Moynaq ship graveyard

My culinary tour of Central Asia ended like it started – at a restaurant. Just a few countries into the blog, the arrival of Kyrgyzstan was an early warning of the total dearth of regional shopping options in London. In retrospective, this may not have been such a terrible thing. My compensatory push to find …

The Sidek serve

In the two years I lived above a Malaysian restaurant in New Haven, I steadily worked my way through its menu. My benchmarks for roti canai and nasi lemak set back then at the turn of the century have been seldom matched, never exceeded. The only section I didn’t bother with were the salads; I …

Yé ké yé ké

On Friday I searched online for a post acknowledging the significance of the day – the 44th anniversary of the Guinean Market Women's Revolt. But there were none which surprised me somewhat, as this was the kind of thing I would have expected an advocacy group to write or tweet about. Entirely female led and …

Milky Way lagoon

I know bat meat is not terribly fashionable at the moment, but any Palauan will tell you it is for the wrong reason. Bat soup is a delicacy in the Pacific Island nation which has been a member of a very small and exclusive club of Covid-free countries (as coincidence would have it, the first …

They spent four dollars and ninety cents on armaments and their defence

A cycling enthusiast friend once told me the Tour de France was the most challenging sporting event in the world. I had no reason to disagree. 3,500 kilometres of hills are whizzed through in 21 days at an unfathomable speed of 40k an hour, faster than cars are allowed to go on many of London’s …

Imperial Countess of Giglio

I like the look of that, Daughter said, pointing at a photo of kotorska krempita. I eyed the Montenegrin cream cake warily, still bearing scar tissue from prior dessert debacles on the blog. So, when the recipe allowed for readymade puff pastry to be substituted for one made from scratch, I didn’t think twice. No …

Dhoni cruise

We are going to be underwater in ten years, Wife said, pointing at a prognostic map of London on her iPad. Red inkblot stains spread inland from either side of the Thames in an asymmetric Rorschach, portentously shading areas – my entire neighboured was covered – likely to flood by 2030 if climate change is …

Is that the discount pharmacy?

I called Mum's House Trading, a Burmese supermarket in Tottenham and asked if they had lahpet (pickled tea leaves). When the voice on the phone said we are all out of food products, my first thought was – is the pingdemic so bad even Burmese shops have been picked clean? The problem is back there, …

Wings of Tatev

If you weren’t aware there was war – another war – in Nagorno-Karabakh last year, I won’t judge you for not keeping up. Such has been Covid’s unremitting chokehold on the news cycle that stories that would have made headlines any other time have had to settle for also-rans and afterthoughts. The tensions between the …

Basilica in the bush

Twelve years ago on this date, over two weeks had passed after Michael Jackson’s death, but the media was still crackling and popping with tributes and retrospectives. Of these, a story from an Ivorian village called Krindjabo would have barely registered in the news if it hadn’t been for a curious request from its mourners …