Tagged: east london

Jan 08

Dalston Rio and ‘It Always Rains On Sunday’

[This post has been restored following Website Death in 2009, I think it was posted in 2008 originally. Sadly the 'Silver Screen' matinees seem to no longer exist, but I did find a clip of the film which wasn't online back then.]

Last weekend I paid a visit to the rather gorgeous Dalston Rio Cinema, to watch It Always Rains On Sunday, which was showing as part of the East End Film Festival. It was one of their ‘Silver Screen’ matinees, which are free for the over 60s and include tea and cake in the ticket price. And let me tell you, the home-made victoria sponge was DELICIOUS, and not just because it was free.

Rio Cinema is very lovely inside, with a huge pale blue arching ceiling and a proper thick red velvet curtain across the screen. It has been a cinema for nearly a century, and there’s a detailed history page on their site, including pictures of it in some of its former incarnations, as the Kingsland Empire, the Dalston Classic, and the racy Tatler.

The film was ostensibly about a Bethnal Green housewife sheltering her escaped convict ex-lover, but actually the star of the film was Ealing Studios version of East London in the 1940s (including the line “Oh, I wish there was no such place as Bethnal Green!” which got a big laugh). There was a lot of detail about the daily life of the family, with their tin bath and their Anderson shelter and cheese ration. Plus a trio of Cockney crooks, a Jewish market wheeler-dealer and a philandering saxophonist. My favourite bit, however, was the switch to a film of a toy train set for the long-view action shot when the fugitive is escaping across a railway yard :-)

The only thing that slightly spoiled it was the commentary coming from some of the more elderly members of the audience, along the lines of: “Ooh, what’s this? He knows, he knows! Ah, blackmail yes. Yes. Oh no, don’t run! He’s coming home!” etc… But hey, I was crashing their performance, so I can’t complain.

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Posted in Bethnal Green, Film, Hackney, History, London

Jan 07

A visit to G Kelly Noted Eel & Pie Shop

[This post has been restored following Website Death in 2009. It was originally posted in 2008 I think]

G Kelly Pie and Mash Shop on Roman Road - FrontageYesterday I went back to Roman Road market for the first time in a while and thought it was high time to post about G Kelly’s Noted Eel & Pie Shop.

It’s not up to me to tell you why pie and why mash and dear god why jellied eels. I’ll leave that up to the wonderful and terrifying www.eelhouse.co.uk, who offer a mail order pie service, and even pie and mash gift vouchers (‘the perfect gift!’)

Trying the pie and mash at G Kelly’s esteemed establishment was one of the first things I did when I moved to Bow, and although I did think that it was pretty bland (that’s obviously what the chilli vinegar is for…) it was hearty and cheap and peculiar. The interior of G Kelly seems to have been left mostly unchanged since the 1930s, all white tiles and mirrors and long wooden benches. On their website they have some fantastic history and a slideshow of old photographs.

They have a much more varied menu than other p&m shops I have visited, offering eels both stewed and jellied, soya mince vegetarian pies, mushy peas and even sweet pies and apple crumble with custard. The staff were friendly, and clearly amused at my confusion when offered ‘liquor’ on my pie – liquor is a thin green sauce made of parsley, rather than the bottle of gin I was momentarily expecting. (“Bargain!”, I thought.)

G Kelly gets busy at lunchtime on market days (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) often with queues out the door, as traders come in and put in incomprehensible orders like “one, two and peas, please love” (I think that’s one pie, two scoops of mash, and mushy peas). Saturday afternoons it’s a bit quieter.

My friend tries the eels

Jen and the eels

I think over the years I’ve had all kinds of their pies, but I have never gone near an eel. I am simply not brave enough. Have you seen what jellied eels look like?

Seriously. Step in my much braver friend Jen, who gamely tried some stewed eels with her mash. Apparently they were ok – fishy, squidgey, and yet full of bones. Yum.

There are quite a few pie and mash shops still dotted around East London, including one just down the road from me on Leytonstone High Road opposite Harrow Green. Writing this post is making me hungry, so perhaps I’ll stop in. Hm.

