I have a cousin in london who, when asked by American tourists what the English call umbrellas, deadpanned "clooglehoppers".
I think elderly proprietor (who sounds rad btw) was similarly yanking your chain. afaik 'mezze' means the same thing to him that it means to you.
'slowly' in Arabic is 'ye'wash'.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Sunday, 9 January 2022 02:18 (two years ago) link
You were right by here Louis!
― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Sunday, 9 January 2022 19:12 (two years ago) link
xpReminiscent of yavaş in Turkish, and seems to be the same in Persian as well. What I see when I try to go to Arabic itself though, is, ببطء, which is completely different.
― The Door into Summerisle (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 11 January 2022 19:17 (two years ago) link
Lots of different varieties of Arabic of course.
I grew up in a Persian and Arabic-speaking household. So it's possible I'm getting the two mixed up, but I doubt it. Different dialect is much more likely.
Alas, I can't read the script. Mived here when i was like 5.
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 11 January 2022 22:27 (two years ago) link
Anyway I do think the proprietor was kidding around :)
― The 25 Best Songs Ever Ranked In Order (Deflatormouse), Tuesday, 11 January 2022 22:28 (two years ago) link
More good sandwiches from 40 Maltby St today, I don't love eggs but the fritatta sandwich was still pretty good. squash salad was excellent. Toby rated the fish finger salad.
Other places we've been that were really good recently were Tofu Vegan on Upper St (this place is so exciting to me and I want to try everything on the menu eventually), and also finally made it to Master Wei in Bloomsbury, which was also great (and we both noted that one bowl of noodles would have been plenty of food for a lunch, so potentially a nice weekend combo with the British Museum)
― colette, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 18:40 (two years ago) link
Interested to learn as I need a replacement noodle place in Bloomsbury. I made a nostalgic visit to the Hare and Tortoise at Brunswick Square- a staple of the early 2000s for me - and wasn't too impressed.
― Luna Schlosser, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 18:53 (two years ago) link
The laksa at H&T is still better than it has any right to be.
Try Chang’s Noodle on New Oxford Street too.
― the thin blue lying (suzy), Wednesday, 12 January 2022 20:02 (two years ago) link
Anyone been to any of the Ottolenghi restaurants (or deli)?
― djh, Sunday, 6 February 2022 11:19 (two years ago) link
We went to the one in Spitalfields a few years ago for lunch, it was good but expensive, kind of what I would have expected? I think we've also done takeaway from one of the delis and again, it's all very tasty but is more per person that I'd tend to expect for salad-y stuff. I seem to remember both were a kind of "pick three of our salad/dish of the day" plates.
― colette, Monday, 7 February 2022 10:03 (two years ago) link
I wish I liked bitty salads but I don’t; in other news, the space that was Cigala is about to open as another Honey & Co - also along Israeli/Levantine/Palestinian lines.
― the thin blue lying (suzy), Monday, 7 February 2022 10:29 (two years ago) link
Ottolenghis are fine, but go to Honey & Co instead imo
― Vangelis fleadh (seandalai), Monday, 7 February 2022 21:02 (two years ago) link
went to chisuru in brixton last week and it was *v good*. best was probably Ebiripo (Celeriac, Mushroom Shitto, Bitter Leaves & Pickled Oyster Mushroom). but the pickled carrots, fermented rice and tangerine sauce was a+ and Ekuru (Wild Watermelon Seeds, Black Eyed Beans, Pumpkin Pesto & Scotch Bonnet Sauce) also v good. my date juice negroni also spectacularly good.
― Fizzles, Monday, 7 February 2022 21:43 (two years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/GtfiKDN.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/GtfiKDN.jpgwill that work i do not know
― Fizzles, Monday, 7 February 2022 21:48 (two years ago) link
yes! handy.
that looks fantastic
― Vangelis fleadh (seandalai), Monday, 7 February 2022 22:26 (two years ago) link
ooh, that looks very good, thanks for sharing and reporting back
― colette, Tuesday, 8 February 2022 09:54 (two years ago) link
just been out walking over the walthamstow flats and we ate here under a pub umbrella on a rickety plastic table and stools. it was really good. i had sea bass which had been grilled with paprika and my friend had some of the best calamari she can remember having. it does six week stints at tottenham hale, islington and hackney. today was its last day in walthamstow. https://i.imgur.com/8IjeVzr.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/TOAbv9j.jpg
― Fizzles, Sunday, 13 March 2022 14:37 (two years ago) link
nice!!
― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 13 March 2022 21:21 (two years ago) link
I know, I always want to go when it's near me but I never do
― plax (ico), Sunday, 13 March 2022 22:05 (two years ago) link
They opened Christmas Day!
― plax (ico), Sunday, 13 March 2022 22:06 (two years ago) link
Really 'enjoying' the abolish restaurants discourse on twitter. In the discussion below this tweet is where I found the best articulation of it.
Mad how people can sign up to "the real movement which abolishes the present state of things" but will totally lose the plot when any actual specific thing is suggested. https://t.co/r45cjw6Ezy— disturbed_down_with_the_sickness.wav (@MediocreDave) May 28, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2022 09:17 (one year ago) link
Taking a category like 'restaurant', which emerged distinctively in modern Europe, and applying it ahistorically to any practice of group food preparation, forecloses a critique of the particular kind of institution built on particular social relations that a restaurant is.
otm across several abolition discourses
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 29 May 2022 09:35 (one year ago) link
definitely there's a need to combat exploitation of restaurant workers, but once you reach a point that the people in a restaurant are a) doing it because they want to, b) under less time pressure and c) sharing the profits equally, then frankly there's no further cause to challenge restaurants from a socialist perspective imo
this scenario would of course make restaurants smaller and would challenge fast food chain culture, which strike me as far more realistic goals than abolishing restaurants, which will of course not happen (given a broad yet accurate definition of 'restaurant')
anyway, good posting from renowned poster Arbeitology, you definitely achieved the target m8 (spread online muck of a weekend, get people arguing past each other)
― imago, Sunday, 29 May 2022 09:56 (one year ago) link
the movie 'boiling point' was basically a horror movie about uk high-end restaurant culture, worth seeing
― imago, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:01 (one year ago) link
His point is almost nobody wants to work the punishing Labour for fuck all that people in restaurants are made to because they need to survive.
