Broad Street Closure & Tories

Some photos from Broad Street and ICC today.

This is how the road is closed.

From the other side. It is pretty nice, Broad Street without car.






Rocket Club was welcoming Tories, but there is nothing political about it, just commercial, I guess.






In front of the ICC, there were several people trying to make their points which largely escaped me, like this one. "What is the difference between a Lap Dance and Cappuccino? (The Tories aren't giving out coffee)". Do they give out lap dance, then? Difficult to understand English humour.





More people making their points.




ICC occupied by the Conservatives.





There was this bull made of Coca Cola cans, but I don't know what is it, as I could not go close to read the plate in front of it.





Continues until Wednesday (... no, no, I don't mean that I continue).

Casa Lamisa Gone

A few weeks ago I noticed the Spanish restaurant in Fletcher's Walk, Casa Lamisa, formerly known as Chez Amis, were closed. As there were no notice on the window, I would think it was closed and not just is refurbishing.



Although I ate here only twice, I have a fond memory both of the occasions. The food was not always top notch, but could also be very good, and was prepared with care and had a character. If it were in a less depressing location, we would have visited more frequently.

It looked some redecoration work going on inside. I wish they can refurbish whole Fletcher's Walk, and not only the shop, starting from changing colour of the lighting.

Conservative Party Conference 2008 in Birmingham

Conservative Party Conference 2008 will be held in ICC from the 28 Sept. to the 1 Oct. For this reason the traffic will be restricted in Broad Street. Be careful if you have to pass there by car!



Also for pedestrians, obstacles are set up here and there.

Cha Cha Dessert

In Day-In Chinese supermarket, I found Interesting looking Chinese retort desserts and decided to try.



There are 4 or 5 different sorts and I picked up the most familiar looking one. This looked like a Japanese sweet called "Zenzai", which is a sweet soup of azuki beans. Promising enough for me, it is made by Nisshin - Japanese company, although the product itself is made in China.

I don't remember exactly how much it cost, but was around £1.60, and there are two bags (two portions) inside.



The instruction says that it can be served either cold or hot.

It contains, apart from water, sugar and additives, red beans (azuki), taro potato, black-eye beans, kidney beans, coconut milk, and milk (without melamine, hopefully).

As eating it as it is looked a bit gloomy, I added "mochi" (glutenous rice flour cakes).

The result was pretty good. Maybe little bit more sugar would be better, as I added un-sweetened mochi. I will try out other types as well.

Caribbean in Indoor Market

[post scriptum: I visited this place later on. Please read here].

Recently I have been having an impression that the Caribbean food stall in the Indoor Market has increased the prices and increased the number of customers as well.

But until this weekend I have not noticed that the shop has changed!



If I remember well, it used to be Noel's Caribbean, and not it is Caribe Bite.



The price is about £5.50-£6.00 for main dish (including rice and veggie), so it is still pretty low price.

Now that it is gone, I am sorry that I did not have try Noel's.

Birmingham Artsfest 2008

From the 12 to 14 September 2008, there was a event called Artsfest 2008. I did not know about it before a friend of mine told me on the 12 (Fri.). Was it because of lack of publicity or just because I was away until a few days ago, I don't know.

This is my neighbours' cat. She is very pretty, but shy; I have not managed to make friends with.

Nothing to do with the Artsfest, but I met here before I went to see the event on Saturday (13th Sept.).

"Went to see" is a bit of an exaggeration. The truth is that I went to do some shopping and saw some of the events while I was walking.

This is the first one I saw. It was a stage in Centenary Square, and there were a rapper singing and a bunch of youths dancing... or rather moving their bodies.

This one was rather amateuristic and I felt a sort of embarrassment.

And when I came to Chamberlain Square, I saw this.

The woman in the centre, dressed in Arabian style, is showing how to do belly dancing and the other woman next to her, in red dress, is instructing. It was entertaining.

Afterwards, there was a demonstration of belly dancing by several girls.

While we were watching this, a couple of guys in Nando's uniform were distributing something. I usually don't pick up freebies (because usually I end up in binning them), but the sight of the bag made me curious and I grabbed one.

What's in it?

There were marinated bbq chicken wings!

They were pretty good! It was labelled "plain", but definitely spicy and there was a hint of lemon zest. yum yum.

This is a stage installed in Victoria Square. It was a jazz or blues group.

This one was taken a day after (14th Sept. Sunday) on my way to go to the Church. It was in Brindley Place, and a dozen of girls in black were doing modern dance.

Anywhere we went, there was art! It was a great weekend.

Bargain goat

The other day, I saw this in the Indoor Market

£19.95 for half a goat!

It might be a bargain, but I have no clue how i can cook half a goat.

Sea bass from the Indoor Market

This Saturday, I bought a seabass from the Indoor Market, Birmingham. The super-fresh one cost me only £3.

I returned from Greece last week. You think Greece is seafood heaven, but larger fishes are quite expensive, definitely more expensive than at the Indoor Market given the current GBP/EUR exchange rate. There is no way you can get fresh seabass for less than €10 a kilo. In restaurant, it is £ 50-60 per kilo. It is prohibitive!

I pan fried the fish. It was superb. Birmingham is definitely a seafood heaven for me.