As I walk along the Viking Coastal Trail from central Margate to Botany Bay, I can almost believe I am back in Sydney, following the Bondi to Coogee clifftop walk, rather than day-tripping on the north Kent coast. Both walks offer stark cliffs, sandy beaches and ocean pools, and sweeping sea views. It's about ten degrees cooler in Margate, of course, although still pleasant.

As I noted in my recent post about Austin's speciality coffee scene, I'd never been to Texas before this year and was pleased to have to opportunity to visit the state capital as part of a trip for work. 

The rain had, if not stopped, then slowed down by Saturday morning, just in time for the arrival to New York of my brother and his wife. I woke up before I was due to meet the rest of my family and so went out inside of coffee and food. I bumped into my brother in the lift and we walked together to Black Seed Bagels, a purveyor of hand-rolled bagels on Elizabeth Street in Nolita. I was feeling a little fragile as a result of the rum punchbowl incident and the bagel with bacon, two eggs and cheese (on a poppy seed bagel, of course) sounded just what I needed.



We got our sandwiches to go and stopped for coffee at the new branch of Café Integral, also on Elizabeth Street. I've been to the original, located inside the American Two Shot store on Grand Street, a few times but the new stand-alone café was excellent. I had a cortado but I hope I'll find time to go back to try a pourover before I leave.


We spent the morning walking around the West Village and Greenwich Village, shopping and trying not to get blown away by the strong winds. Intrigued by the 'absurdly soft' tagline, I stepped into a shop called Marine Layer, and the clothes were indeed pretty darn soft. I ended up picking up a scarf and a sweater and promptly put both on under my jacket. We stopped for coffee at the West Village location of Aussie café Bluestone Lane, which has been on my list for a while. My hangover recovered even more after a very fine piccolo and a cold-pressed juice. The Carmine Street café is gorgeous too with their white-, mint- and turquoise-accented coffee bar.



After dropping into two of my other favourite shops, travel goods store Flight 001 and the amazing bookstore that is Three Lives & Co, we made it up to Chelsea Market, which was incredibly busy. The Halloween decorations were out in full force, which didn't help with the crowd control, but we spent a happy hour browsing in the book shop, kitchen shop and the Artists & Fleas craft market.





We managed to nab a table at seafood joint and oyster bar Cull & Pistol (a cull being a uni-clawed lobster and a pistol being a clawless lobster). To start, we shared a dozen oysters and then I had a lobster roll, which was absolutely delicious. We also shared a bonus steamed lobster 'for the table', which was also very nice.




After lunch, I had a couple of coffee shops to hit. First up was Underline, which, as its name might suggest, is pretty much underneath the High Line. I had an excellent pourover and a peruse of several back copies of Barista magazine, before strolling along the High Line itself. It was, however, super-windy and so not exactly ideal walking weather. The second cafe on my list was City of Saints on East 10th Street. The coffee was really good — so much so that I bought a bag of beans (packaging designed by an artist local to their Brooklyn roastery) — and the baristas were incredibly friendly.




I headed back to the hotel to unload my purchases and caught an amazing sunset over Lower Manhattan. We then took an Uber to Roberta's in Bushwick on the off chance that there wasn't a two-and-a-half-hour queue for a table, but there was, so we got the subway back to Williamsburg and went to Fornino instead, sharing two giant margheritas with buffalo mozzarella and a brownie sundae. Plus, we didn't have to wait for a table.




Our evening's entertainment was a Dracula-themed improv performance by Entirely from Memory at Videology on Bedford Avenue. This was very funny indeed and the Videology bar is a great place to hang out with a (film-themed) cocktail and watch an old movie or take part in a trivia session.

When I took last Friday afternoon off work, I didn't have grand plans, but culture, coffee and brunch were all on my shortlist so naturally, I headed to Shoreditch. I had heard great things about Friends of Ours, a cosy, Aussie-style neighbourhood café located a few blocks northeast of Old Street roundabout. I was particularly pleased to hear that their brunch-ready menu is available throughout the week.


