Food: Waterfall Kebab Centre

I actually paused for a moment before deciding to review this place, something that appeared to be a typical high street kebab shop. I mean the line has to be drawn somewhere right? If I wrote about every new place I ate in then this place would be even more tired and mundane than it already is. Heck, I might as well start tweeting my every meal or something.

But then I realised firstly that I'm not really a food snob, secondly that no one actually cares about the ethics of food writing and thirdly - and most importantly - everyone needs to know about Waterfall Kebab Centre.

First up, let's start with the food: it was awesome. All of it. From the grilled meats (I had the Adana) to the fried chips to the salads, everything was prepared with such care and pride we started enjoying the food even before we tasted it. And once we did that I realised that this was a special place.

So on to service then. Our server was polite, chatty and engaging[1] - it was almost like we were visiting someone's home for dinner, and I guess in hindsight it's not really surprising that the place was a family run joint. We even started talking about movies and cake baking at two separate points. The free tea and baklava at the end was just the icing on the cake really.

Cost wise there were no complaints either; a tenner a head got us a spread of starters, a main each and a few drinks for the party. Totally worth it. If there was a distracting point it's that the place was essentially a kebab shop: it's probably not the place you would take the highly maintained Londoner date of today. Although quite frankly if they turned their noses up at this place I know which I would choose to stick with.

So there you have it, probably the best kebab shop I've been to. Totally recommended.

[1] And I challenge any of the guys I was with to deny fancying our server.

Film: Taken 3

Oh man oh man. What a dire film.

Maybe it was a lack of budget, or inclination, but there was none of the spirit, charm and charisma of the previous two films here. The plot sucked, the acting was poor, the editing awful and the action almost non existent. In fact the best thing about it was its merciful length.

It's such a shame seeing how much I loved the first and liked the second. What a disappointing turn out.

So not recommended - just pretend there are only two films in the series.

Food: Zi's

Ilford is quite the location for a variety of food, if not that of consistent quality. Still, we tend to give local business a chance when we can and stonebaked pizza is still a novelty in these parts so our party for 10 were all ready to give it a try.

There were ups and downs. The garlic bread was a little strange, and came with a bitter taste we concluded was due to an abundance of raw garlic. On the other hand, the pizza mains were great in their simplicity and solidness - I went for the chilli peperoni (the meat is all halal) which hit the spot pretty well.

Otherwise the place was clean, the service more than adequate and the ambience well suited for our party. Prices were decent, even after you consider the special opening offer of all pizzas for 6 quid.

In short, Zi's has pretty much become the go to place for Pizza in Ilford, and although that might just be by default that shouldn't take away how much of a decent place it is. Just avoid the garlic bread.

Book: Watchmen

As I had already seen the film (albeit ages ago), I was quite looking forward to reading Watchmen. After continuously being told how much off par the movie adaptation (which I liked) was from its source as well as how often it's billed as the most important graphic novel of all time there was not really anyway to be anything but excited really.

And yes it was good - the depth of the characters and plot and how it all unfolds is pretty magical, and I suspect can only really have been told by a graphic novel. Did I fall in love with it though? Well honestly no, I can't say I did. Just why it didn't take I'm not entirely sure since on paper it should have been right up my street, but I suppose it comes down to the fact that ultimately I'm not as passionate as comic books as those who cherish Watchmen are.

Having said that I am now off to revisit the film, so there must be something it's done right.

Link of the Day

On the Phenomenon of Bulls**t Jobs

It actually started with my stumbling across what appeared to be a couple of 200 unauthorised posted on the tube (see here and here). On searching for the quote I reached the original source, an article by David Graeber originally written in 2013 when it appeared in Strike! magazine.

Amongst other things, the genius of the article is in its length, conciseness, clarity and especially in its content: I don't think there will be many people reading it who wouldn't have been doing so while nodding their heads in agreement. For me personally, it was able to vindicate some of the things that friends and I would have concluded a long time ago; that productivity of a workforce doesn't equal the number of man-hours expended. And as someone who has long established their relationship with work (I certainly know my own answer to the "What would you do if you won the lottery?" question), I thought some of the ideas in the article were bang on.

Karachi 2014

It's telling that on my last trip to Karachi I had only posted a handful of travel articles. As my trips back home become more and more frequent (it had actually, amazingly, been less than a year since I had last visited, which is a record in itself), I appear to have less and less to say as my time there becomes more and more run of the mill and less special. This in itself isn't a bad thing - on the contrary actually: I like being a part of the furniture there and being able to skip the sometimes awkward stage of regaining familiarity with relatives and the environment.

That said this trip was different, mainly because I was travelling with my wider family this time instead of just my folks. This meant that the trip was largely tailored to the kids in our party: I have never been to as many Karachite attractions, museums and fairgrounds in two weeks as I had on this trip - heck I didn't know Karachi even had as many attractions, museums and fairgrounds in the first place.

In fact the whole trip was pretty exhausting, and that not necessarily in a bad way... it was just different to what I was accustomed to. In any case, as part of my intention to return more frequently there'll be plenty of chances to have a more low key visit in the future.