers? I chose not to.
Fast-forward to today to 2013-2014 in a new country with new European-voltage Wahl clippers. I gave it a go. And guess what? The first time looked great! So many compliments, so many amazed that I "did it myself". With confidence growing, I tried again...not as good. Passable, but not as good.
Today, I tried for a third time. Results? Predictably amazing and terrible. I feel like this haircut is like some sort of terrible brownhaired-somewhatcurly-longer-poorlycut Macklemore facsimile. Dear Macklemore, I'm sorry. Imagine Ivan Drago, but with a pompadour that just won't stay up.
There's another 80's reference that I can't quite place. It's not Flock of Seagulls. But it could be. It's bad.
At any rate, I'll be suffering with this haircut. I thought about shaving it again, but I have put too much effort into growing this hair. This glorious terrible hair.
Once-upon-a-time in Emily's above-Jimmy-John's-apartment, our friend Francesca asked Emily - repeatedly, when browsing framed pictures - and who is this? That's Collin. What about this guy? That's Collin. And this dude? Yeah, that's Collin. The questions and answers flew back and forth SO FAST YOU'LL FREAK.
So yes, I have, in a way, drifted through life without a "look" as it were. The most consistent "look" - and I might add the easiest and the one I most identify with - is the bald head (facial hair optional). Today it feels like "me".
This look started in 1995 or 1996, I can't remember. At this point I rocked a horrible horrible bowl haircut. Soon we wouldn't even need the bowl! (SPOILER ALERT, COLLIN SHAVES HIS HEAD)
There was an incident.
An embarrassing incident.
In my infinite wisdom, to deflect said embarrassment I had my friend Ken Sabino shave my head. It didn't necessarily deflect all embarrassment, but I was in a very high-school-way, new. Newly defined.
No longer was I the-guy-that-ripped-a-ridiculously-massive-fart-during-a-Spanish-club-meeting. Now I was also bald. Juan Carlos may have cut the queso, but now he had a new affectation, or lack there of. I dug it, not everyone did, but I was - and still am - a fan.
Anyway, fast-forward past more terrible hairstyles / colors to 1998. I had a live-in barber!
James. Custodio. Jay faded-me-up for the better part of two years. I've never looked better. Sadly, college ends and I lost my barber and had to cut my own hair or pay others to do so.
The paying others to do so bit...I am cheap. My paying others to do so resulted in trips to Hair Cuttery / Cost Cutters / others. Others did not include Fantastic Sam's and / or BoRics. It resulted badly. So I bought some clippers.
My clipper cuts were always one length. Always no-guard. Always bald. Easy. Cheap. Effective. Ridiculously-good-looking.
Occasionally, my hair has grown to very very very long lengths and I've thought, what can I do with this hair? Can I cut it myself? With clippers? I chose not to.
Fast-forward to today to 2013-2014 in a new country with new European-voltage Wahl clippers. I gave it a go. And guess what? The first time looked great! So many compliments, so many amazed that I "did it myself". With confidence growing, I tried again...not as good. Passable, but not as good.
Today, I tried for a third time. Results? Predictably amazing and terrible. I feel like this haircut is like some sort of terrible brownhaired-somewhatcurly-longer-poorlycut Macklemore facsimile. Dear Macklemore, I'm sorry. Imagine Ivan Drago, but with a pompadour that just won't stay up.
There's another 80's reference that I can't quite place. It's not Flock of Seagulls. But it could be. It's bad.
At any rate, I'll be suffering with this haircut. I thought about shaving it again, but I have put too much effort into growing this hair. This glorious terrible hair.
18.2.14
Copenhagen Dining Week - Marv & Ben / Grønbech & Churchill
Yes it's that time of year again, Copenhagen Dining Week! It's a great opportunity to try out new restaurants for a reasonable price - 200 kroner for 3 courses, that's about $36 - including tax. Reservations fill up quickly and there's always difficulty in paring down the list and figuring out where to go.