It was almost 2 pm by the time I arrived (I did the 'culture' part of the afternoon first, but, Humpty Dumpty-like, I will come to that later) and although Friends of Ours was bustling, there were a couple of free tables. The café itself if bright and colourful with red, black and grey accents (the tiled coffee bar is particularly stylish) and a cheerful mural on the back wall. There are a few small tables next to the bar and in the front window as well as a larger communal table at the back.




The coffee is from Hackney-based Dark Arts and there are a few options on offer, including cold brew and batch-brew filter coffee, as well as the usual espresso-based drinks. I ordered a piccolo (£2.40) and thought about getting a cold brew too, but I wanted to try one of the cold-pressed juices instead (£4). My piccolo was very well-crafted and had a smooth, well-balanced flavour and a neat little latte art heart. The juice — I went for 'the purple one', which involved beetroot, apple, carrot and lemon — was refreshing too.




It took me a while to work my way through the food menu as I was choosing among nine of the dishes (there were nine dishes). I was tempted by the huevos motelanos (£8.20), a combination of fried egg, smoked ham, chorizo, chipotle and veggies on arepa bread. But it was the corn fritters (£9) that won the day: sweetcorn and beetroot fritters, with a poached egg, smashed avocado, feta, mint and coriander. This sounded like a lot of food, so I didn't add a side of streaky bacon, although with hindsight, I probably could have managed.


The fritters were really tasty, the beetroot adding some interesting colour, flavour and texture to a brunch standard. The egg was small but perfectly poached and the avocado, tucked away from sight, was tasty too. I could have done without the feta, but otherwise, this was a delicious and creative dish. There were a few cakes, cookies and doughnuts on the counter but I decided to save room for my next coffee stop instead.


Friends of Ours is a really lovely café with friendly staff (of course), a relaxed ambiance, and great food and drink. They open every day until 5 pm; they don't take reservations but if there's a queue, it will be well worth the wait.


As for the cultural component of my afternoon, I went to the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Victoria Miro gallery, a few blocks west of Friends of Ours, near the City Road canal basin. I was looking forward to seeing the Japanese artist's golden pumpkin work (All the Eternal Love I Have for the Punpkins), which required a 30-minute wait even on a rainy Friday. When you reach the front of the queue, you and up to one other person head inside the room where you are allowed 30 seconds to enjoy the art. I spent about 20 seconds snapping photos and then spent 10 seconds just enjoying the infinite reflections and stunning light and geometry.



Downstairs, there was another work (Chandelier of Grief), which you could look at for one minute in groups of four. My photos didn't come even close to capturing how beautiful it is: it was like being inside a sparkling kaleidoscope. If you're in the Islington/Shoreditch area and aren't in a particular rush, I'd recommend stopping by the gallery, even if there is a bit of a queue. Entrance is free.


Friends of Ours. 61 Pitfield Street, London, N1 6BU (Tube: Old Street). Website. Twitter. Instagram.

Victoria Miro Gallery. 16 Wharf Road, London, N1 7RW (Tube: Angel or Old Street). Website. Twitter.

I'm back home in London now but after my holiday in Portland, I spent most of last week in Washington DC. As I was working most of the time, I didn't have much time to explore the city, so quite a few of my highlights are food- and drink-related but I managed to fit in a few non-conference-related activities too.

I have decided to rename my monthly round-up posts "Etc" going forwards as I often found that the five things I included weren't necessarily my favourite things of the month — those tend to get their own posts — as much as things I've enjoyed but to which I hadn't dedicated a whole blog post. Here are my five picks for January:

1. Les Liaisons Dangereuses
I first came across Choderlos de Laclos's novel in the form of Cruel Intentions, which transports the story of scheming, cruelty and betrayal in 18th century Paris to the Upper East Side of Manhattan with spoiled, rich teenagers in the central roles; I was 16, OK... Cruel Intentions is actually a decent film, and it plays out like a scene-by-scene remake of Christopher Hampton's stage adaptation of the original novel. Although I've since seen the Stephen Frears film based on Hampton's script, I had yet to see Hampton's work on the stage.