Before I sign off though, photographer Chris Clunn has a great collection of black and white photos of the exteriors, staff and customers in a selection of pie and mash shops.

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Posted in Bow, Eating, History, Leytonstone, London

Jun 09

Bromley-By-Bomb, someone in my shoes and fluffy insect love

On Friday night the unexploded WW2 device in Bow was detonated – I don’t have much to add to Going Underground’s post, which includes a dramatic still from a BBC video.

As I was leaving the house a few mornings ago a woman walked past wearing my shoes. Not just the same style from the same shop – actually my shoes, which I bought from the Dalston Oxfam shop, customised (badly) and then gave away to another charity shop. I was stunned, and she looked at me a bit oddly, probably because I was following her and gaping. Nobody needs that at 8.30 in the morning.

It made me happy though, because I thought I’d made a real mess of them, but she clearly didn’t think so! They were Converse, with a comic book print and white toes. I decided they would look better with black toes, so I coloured them in with permanent marker, leaving a star shape on one toe and writing “Pow!” inside. “How witty I am!” I thought to myself, and then realised I’d just hashed up a perfectly good pair of sneakers. Sigh.

It’s not the first time something like that has happened either – my friend customised a t-shirt and later donated it to the Tottenham branch of Sense, then I found it in the Hackney branch. I not sure whether this ‘small world’ business is comforting or depressing. Maybe a little bit of both.

In other news: I saw a bumblebee! From the top deck of a bus. It made me realise how seldom I see the fluffy little dears these days, and I made a mental note to stop mocking The Independent for devoting its cover to “The plight of the bumblebee“. Surely there’s some good bee-PR to be had from Harry Potter? That’s where ‘dumbledore‘ comes from after all.

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Posted in Bow, Craft, Leytonstone, Random

Jun 02

Waging war on mass-produced tat

*Fanfare* I now have internet access! Will get to work making up for lost blogging time.

*Nother fanfare* I went out this weekend! On an expedition to Walthamstow.

As promised, I paid a visit to the small but perfectly formed East London Craft Guerrilla Market on Saturday, and purchased this lovely grisly necklace:

Heart Necklace

It’s made by Glowing Doll, who won my prize for Stuff I’d Like To Own, though there were some other stalls which caught my eye, including a lady making awesome soft-toy guitars. There were about half a dozen stalls (and a sleepy cat) in the sunny leafy back garden of Beautiful Interiors, which is also worth a visit if you’re up that way.

And you’d probably like to be up that way because, my goodness isn’t Walthamstow Village lovely? In a similar way that the door of Eddie’s pub in Stratford deposits you in Hampstead, a short walk down Third Avenue from Hoe St transports you to Church Street in Stoke Newington. As well as all the twee and sexy crafts in Beautiful Interiors, there is a restaurant and deli called Eat 17 which looks gorgeous. It was formerly a waffle cafe (a wafflery? If that isn’t the word it should be) so has a pretty impressive choice for dessert, including a cheesecake waffle. Yup, that’s cheesecake on a waffle. Num num num, say I.

Glowing Doll Stall

Ooh, also Diamond Geezer has been in my neck of the woods recently with this post on invisible artwork ‘Linked’. Will add that to my Leytonstone to-do list, especially after my rant about rubbish public art a while back. Though can imagine it wouldn’t be for everyone – I have been covering my organisation’s press phone this weekend, and got an impassioned call at 5.30am from an unhinged person ranting about ‘skull-based receivers’ and how the Government is controlling the voices in his head. Sca-ry.

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Posted in Art, Craft, Eating, Walthamstow

Feb 16

Eating out in sunny Stratford

Picking up from my last post about why Stratford doesn’t completely suck, I consider the fine dining options available to Stratfordians. Once this is done I can get on with blogging about places I like to go to to get away from Stratford without feeling too guilty…

Don’t come here unless you really love Pizza Express. There’s not really anywhere else to eat out except fast foody joints like Nando’s, Pizza Hut, KFC et al and a couple of good curry houses. On the subject of which, India Gate, we love you! Thank you for shamelessly currying our favour (geddit?!) with your endless freebies – not one small sweaty bag of salad in our takeaway, but two! Praise be! In all seriousness we like them a lot. Tasty food, friendly staff, a discount if you’re a member of the cinema… They have stolen our hearts away from the Spice Inn, who comically refused to serve my friend her beer in a pint glass, we assume because they were afeared her spindly ladywrists would snap under the weight of all that manliness.

