Friday, December 30, 2016

Restaurant review: BIRD (Camden Town)


Last Wednesday, my friends from my old company and I had our monthly catchup and Bird, an American fried chicken restaurant in Camden, the venue of choice. To my surprise given the busy time of year, the place was fairly empty and we were seated immediately.

It being a Wednesday, the deal on offer was a dozen chicken wings and the house beer for a tenner, which I was all over. I also had some cheesy Korean fries, delicious and reasonably priced at £4.50. The chips were so good they wouldn't have been out of place at the equally high quality On the Bab restaurant, a Korean venue.

I think your choice of dips makes a huge impact on how much you enjoy your wings. I had the sticky soy sauce and the Nashville hot, and both complemented the chicken brilliantly - I was tearing into it with my fingers, table manners be damned.

However, my friend Nick had a different sauce (it may have been buffalo), which was poured all over his wings before served, and thus, removed the crunchy quality of the wings that is one of the main sources of its appeal. Thus, if ordering anything with sauce, I would recommend you ask them not to pour it over your wings and arrive separately in a pot, like the ones pictured below.


Apart from that minor foible, I had the time of my life at this restaurant. The waiters were attentive whenever we needed extra serviettes, but more than that, astutely judged that we were four friends who had a lot to say to each other, so thus were not IN YOUR FACE in the thirsty pursuit of a tip like some central London waiters are, so let us be, which was  much appreciated.

The final bill was very affordable, and management kindly let us sit in our booths and chat long after we'd finished consumption of dinner, which really is a welcome change from haughty places which allocate you a 1 hour 15 minute time window (or something along those lines) and are all but chasing you out with a broom once you've used up your allocated time.

My brother loves fried chicken too, so I will definitely be visiting Bird again, if not this venue, then one of its other London ones. I recommend you do so too!

Grade: A

--

The rest of my restaurant reviews are listed here. If you would like me to review your place, email me at lemon_and_lime7@hotmail.com

-- 

This is us. I'mma do a quick Outfit of the Day, because why not?!

Cardigan: Primark
T-shirt: H&M
Skirt: TK Maxx
Tights: Calzedonia
Earrings: Monsoon Accessorize

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

OOTD: Pink is the new blue.

What I wore to watch my team beat Bournemouth 3-0 on Boxing Day!

Glasses: Red or Dead
Scarf: Monsoon Accessorize
Pink thermal top: Uniqlo
Football shirt: Chelsea FC
Trousers: Marks and Spencer
Lipstick: birthday gift from a friend (hehe)


Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Film review: THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH (Terence Fisher, 1959)

Saturday, December 24, 2016

OOTD: He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice

What I wore to spend Christmas Eve with my friend Kieran!


Jumper: Marks and Spencer
Trousers: Marks and Spencer
Earrings: a Christmas present (ehehe)
Glasses: Red or Dead

Bonus pictures of us in our Christmas jumpers, so you can see the nuances of the photos that a Samsung S4 and an iPhone 6 take!

Kieran's phone, an iPhone 6. 

My phone, a Samsung S4. I really need a new phone, will probably get myself one for my birthday next year!

We didn't apply the Snapchat filter until after the photo was taken, so didn't know those little elves would come up. But I daresay the app was quite prescient in who they applied to who. 👻

Friday, December 23, 2016

Bar review: BREWDOG (Soho)



Brewdog Soho epitomises why I'm filled with trepidation whenever someone suggests drinking in a bar in central London that is alien to me. It encapsulates all of the disadvantages of drinking in the capital and has none of the perks. Overpriced, an awful drink selection that flirted with the obtuse and blaring obnoxiously loud hipster music, the 2.5 hours I had to spend in this dive were some of the longest of my life.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

A few bits of BBFC geekery when I was doing Christmas shopping yesterday.


From the DVD boxset of the final season of The Good Wife. A bit on the descriptive side!

From American Horror Story: Hotel's boxset. Notice the distinction between 'sexual violence' (i.e., rape) and 'sexualised violence' (the conflation of violence and sexual images, e.g. a stabbing during a sex scene).

Not gonna lie, reading this tells me I'm right in my convictions never to watch an episode of this scabrous show!

This is from How to Get Away with Murder. I was quite taken aback by this; all I know about this show is that Viola Davis is in it, and she is typically excellent. I was not expecting it to be an 18 cert! A quick glance over the American TV rating (TV-14), tells me that this might be the BBFC being weirdly strict.

Two other TV shows that I've noticed are TV-14 in the States and 18 over here are The 100 and Scandal. A telltale sign that a show is aiming for the TV-14 market when you're watching is extensive sexual dialogue and maybe even steamy sex scenes featuring nudity, but not once does anyone say the f-word (this also applies to many a TV-14 show that have gotten 15 over here, such as the aforementioned The Good Wife). 

I find it amusing that you can put quite a lot of adult content in a TV-14 and get away with it, but once you say 'f_ck', that's when you cross the line into TV-MA...

From Gotham's boxset. Again, I was just amused because of the juxtaposition of those four disparate classification issues.

--

Whilst the BBFC are playing hard to get with regards to their rating of Elle, for which Isabelle Huppert is gaining Oscar buzz (I know I haven't seen it yet but I really hope she wins!), their Irish counterparts aren't so coy, and have released it with an 18. Given that the two awards bodies more often than not align, I'm guessing that this will be my second 2016 release that I've seen of an 18 cert! I've been very lax with watching 2016 releases of this rating; the only other has been The Neon Demon.

By the by, I noticed in HMV yesterday that on the occasions when the BBFC and IFCO don't agree on a film, they just bung the British rating on the front (otherwise, they put both, side-by-side):
Eddie the Eagle is a 12 in Ireland and A Hologram for a King is 15 in Ireland. I think this precaution is sensible; you wouldn't want to confuse buyers!



--

Finally, I have no intention of watching this, but, nice wall mural for Assassin's Creed:
This same wall has also hosted Star Trek art in the past as well!

--

I adore BBFC geekery. My entire compendium of BBFC posts is here, check it!