Monthly Archives: January 2015

This classic dim sum palace located on the second floor above a busy primarily pedestrian street was recommended by the young breakfast chef at our hotel. Having seen dim sum restaurants in Vancouver it was pretty well exactly as expected: … Continue reading →

We found this place wandering around the centre of Guangzhou when it suddenly seemed to have gotten to be lunchtime. The street around the restaurant is filled with small eateries and street-food vendors, so the aroma is pretty fabulous and … Continue reading →

January 2015 It’s challenging being a tourist in a city that doesn’t pay much attention to tourism, where about one person in 300 speaks a language you can understand, you can’t even try to estimate what the written word means … Continue reading →

January 2015 Lonely Planet had a few suggestions for big night out in this street-food-dominated city, but none of them was close enough to my hotel or looked interesting enough to take the trouble. Tripadvisor, another restaurant search I use … Continue reading →

January 2015. This place is a bit hard to find because of irrational address numbering although it is close to the centre of the Hanoi old town and just across the street from Hoan Kiem lake. It’s a pretty forbidding … Continue reading →

January 2015. I chanced onto this street-food hole-in-the-wall my first evening in Hanoi, and was very pleased. A nice lady who spoke English invited me to sit inside when I inquired about a little plate of sausages that was displayed … Continue reading →

January 2015 In the firmament of Hanoi street food this little place is recommended by Lonely Planet as a good spot to try bun cha (barbecued pork with rice vermicelli). I was there on a wild Hanoi Saturday night, quickly … Continue reading →

Knausgaard, Karl Ove. A Death in the Family. English translation by Don Bartlett. Harvill Secker, London 2012 (first published in Norwegian as Min Kamp, Forlaget, Oslo 2009. Retrieved as digital for Kindle. My attention was caught by a review of … Continue reading →

Mai Jia. Decoded. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2014 (translated from Chinese by Allen Lane; originally published in Chinese 2002). Downloaded as Hachette digital for Kindle. There’s a lot to like about this combination of modern Western fiction with … Continue reading →

Pinker, Steven. The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. Viking (Penguin), New York 2014. Hachette Digital retrieved for Kindle. NF;12/14. It’s hard to resist a chance to pick up useful hints about your … Continue reading →