Another place we sometimes go is a gastropub type affair called King Eddie’s. It’s a bourgeois oasis on Stratford Broadway. I’m not slamming the fact that Stratford is poor here, but the contrast is shocking, I’m still not totally convinced that the door isn’t just a portal to a pub in Hampstead. If you ever want a concise visual representation of social inequality and lingering class divisions (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?) go for a drink in King Eddie’s, then go over the way for a drink in Wetherspoons.

In spite of myself I love it though. It’s a beautiful pub, an ex-coaching inn with green walls, a saloon bar and many quiet corners. Sitting with a good friend and some mulled wine or cherry beer in a dark and cosy nook while it pisses down outside is up there in my top ten loveliest things to do. I warn you though, it’s not cheap. It is still cheaper than most places in the centre, but once you’ve adjusted to Stratford prices it seems extortionate. The food is consistently tasty, traditional English fare, using seasonal gourmet-type ingredients but doesn’t offer much for vegetarians unfortunately. The wild mushroom risotto is delicious, but that’s often all there is for my not meateaty friends.

Our final dinner destination, although we more commonly go there for lunch at the weekend is the new Londek Cafe. It’s right at the top of the Grove, if you head towards Maryland station from Stratford centre you’ll pass it on the left. Londek serves Polish home-cooking, and is full of Polish people eating it, so one can only assume they’re doing it well. I certainly like it a lot. The staff have been very friendly, not to mention surprised, as me and my friends troop in on a regular basis (and once ordered one piece of every kind of cake – all in the interests of research, you understand).

Again they’re not brilliant for vegetarians but there are two or three different options. It is incredibly cheap – a plate of extremely filling pierogi is around £3.90 – so you could eat like a king for well under a tenner *and* they have no license to sell alcohol so you are welcome to bring your own free of charge. We had a fairly raucous night a while back fuelled by cheap wine and cabbage parcels. It was awesome.

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Posted in Drinking, Eating, London, Stratford

Feb 14

Stratford: Not as skanky as you think

Right, one Masters degree later I’m going to pick up this East London thread and tie it in some beautiful new knots. I’ve been living in Stratford for 18 months or so now, and I feel I should dispell a bit of the bad rep that it has. Yes, it has it’s skanky bits. Yes, it feels like you’re in Essex. Yes, it has no bookshop. But it’s not all bad.

Transport

Firstly, it’s not in darkest Peru as many have been led to believe, it’s actually in zone 3 and – get this – 20 mins on the Central line from Tottenham Court Road. It’s also 20 mins from London Bridge on the Jubilee, 15 mins from Camden and Islington on the Overground. There’s also the DLR, so you can get down to Greenwich and Canary Wharf and West India Quay in a few minutes too (more about these delightful places later…)

Culture

When we first moved here we read a leaflet describing the Theatre Square as Stratford’s ‘cultural quarter’ – how we laughed! But again, there are a couple of high points. The Theatre Royal has some interesting shows, and has helped launch a few comedy careers including Jocelyn Jee Esien. There’s also Stratford Circus, which has had a few intriguing acts on, including poet John Hegley, comedian Rich Hall, as well as Constance Briscoe talking about one of her books. Above Pizza Express is the Stratford Picturehouse Cinema, which, unlike other arty Picturehouse Cinemas, offers a steady diet of mainstream films and very little else. Our theory is that the cinema management were forced to bow to the taste of the people in Stratford to make ends meet. Stratford Library is pretty cool. To start with, it’s a library, not an ‘Idea Store’ which is amazing given the amount of regeneration going on all around it (seriously, you can’t walk for a 100 metres without encountering some public art round here) and there is a huge kids section which is – drum roll please – separated from the main library. Hurrah! See, it is possible to encourage a love of reading in younglings without ruining it for everyone else. Also the library is connected to a pleasant independent cafe called Cafe Mondo which does tasty coffee and pasta and has hilariously rude Polish staff. It’s not that they don’t care, they actually seem to hate you.

