Chez Lalee, Kingston
I don’t really like writing bad reviews of restaurants because I think they could have been having a bad day when I patronised them. But there’s a Mexican restaurant in Kingston-upon-Thames which deserves the title of worst Mexican restaurant – if not worst restaurant of any kind – I’ve been to in the last few years.
Chez Lalee is located in the pedestrianised ‘market’ area of Kingston, and you’d think that its prime location would ensure it was full all the time. People like Mexican food. Not so here. We were the only people in the place on a Wednesday evening. Suspicious?
When the food came, although we had ordered at least eight different dishes, they all looked and tasted pretty much the same: mushy, cold and stale. The guacamole was an insult: I’ve had better at Pret A Manger. The only saving grace was a decent Mexican beer called ‘Dos Equis’ (XX), and copious rounds of cheap but strong tequila.
To top it all off, the owner of the restaurant made a huge fuss over the bill when we had five minutes to catch the last train out of Kingston. One things for sure: if I ever find myself hungry in Kingston, Chez Lalee is not going to be my first – or even last – port of call.
Karel Glastra van Loon
I found out today that the Dutch writer Karel Glastra van Loon died, aged 42, at the beginning of the month. I met Karel two years ago and interviewed him for New Humanist magazine. It’s only a short interview on paper, but Karel gave me more than two hours of his time, made me coffee, and we had a great chat about politics, writing, and life in general. He was very kind to me, the young hack from the litte-known London humanist magazine, and even offered to write for us, something he was sadly unable to do in the end because of his illness. Karel, I’m sure, was one of the good ones. It’s a shame he left us so soon.
Well integrated radicals
A recent conversation with an acquaintance about the London bombings went something like this:
I: “What I don’t understand is how these ordinary, British-born guys could do such a thing”
She: “Oh, that’s quite easy to understand. They were young, frustrated men unable to express themselves properly who found a meaning in radical Islam. We’ve got one of those at work.”
I: “What do you mean?”
She: “There’s a guy, he’s always been a bit of an outsider, but in the last year or two he decided to grow a beard, pray five times a day, and say things like ‘The Americans deserve to die in Iraq’. Before, he used to be miserable all the time, he never got on with his colleagues, and he was always rubbing up against authority. Instead of trying to deal with problems at work he built up a wall of loathing for the rest of us. But now, he just looks down on us. He’s found something that allows him to feel superior, and that’s a powerful thing. Apparently our boss is concerned about him too, and is thinking of having him observed.”
I: “Oh. So where do you work?”
She: “At the Met.”
-
-
About
Musings of a wire reporter in Geneva. Feel free to contact me with your questions about journalism, Switzerland, or anything else I write about on this blog.
