Beachcomber Seafood Restaurant – Fresh fish but bad attitude

Kay and I were around Cutty Sark/ Greenwich, London recently and had fish and chips at Beachcomber Seafood Restaurant per our friend’s recommendation. The restaurant is a small but served fresh fish. I would have given the restaurant 9 out of 10 points for the great food. Unfortunately, it has people with ‘shitty’ attitude serving the customers.

Upon seated, we were asked to order our drinks, but no drinks menu was available for our selection. So Kay asked for ice-lemon tea and the waitress says “Sorry, we don’t serve that”. That doesn’t impress us – how would the customers know what drinks is available if we are not given a menu or a list?

Anyway, that was just half the story. The ‘shocking’ event came when the owner or manager or (basically someone that looks in charge) came over to our table filled with ‘wrath’ and ‘sarcasm’. Here is a simple sketch of what happened…














So, my verdict is 4 points out of 10 for the very reason of ‘no matter how good the food is, you will lose your appetite when the people who serve you has attitude problem’. That is unless you don’t mind the attitude – the food is ok.

Notting Hill Festival 2008

Sorry for the prolonged ‘Coming Soon’. I was held back by work.

Anyway, I was referring the ‘Street Party’ to Notting Hill Carnival which took place between 31 August 08 and 1 September 08.

Notting Hill Carnival is an annual event which takes place on the streets of Notting Hill, London, UK each August, over two days. It is led by members of the Caribbean population, many of whom have lived in the area. The carnival has attracted up to 2 million people in the past, making it one of the few largest street festival in the world.

The carnival parades start on Sunday with Children's Day while the main Notting Hill Carnival parade takes place on Monday. Here are some of the snapshot of the main events:

There is the fashion parade...

The is the band to give the carnival the music....

Then there are fancy customers as well...

The carnival even attracted Sun Wukong - the Monkey God!

Street party...

A snapshot of dancers taking the streets in London recently. Update to come...

Cantonese roast duck @ Gold Mine

Succulent roast duck on wanton noodle

Bayswater is an area of west London in the City of Westminster. It is one of London's most cosmopolitan areas and well-known for its concentration of great restaurant serving Cantonese roast duck. Here, you will find rows of roast duck hanging on the window of Chinese restaurant wanting a share of your money in exchange for delicious roast duck.

Rather than throwing out all the names of restaurant of the entire Cantonese roast duck industry, I will just focus with Gold Mine in this entry.

Gold Mine

Address: 102 Queensway W2 3RR

Tel: 020 7792 8331

Opening Hours: Mon-Sun 12N-11pm

Average price per person: £7 to £15

As what I’ve heard from friends, the head barbecue chef at Four Seasons (one of the few best rated places for roast duck) left and formed Gold Mine in 2007 and brought many of his regular customers with him. It has regular customers of mostly Singaporean and Malaysians. Whilst I don’t think the flow of business is as good as Four Seasons, the food quality is up to the excellent standard.

The restaurant’s Cantonese roast duck is succulent and the skin is crispy. The meat has a layer of fat under a crisp envelope of shiny skin – which makes the roast duck so juicy. Among my friends view, Gold Mine is rated as one of the best place to get roast duck.

On a personal note, its roast pork is also excellent, though at times it could be a little too salty.

On top of that, Gold Mine has a relatively standard selection of Chinese dishes and has notably my personally favorite, kangkong belacan (as of the date of this entry, Gold Mine is one of the few restaurant in London that serves a decent kangkong belacan that suits Malaysian’s taste).

Service is good and friendly. But don’t expect to sit and chat for long at the restaurant because the turnover is fairly high, so you are expected to pay and leave the table the soonest you’ve finished your meal.

Crispy roast pork

The score: 9 out of 10

A very angry doggie...

I was out recently and ran into this tiny little dog glaring at me as if I owe the dog a million doggie biscuit. Couldn't help it but to snap a photo of the 'Very Angry Doggie' as it looked at me.