Shopping

I’m running out of steam now. There is a great big shopping centre full of sportswear and nasty clothes clearly made by a Chinese orphan for 2p a day. Um. There is an impressive Poundstretcher. There’s a Wilkinson’s. Lots of estate agents. Uh…

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Posted in London, Stratford

Feb 14

Hot rockin’ fun part two…

Moved across from original Myspace blog (I know, I know) I will be revisiting most of these places in more detail later on.

27 August 2006

Brick Lane

I’m not that keen on the market itself, but there are some great places dotted around, so it’s good for a wander. Also if you get there early (before 11, say) then there are no huge crowds and all the godawful hordes of hipsters haven’t emerged yet.

There’s a cavernous vintage clothing shop under the rail bridge which is good for rummaging, though everything feels slightly damp and cold. The owners (staff?) are a bit Kool and can be hostile, but there *is* a giant robot at the back of the shop, so I’m drawn back like a moth to a flame.

The best place for coffee is the smaller Coffee@, near the Bethnal Green Rd end, which is very relaxed and strewn with bits of the Guardian. Plus they don’t seem to mind if you literally stay there all day, I’ve seen people sleeping there. The furniture is a mixture of community centre and gentlemen’s club, with some big shiny leather armchairs. It’s not too expensive, and their banana frappucino makes me see angels.

Also round here I *love* the Sunday Upmarket in the old Truman Brewery. You can buy supertasty food (Spanish Caravan tortilla is very filling for virtually no money) and check all the crafty things that other people have bothered to make for you. The website misses out quite a few of my favourite stalls, like the lady who makes little leather skull badges and awesome patchwork elephant-shaped handbags. Also a shoutout to the woman dressed as an usherette selling pink woollen eyeballs from a tray – you saved my Christmas.

On the way from Brick Lane to Liverpool St station, or vice versa there’s Spitalfields Market. There’s some cool stuff here, but I think it’s mostly a bit overpriced, and unless you get there before 11 it gets really jam-packed. (There’s a lot of pushchairs around too, weirdly, as it must be pretty scary for a two year old at knee height.) If you like kitsch, make sure you visit Queens – it takes tacky tree decorations to a terrifying new level (lipstick-wearing fish dressed as babies, anyone?)

Hackney

Proceeding in a rather ramshackle, hop-skip-and-a-jump fashion to Hackney: I recommend Hackney City Farm. It’s not the biggest one (I think that’s in Beckton… expedition report coming soon…) but it seems very chilled and it has a really nice cafe. I have a thing about pigs, and there were 3 big ones doing their piggy thing of sleeping a lot and getting all covered with mud – magic!

Sadly all the cows, goats, sheep and a lone donkey were all in one big pen, with access just on one side: the cows came up to the fence to say hi, but most of the others were lurking beyond reach. Lots of ducks and chickens wandering about, including some of those entertainly-feathered ones which look a bit like they’re wearing flares, and a load of cute furry things in cages.

I’m from the countryside originally (honest to god my best friend in primary school lived on a farm) but I still get a kick from seeing animals up close, especially their eyes – sheep’s eyes make them look like some sort of freaky alien being in a \”harmless livestock\” disguise. And pig’s eyes… they’re just so human, it makes me think of Spirited Away *shudder*. God, and that bit in Pinocchio where the boy is on his knees and his hands turn into hooves. Argh!

Slightly offtopic – has anyone else seen the awful live action / animatronic film of Animal Farm released a couple of years ago? It has this mighty mighty cast (Kelsey Grammer, Pete Postlethwaite, Peter Ustinov, Patrick Stewart…) but the pigs are so SO creepy and the tone so completely off that it’s just ridiculous. For example: Old Major doesn’t die in his sleep but plunges to his death from the platform in the barn. Sigh.

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Posted in Brick Lane, City Farm, Hackney, London, Spitalfields