Allegria!

One of the things I had to look forward to, coming back from holidays, was the Cirque Du Soleil show we had booked. Not only was it going to be my first time at the Royal Albert Hall but we definitely needed a bit of a morale boost, after spending a month in the tropics and coming back to the cold winter of England.

This particular show was the Allegria production, which was on its last world tour. I'm usually not much for clowns and trapezes but I'd heard so many good things about the Cirque du Soleil I was willing to give it a go.

I was particularly interested in the high art slant that the company is famous for bringing to its productions, and I wasn't disappointed.

While, at its core, the different acts weren't doing anything that out of the ordinary, the spectacle succeeds in presenting an unified thematical approach, helped not in the least by an anthemic soundtrack. Actually, I reckon that the prominent role played by the music helps lift the production to another level altogether, especially with such a tight live band.

Definitely worth seeing, and I would be more than keen to see their other productions currently touring the world. Now, if only they brought the Love spectacle to London...

Miam!

We've had a couple of things to celebrate lately, which gave us the opportunity to try out a couple of nice eateries and satiate our palates with some gloriously rich, refined cuisine.

First, Lora and I celebrated our anniversary of sort (1st date or something like that :-P) by going to L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon. Now, Joel Robuchon himself is usually considered one of the Top 3 Chefs in the world so that's not too ordinary in itself, and the Atelier is supposed to be one of the trendiest new places to eat in Soho.

I'd heard of the famous degustation menu, through hearsay and online reviews and I was originally set to go for that. However, looking at the list of tapas-style dishes, we agreed that there were some things we didn't care for in there. In the end, we decided to go for a custom selection of dishes, rather than the degustation menu, which allowed to sample an array of flavours more suited to our personal taste.

Let's just say that you don't eat food like that very often, not only in regards to the expense (good thing it's only once a year :-P) but also in regards to the glorious sensations and flavours encountered that night. Miam!

The next culinary stop was only 2 weeks later, this time for Lora's birthday. I let the lucky girl pick the venue, which was the North Pole, in Greenwich. While not quite as posh as l'Atelier, it was still fairly classy, with a proper sommelier-waiter ready to give you helpful advice about which wine would go with our choice of meals, and ready to answer your every question. The evening was made even better by the fact that the restaurant was really quiet, which allowed for some intimacy and above-average service.

Now, I'm going back to my diet (again).