威爾斯美語桃園分校

Hey guys, I’d love to share some perspectives with you.

Engawa serves Kobe beef, which until late 2014 was not possible to get in the UK. The dining room is smart and the service friendly, but this place will be measured by its beef, and to be honest it was nothing to write home about. It did not help that they ran out of the cut that I had ordered and served chuck steak instead, but this was not the only issue. Beef from Japan that we find here has been vacuum packed and sometimes frozen, and this affects its texture. Hence although the meat itself started off as very high quality, eating it here is not the same experience as devouring it in Tokyo or Kobe. 

The Dorsett hotel is an anachronistically smart luxury hotel in, of all places, Shepherds Bush Green, a stretch of grass otherwise lined with pound shops and bookmakers. Its restaurant is Pictures, which has a somewhat confused menu that mixes in Malaysian food with the likes of fish and chips. It is not necessary to be a chef from that country to cook Malaysian food, but it probably helps. Here the chefs were from various places but none of them terribly close to the country in question, and served dishes that left the impression that the kitchen had vaguely heard of the cuisine but had actually never tasted it.  An utterly spice-free beef rendang was one example, soggy bak choi another. Given all the money that has been lavished on the hotel it seems a shame that they could not manage to use a decent recipe book.

Video for Music Track Releasing on YouTube on Thursday, 23rd April I   download the track on iTunes from Friday, 24^th April

There are so many incredible benefits to solo travel: you can go wherever you want, whenever you want. You develop incredible confidence. You can change your plans on a whim. It’s easier to interact with locals and learn the local language. You can take the trip of your dreams and be whomever you want to be without catering to anyone else.