He is coming from actually abolishing money and the profit motive. That's why you don't get what he's saying and posting nonsense like b) xp = and watching docs that tell you the above but calling it a 'horror movue' instead of people's reality.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:09 (one year ago) link
― difficult listening hour, Sunday, 29 May 2022 bookmarkflaglink
The discussion between Dave and the Brazilian anarchist on canteens was really interesting and took it a step further.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:11 (one year ago) link
I've worked as a Kitchen Porter/Dishwasher and it's fucking dogshit work and nobody in a sane state of mind would choose to do it for minimum wage.
― calzino, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:14 (one year ago) link
Boiling Point is a one-take fiction piece w/ ilx favourite Stephen Graham as the chef.
― Ward Fowler, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:14 (one year ago) link
'boiling point', while based on grim reality, was literally a work of fiction? (exactly xp) but yeah, the sort of necessary art that challenges the admittedly grotesque state of (some) UK restaurant culture (I wouldn't speak for it elsewhere)
― imago, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:21 (one year ago) link
Cool. Excuse me for tuning out halfway through imago's bullshit xp
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:21 (one year ago) link
What would challenge the restaurant culture is abolishing that culture lol.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:22 (one year ago) link
calzino otm re: kitchen porter work.
― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:57 (one year ago) link
i’ve probably told this before but i once replied to an ad for a kitchen porter without knowing what that term meant and showed up wearing a white button-up shirt! they sort of chuckled and led me back to the kitchen.
― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 29 May 2022 10:59 (one year ago) link
you are at the bottom of the Kitchen hierarchy and in my experience you end up amassing hours of unpaid overrun every week. hey .. but hey let's do it for team kitchen!
― calzino, Sunday, 29 May 2022 11:03 (one year ago) link
"people arguing past each other"
like yeah bro, I think nurses probably have a lot to say about how the workplaces in hospitals is organised, and we should listen to them! - but I really think it's a cheap trick to move 'abolish restaurants' to 'what about hospitals' lol https://t.co/pbx58zsKeU— Arbeitology (@Arbeit_Fish) May 28, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2022 11:25 (one year ago) link
there isn't really an argument as far as i can see, if capitalism is ended - yeah i know - then the artefacts, institutions and relationships of capitalism have to end, even the ones people think are good
― what doesn't kill me makes me Hongroe (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:00 (one year ago) link
not really surprising that a number of people who consider themselves anticapitalist haven't really thought things thru that far
― what doesn't kill me makes me Hongroe (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:02 (one year ago) link
that was a lot of "really"s, some kind of Lacanian slip obv
― what doesn't kill me makes me Hongroe (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:03 (one year ago) link
the bonnington cafe in vauxhall is a good post-capitalist model for a restaurant. people sign up to cook. there’s a calendar with an indication of what type of menu to expect each night. you book a table in advance. the price of the meals covers the food, the labour and the rent. byob. musicians come sometimes. i once saw brecht/weill songs performed there. some of the diners knew the words and they passed the mic around.
― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:08 (one year ago) link
oh that sounds frightfully darling, shall we give it a whirl?
― imago, Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:13 (one year ago) link
NV - I loved the surrounding discussions and threads. It was good that the original poster actually answered a lot of quote tweets and didn't back down as it got him to expand. It's one thing to say 'abolish prisons', but a restaurant and the whole business of eating out is another matter.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:15 (one year ago) link
Got me to thinking why dystopias are so popular too. Far easier to imagine the breakdown of society than this.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:17 (one year ago) link
also
you book a table in advance. the price of the meals covers the food, the labour and the rent.
paradigm shift y'all
― imago, Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:17 (one year ago) link
when I first read that I was like 'the CUSTOMERS sign up to cook?' and thought okay, there might be something in that, but no, it's the standard model except with more ~solidarity~
― imago, Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:19 (one year ago) link
anybody can sign up to cook. at least that’s how it was when i was going there (a few years ago now). but it’s not for the faint hearted! the standards are high and there are a lot of plates to serve up. sorry you seem to find this so irritating imago.
― Tracer Hand, Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:27 (one year ago) link
An unfinished concept.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:29 (one year ago) link
yes i've been thinking about the limited amount of stuff i know about food vendors in precapitalist cultures and it'd be interesting to read more about that. some of the conversations have been good and enlightening, i just mean that i think the "this too shall pass" side of the discussion is clearly correct
― what doesn't kill me makes me Hongroe (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 29 May 2022 12:51 (one year ago) link
apologies, ignoring the singing stuff collective restaurant ownership emanating from a squat/commune model does actually sound like a nice idea regardless of how wellmeaningbourgie the clientele actually end up being, albeit nothing too far removed from the traditional small-restaurant model of the chef also being the owner and any employees often being their family members or friends
anyway as we all love Twitter here's a good thread by a communist about all this
It seems (like *every single form of 'discourse' on twitter*) based on a semantic ambiguity. He denotes a 'restaurant' as the specific institution unique to capitalism where you make food based on exploitation. Others denote it as any specified place people make food for others.— 🅄🄱🄾🄰 (@Uboatheflesh) May 29, 2022
― imago, Sunday, 29 May 2022 16:53 (one year ago) link