We tend to take one of two paths when choosing for Dining Week / Restaurant Week. Path one; find the best deal / savings. Path two; pick a restaurant that has been on our "list".
So yes, we chose Marv og Ben and Grønbech & Churchill. The second has a Michelin Star!
I apologize in advance for zero pictures of any of the food we ate. Actually, check that, I don't apologize. I hate hate hate watching people pull out their cameras to take pictures of the food they're about to eat. When the act of cataloging / reporting supersedes the act of actually eating and enjoying...well...it makes me want to vomit. Screw those people.
Sorry for the digression. Sorry again for the lack of pictures. Still not sorry.
No, Marv og Ben was not - as I had originally imagined - started by a guy named Marv and a guy named Ben. Marv og Ben actually means Marrow and Bone. We ate here on Friday the 14th - Valentines Day. Here were the offerings (courtesy of Google Translate!);
Rimet cod cod roe, sour cream and cucumber.I was generally bummed by the first course. Crummy - for me - texture and pretty much zero flavor. Bummer. The second course saved things. Just a wonderful brisket, pulled in ribbons, topped with lingonberry with two types of cream sauce edging the plate. The artichokes here are actually jordskokker, Jerusalem artichokes. Delicious. The dessert was good but forgettable.
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Glazed beef brisket lingonberry, artichokes and tarragon.
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Chocolate & Caramel Fudge, ice cream and crunchy.
Next, Grønbech & Churchill on Saturday.
As with most starred restaurants, the level of service is - well - excellent. I think that our waiter looked very Taran Killam. Yes, this Taran Killam.
I like to think that the "Weird / Awesome French Dancing" sketch is Killam's brainchild as he owns it. Epically. It also falls under sketches-only-Collin-could-possibly-like. Fun times.
Anyway, great service. Great food. Here's the recap;
Cauliflower as "airy & creamy" soup piece of North Sea cod "carefully prepared" in mild curry & vanilla
Endive steamed in rosemary honey and baked lemons Bright poultry with caramelized butter sauce, dried legumes and bitter February salads
Pear & yogurt as marbled cream Clotted cream set with white chocolate, flavored with licorice root and green aniseedSo the starter. Delicious. Imagine a very very very luxurious cream chowder with a touch of curry. The cod was perfect. The cauliflower provided some crunch. Awesome.
The main - oh my the sauce! It was a sort of lemon curd / brown butter sauce. Ridiculous. The poultry was a very nice cut of turkey breast. Normally this would be a bit on the boring side but it was cooked perfectly and that sauce...oh that sauce...it could make just about anything delicious.
I've spent so much time thinking of that sauce that I've totally forgotten the dessert. I totally dug the pear, but that's really most of my memory of things. Emily can fill us in here.
All in all, another great year doing this. Copenhagen Dining Week. Do it. It's awesome.
Day 418 - Pandora / Honda / Honest Abe
Fact. I am a huge fan of Pandora Radio. You build stations based on likes / dislikes. Awesome. It isn't perfect - I get waaaayyyyy too much Common on my favorite station, but it's a small price to pay for a free service providing awesome music.
As I do not pay for my Pandora and I am forced to listen to adverts for the privilege of doing so, and it is the month of Presidents, and it is the month of selling cars I have been subjected to tons of car ads. Specifically from Honda North of Danvers. Most follow the format of "Famous President X did Y and that's awesome. Guess what?! Honda North is also Awesome! Buy a Honda".
At some point - as would be with every President's Day / Month celebration - we get to Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's greatest Honda-selling-achievement? The transcontinental railroad. The transcontinental railroad!
Preserving the union? Eh. Ending slavery? Eh. Thanks Honda North of Danvers!
As I do not pay for my Pandora and I am forced to listen to adverts for the privilege of doing so, and it is the month of Presidents, and it is the month of selling cars I have been subjected to tons of car ads. Specifically from Honda North of Danvers. Most follow the format of "Famous President X did Y and that's awesome. Guess what?! Honda North is also Awesome! Buy a Honda".
