09 October 2006

Crab Apples

I went to a new café on Saturday for lunch. There seem to be a number of new little cafes and delicatessens popping up in Kensal Rise at the moment. This is probably because, in the manner of an odorous backed up toilet Queen Park is over spilling into NW10. The most hilarious example of this is the deli/café next to Kensal Rise station which is an ultra moderne glass structure not unlike a very grand bus shelter. It’s full of the very expensive tat that people who think they can cook fill their kitchens with to hide the fact that they don’t know the difference between button and chestnut mushrooms never mind which end of the mushroom brush to apply to them.

Not at all like this monstrosity of middle class disparation (like aspiration but totally without value or meaning being all about money and status rather than anything important) is The Brilliant Kids Café and Art Centre. We fit right in because we have a brilliant kid and is certainly a welcome addition the short list of places you can easily take a baby younger than 6 months old. Also, independent of BB, I am so weary of the gastro pub. I don’t think it has been open for very long but it is cracking, I hope it lasts and doesn’t become one of those good places that is open for five minutes and then closes.



One half of Brilliant Kids is the café where an impossibly posh, yet very hearty, woman cooks in an open kitchen. She whipped tD up some Hollandaise sauce for her Eggs Florentine which tD reported as the best sauce she had ever had (even better than my Mediterranean vegetable pasta sauce apparently, damn it all). I had Shepherd’s Pie and steamed broccoli which was magnificent. It was a huge portion, and I thought I wouldn’t be able to tuck it all away, but when I polished it off it was so lovely I could have eaten it all over again. But this is terribly uncouth, I understand, so I contented myself with just the one portion. It is also very reasonably priced with my homemade, organic and delicious shepherds pie coming in at £6.50.

The Gods of Impending Birthday sorted the weather out so we could sit outside. The garden is a little oasis of peace and tranquillity. Once you have got the buggy beside your table. Up to that point it is an oasis of why in the name of god is this garden covered in posh grey gravel that the wheels won’t work on.


We sat underneath a crab apple tree, an upward glance looking much like this:


Next door is the other half of Brilliant Kids – the Art Centre. They do all kinds of workshops for kids; from music and movement, storytelling to knitting. There is a little club afternoon with a DJ called The Crib, where they can learn street dance, and The Popcorn Club on a Saturday morning where the little angels can watch classic children’s films. They also do children’s parties which I imagine are marvellous but hideously expensive.

And you can leave your heap of car parts outside to lower the tone without paying a penny. Joyous. Did I mention the crab apples?


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a bitter inverted snob you are.

Pablo Diablo said...

Hmmm, that's quite an assumption there. I think it's clear from the way F is mostly mocking herself and the title of the post that it's all very tongue in cheek. Also, if you've ever seen a mushroom brush you'd appreciate how hard it is to get the ends muddled up. Also, you misuse the term 'snob' and there's nothing in the post to suggest that she's bitter either. She clearly loves the Brilliant Kids Cafe.

If you'd read any more that 1 minute and 47 secs of this blog you get that though.

On the other hand I might like to assume that as a Firefox Mac user near Stoke on Trent, you may have recognised a little part of yourself that you hate.

No run along with your attitude and your anonimity and annoy some other people. You tedious little fucker.