By the time I realised that the Donmar Warehouse was putting on Les Liaisons Dangereuses with Dominic West and Janet McTeer in the central roles, it was already sold out. It still is and is only on for another two weeks, but it's worth giving the returns queue a go if you are keen to see the production — I tried one Saturday afternoon, and just missed out (there were four tickets and I was fifth in the queue), but kept checking back on the Donmar website and eventually got lucky.

It was definitely worth the hassle: although West still wasn't quite word perfect, he oozes charisma and stage presence, showing a greater depth of emotion in the denouement, and McTeer is brilliantly wicked as the Marquise de Mertueil — perhaps as good as Glenn Close in the Frears film. It was also nice to see Una Stubbs and Edward 'London Spy' Holcroft in supporting roles.

2. Randall & Aubin
I've walked past seafood restaurant Randall & Aubin, located on Soho's Brewer Street, so many times, but never got around to eating there. They don't take bookings on Saturdays or weekday evenings, but that is hardly usual these days. We went a few weeks ago for a family lunch on a sunny Saturday and what a feast it was. We shared some oysters, and then I had some delicious scallops with pancetta to start, followed by roast cod on pea mash (if you aren't in the mood for fish, there are plenty of meat options too). I definitely didn't have room for pudding but couldn't resist the cheesecake with salted caramel ice cream and didn't regret my decision. The staff were friendly and efficient, and the music was perfectly in keeping with the giant disco ball that hangs in the centre of the small dining room. Randall & Aubin has great food and great ambiance.


3. Oldboy
I've been wanting to watch the classic Korean revenge movie for years — long before the ill-advised American remake surfaced in 2013 — and happily, it popped up on Netflix recently. In Oldboy, a man (Min-sik Choi) is abducted in the middle of the night and kept in a shabby, furnished room for 15 years before he is freed without any knowledge of who kept him captive or why. The rest of the movie follows his efforts to try to find out — and to seek revenge on whoever did this to him. Yes, it's dark and often violent, but Chan-wook Park's film is a masterclass in uncomfortable tension and vengeance. It's clever, it's knowing and it's laced with dark humour. If you haven't already seen it already, I would highly recommend it — it would even make a nice double-bill with The Revenant.

4. Missing Pieces by Heather Gudenkauf

5. Lumiere London
For four nights in mid-January, a festival of light-based art installations took over central London. Lumiere London is over now, but it's possible that the Lumiere festival will return in the future, either to London or elsewhere in the country, so it's worth keeping an eye out on the website. King's Cross, where I work, was one of the main hubs of the festival, and I went to check out some of the installations. Among my favourites were Diver, which was set up next to the King's Cross Pond, and Litre of Light, a tunnel made from water bottles illuminated in rainbow-coloured lights.



On Saturday, I was in the West End anyway and so decided to stay to look at some of the Regent Street installations too. Janet Echelman's 1.8 London — a fishing-net-inspired sculpture that hung over Oxford Circus, rippling in an ethereal way, and gradually changing colour (the lighting was inspired by the Tohoku earthquake in Japan in 2011, which shortened the day by 1.8 microseconds).



Leicester Square was filled with a Garden of Light, and the Trafalgar Square fountain was turned into Plastic Islands. Although I had to battle huge crowds, I really enjoyed both evenings, which took me back to my annual childhood visits to the Walsall Illuminations with my family.

I missed Nick Payne's play Constellations during its 2012 run at the Royal Court and I was even more disappointed to just miss its Broadway incarnation with Jake Gyllenhaal and the always excellent Ruth Wilson this spring. I like going to the theatre but I'm never very good at keeping on top of what is on, so I was pleased that I scanned the theatre section of last week's Time Out and noticed that Constellations was back for a limited run at the Trafalgar Studios and even happier that I managed to score some cheap tickets for the Saturday matinee.


Constellations tells the story—or, rather, stories—of Marianne (Louise Brealey), an astrophysicist, and Roland (Joe Armstrong), a bee-keeper, who meet at a barbecue. Marianne tells a weird anecdote about elbow licking, but Roland isn't impressed and they don't click. But then they meet at a barbecue and they do click. Above the stark black stage hang dozens of white balloons and every few minutes, different balloons light up and we see a different version of the same scene. The story moves along, sometimes incrementally and sometimes with long time-jumps, and we start to see different versions of their relationship that could have happened.


