Chinese Roast Duck

As it happened last Saturday, we could not go out to have lunch in Chinatown because of rain this Saturday either. Damn!

But, eventually, we went out and, being quite unable to eat something Chinese, I decided to take out a Chinese roast from one of Cantonese places in Chinatown.

I am not particularly keen on the spices used for the Chinese roast, but today I wanted to eat duck, so I compromised.

I ordered half a duck for £8.50.

I looked carefully how the cook chop up the duck (you can buy it un-cut, but as it is quite boney, it is better have it cut). He separated the brest from the leg, and threw away some pieces of fat. Oh my God! It was such a fatty bird!

This is a close-up.





Do you see the white fat under the crispy skin? Yes, that is what I am talkin' about! When you bite into it, the liquid fat fills your mouth.

Mmmmmm. Heaven...

And don't forget the meat. They say that for the Peking (Beijing) duck, all you can eat is the skin and the meat is for dogs. It is not the case for this type of roast. The meat is perfectly moist and tasty. Mmmmmmmmm again.

The smell of the Chinese spices wasn't overpowering either. It was a subtle, complex flavour.

Although it is super-good, I cannot eat it in big quantity (which is a normal portion for other people) and take-away looks to be the best solution. Buy a portion and eat it in some installments. How clever I am! Ha ha ha!

Clearning curtains

We are moving out of the flat where we have lived for 4 years, and we must do various cleanings.

One of them is to dry-clean curtains. We have two sets of curtains (4 pieces in total). They are not luxurious curtains, and after more than 5 years of use (when we moved in, they were already used for more than 1 year), it looks better buying new ones than cleaning, but, as the landlord wants us to dry-clean them, so we did.

There are two dry cleaners in my area. First, I decided to get the quote. The first dry-cleaner asked me how large were they and if they were lined, quoted £56. The second one asked me how much was the weight. I did not know that, but she said it is £5 per kilo. I guessed they should not weigh more than 10kg, so I went to the latter shop.

In fact, the weight was only 4kg, and I paid £20. Less than a half of the price quoted by the first shop.

It is possible, even plausible, that the first shop does the better job, but all I need is a receipt to prove that the curtains are professionally cleaned, so it does not matter so much what they do.

It really is important to shop around.

New entry from the 7th to 17th July

Well, I am getting lazy these days, but I did upload one page in these days!

Birmingham Restaurant Guide

City Cafe



I went to City Cafe for lunch. If the food is not the tastiest food you can buy, the lunch course offer delivers very good value for money, and the service staff is perfectly pleasant. Thumb up.

The Cube Construction Site

Whenever I go close to The Mailbox, I never fail to take a look at The Cube construction site.



I am not sure if this photo do justice to how gigantic this site is. Difficult not to amaze.

Really looking forward to see what will be realised here!

Starbucks in Selfridge's, too

On the lowest level of Selfridge's in Bullring, there used to be Cafe Nero. It was spacious, and often not too crowded, so we often went there.

Unfortunately it was closed a couple of months maybe, and the space has been occupied by luggage selling area.

Last weekend, I saw Starbucks occupying the place where Cafe Nero used to be.



It looks less airy and spacious than before, and definitely darker.

I am not a big fan of Starbuck's coffee, but there is no denying that it is convenient to have a coffee shop here.