At some point - as would be with every President's Day / Month celebration - we get to Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's greatest Honda-selling-achievement? The transcontinental railroad. The transcontinental railroad!
Preserving the union? Eh. Ending slavery? Eh. Thanks Honda North of Danvers!
14.2.14
Correction / Jerky-date to a Previous Post Involving "Jerky"
I cannot - in good conscience - allow misinformation to spew from this blog. The Jack Link's "beef jerky" I spoke on earlier is, in reality, a "Steak Bar" / "Ready-To-Eat-Beef-Snack".
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I can only report back on the "original" version thus far. I hate to say it, but I'm not a fan. There wasn't that tear / pull and eat of glorious beef jerky. There's a very specific processed texture / flavor here that I can't place. McRib? Maybe. For those of you who don't know me very well, I'll expound on this by saying that my enjoyment-bar for this kind of stuff is very low. I'll snap into a Slim Jim with the best of them - RIP Randy. But for Jebus' sake, this texture / flavor?! I am not a fan.
As an aside, that might be one of my favorite commercials of all time. Art thou bored!?
It looked / smelled / felt remarkably like a dog treat and, very predictably, Charlie was intrigued. He may have enjoyed some Ready-To-Eat-Beef-Snack residue off of my fingers / napkin (jeans).
Perhaps that's why it's correctly labeled as a Beef-Snack. I can't describe how much I enjoy the Ready-To-Eat portion of that. Radical! I don't have to cook this!?
I'm holding out hope for the "Peppered" version, but my expectations are very low.
I can only report back on the "original" version thus far. I hate to say it, but I'm not a fan. There wasn't that tear / pull and eat of glorious beef jerky. There's a very specific processed texture / flavor here that I can't place. McRib? Maybe. For those of you who don't know me very well, I'll expound on this by saying that my enjoyment-bar for this kind of stuff is very low. I'll snap into a Slim Jim with the best of them - RIP Randy. But for Jebus' sake, this texture / flavor?! I am not a fan.
As an aside, that might be one of my favorite commercials of all time. Art thou bored!?
It looked / smelled / felt remarkably like a dog treat and, very predictably, Charlie was intrigued. He may have enjoyed some Ready-To-Eat-Beef-Snack residue off of my fingers / napkin (jeans).
Perhaps that's why it's correctly labeled as a Beef-Snack. I can't describe how much I enjoy the Ready-To-Eat portion of that. Radical! I don't have to cook this!?
I'm holding out hope for the "Peppered" version, but my expectations are very low.
Day 414 - File under "unexpected greetings" / WotD #25
Today the train was all messed up - some sort of signal problem at Dybbølsbro. I missed the bus that brings me to work. We had to walk.
I don't know if we've mentioned it before, but Danes have many required pre-set social phrases / sayings that are very situation specific. It's in the Danish social contract that you say these things in these specific situations. Kind of a structured social nicety. People don't deviate from the phrasing.
It's weird because I would never describe Danes as overly polite. This is not a hold-the-door / smile / have-a-nice-day / how-are-you sort of society. I mean, this is a language without a real word for please, but in these situations Danes have a very structured call-and-response brand of polite-ness. Or is that politesse? Thanks Mick!
Let's rattle off a few.
Tak for mad!
Literally "Thanks for food!". We have a weekly morgen brød on Friday - literally morning bread, but more appropriately breakfast. I got into the details of morgen brød here, but basically one person in the group brings in a bunch of breakfast stuff and we eat it. When things are done at breakfast, everyone thanks the person that brings the breakfast and ALWAYS says it as tak for mad.
Tak for kage!
Thanks for cake. So this one is pretty much like tak for mad except that it's specifically for when people bring in dessert to celebrate something - a birthday, a publication, a new child, etc. Danes use kage in the way Brits use "pudding" to describe any dessert.
Velbekommen
Literally, enjoy the refreshments. This is something you say before digging in to eat. We don't really have a comparable phrase in English - we've stolen bon appétit, and that's probably the closest direct translation.
Tak for sidste!