As in any relationship (or any possible version of any relationship), sometimes things go well, and other times, sad things happen. Intermittently, we also get snapshots from a time much further in the future. We see the same scene several times, but each time, there is slightly more dialogue and slightly more context, which allow us to gradually piece together what is happening.

It is a beautiful play, only 70 minutes long but extremely intense. It's often sad and moving, but it's also funny in places, particularly in some of the variations early on in the relationship. "I f*cking love honey," one Marianne tells one Roland; it's her delivery that's key. Constellations is also very philosophical, and Marianne's job as a physicist allows her to introduce questions of time and of infinite possible worlds. She talks about "everything you have ever and never done," and then later tells Roland: "We still have all the time we've ever had."

Marianne gets the best lines and she is, perhaps, the more interesting character, but Roland makes a great foil. The chemistry between Brealey and Armstrong is fantastic and essential for such a production to work. In some ways, the play reminded me of Patrick Marber's Closer; in particular, the scenes when Marianne and Roland argue made me think of the devastating break-up between Larry and Anna (portrayed wonderfully on-screen by Clive Owen and Julia Roberts). The work with which I drew most connections, though, was Laura Barnett's novel The Versions of Us, which I read recently. Both look at all of the ways characters and relationships could have developed—and maybe have even developed in other possible worlds—and highlight questions of fate, love and what forever really means.


I mentioned the minimalist set design further up, but the play is also visually impressive. It was a nice touch to have the black floor printed with a hexagon grid, which seemed to be symbolic of Roland's beekeeping work (which also proves relevant to the story), whereas the white flashing balloons represented, to me, the infinite universe that Marianne studies.

By the end of Constellations, I was feeling emotionally exhausted but curious. If you're in the mood for a beautiful and thought-provoking play about love, life and even theoretical physics, then do try to get tickets. Unfortunately, this run ends on 1st August, so you'll need to act pretty swiftly.

I take a bus bound for Honor Oak most days, but beyond pondering the U-less spelling of Honor (it seems to date to the 17th century, before British English exiled its Us to the colonies), I hadn't given the southeast London area much thought. On Sunday, though, I rode the bus all the way to its end point: about halfway up One Tree Hill in Honor Oak. I was headed for Forest Hill, and yes, it is pretty hilly in that part of London. The clue is in the name, but central London is so flat that it's easy to forget about that little thing called altitude.


Before long, I arrived at my destination: St David Coffee House, a cheerful neighbourhood café near the Forest Hill Overground. I had heard that they served great coffee and even better brunch, and I wasn't disappointed. You know the brunch menu is on point when you read the first menu item and know you don't need to read on. Don't get me wrong; the other brunch dishes would have been great too, but how could I not order the poached egg, avocado and bacon on toast (£6.50)? Good brunch joints never make you choose between eggs, avocado and bacon. The food was excellent: the bacon was crispy and plentiful, the avo creamy and the egg the perfect consistency.



The coffee is from Square Mile and hand-brewed filter fans will be pleased to note that both Aeropress and V60 brew methods are available (£3); an iced version was also on offer for the same price. My Aeropress brew was very good, and I saw some nice-looking flat whites being carried out to other customers.


I almost caved and ordered a macchiato too, but it was time to move on and so I settled for one of Kooky Bakes' slices of awesomeness (I'm not sure the real name, but what else do you call a blondie-like cake with a pretzel base, chocolate, and various nuts?) to go.



St David is a friendly, cosy café with artfully mismatched wooden furniture and eclectic, retro décor. There are a couple of tables out front, but on drizzly days, you're better off sheltering indoors. They also serve dinner on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and often hold pizza nights; check out their Twitter for more information.



If you're looking for a way to walk off your brunch, the wonderful Horniman Museum & Gardens is only half a mile away. The museum is free and houses a whole host of weird and wonderful natural history, art and anthropological objects, while the gardens have a lovely view over the London skyline.




St David Coffee House. 5 David Road, London, SE23 3EP (Forest Hill Overground). Website. Twitter.
Horniman Museum & Gardens. 100 London Road, London, SE23 3PQ (Forest Hill Overground). Website.