Thanks for last (night). This one is a next day thank you for everyone involved in some sort of event / activity. Each person involved will - when they see someone involved in the activity for the first time since the activity took place - say this. There's another variation of the phrase I can't remember, but it's applied in the same way.
God weekend!
Good weekend. When people leave for the day on Friday, EVERYONE says this. Again, it never deviates. Mostly it's funny because "weekend" is obviously an English word. Week in Danish is uge. I don't think that there really is a Danish word for weekend, it's just weekend. Weekend. Weekend. Weekend.
Godt Nytår!
Happy New Year. You hear this one all through January - you're expected to say it to friends / colleagues the first time that you see them in the new year. As many people are still on vacation into the 2nd week of January, you still hear a ton of godt nytår's well beyond the point at which I would think it's still "New Year".
Morgen / God morgen
This one's pretty simple and not really specific at all to Denmark - it's just good morning. You get a lot of god morgen or just morgen every morning. I get a lot of practice so it's probably the first and only phrase that I can say in Danish that comes off well.
Anyway, this morning a colleague popped into the office with the standard god morgen and she followed that up with "Collin, do you like beef jerky?". The answer was obviously yes.
This resulted in about ten packs of Jack Link's jerky being plopped on my desk. Happy Valentine's day to me.
It's Friday and now I have a bag-full-o beef jerky. God weekend indeed.
I don't know if we've mentioned it before, but Danes have many required pre-set social phrases / sayings that are very situation specific. It's in the Danish social contract that you say these things in these specific situations. Kind of a structured social nicety. People don't deviate from the phrasing.
It's weird because I would never describe Danes as overly polite. This is not a hold-the-door / smile / have-a-nice-day / how-are-you sort of society. I mean, this is a language without a real word for please, but in these situations Danes have a very structured call-and-response brand of polite-ness. Or is that politesse? Thanks Mick!
Let's rattle off a few.
Tak for mad!
Literally "Thanks for food!". We have a weekly morgen brød on Friday - literally morning bread, but more appropriately breakfast. I got into the details of morgen brød here, but basically one person in the group brings in a bunch of breakfast stuff and we eat it. When things are done at breakfast, everyone thanks the person that brings the breakfast and ALWAYS says it as tak for mad.
Tak for kage!
Thanks for cake. So this one is pretty much like tak for mad except that it's specifically for when people bring in dessert to celebrate something - a birthday, a publication, a new child, etc. Danes use kage in the way Brits use "pudding" to describe any dessert.
Velbekommen
Literally, enjoy the refreshments. This is something you say before digging in to eat. We don't really have a comparable phrase in English - we've stolen bon appétit, and that's probably the closest direct translation.
Tak for sidste!
Thanks for last (night). This one is a next day thank you for everyone involved in some sort of event / activity. Each person involved will - when they see someone involved in the activity for the first time since the activity took place - say this. There's another variation of the phrase I can't remember, but it's applied in the same way.
God weekend!
Good weekend. When people leave for the day on Friday, EVERYONE says this. Again, it never deviates. Mostly it's funny because "weekend" is obviously an English word. Week in Danish is uge. I don't think that there really is a Danish word for weekend, it's just weekend. Weekend. Weekend. Weekend.
Godt Nytår!
Happy New Year. You hear this one all through January - you're expected to say it to friends / colleagues the first time that you see them in the new year. As many people are still on vacation into the 2nd week of January, you still hear a ton of godt nytår's well beyond the point at which I would think it's still "New Year".
Morgen / God morgen
This one's pretty simple and not really specific at all to Denmark - it's just good morning. You get a lot of god morgen or just morgen every morning. I get a lot of practice so it's probably the first and only phrase that I can say in Danish that comes off well.
Anyway, this morning a colleague popped into the office with the standard god morgen and she followed that up with "Collin, do you like beef jerky?". The answer was obviously yes.
This resulted in about ten packs of Jack Link's jerky being plopped on my desk. Happy Valentine's day to me.
It's Friday and now I have a bag-full-o beef jerky. God weekend indeed.
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