Category Archives: Yum

Japanese feast

By Alice | Published: March 18, 2013

For my sister’s birthday we had a delicious feast of Japanese food cooked by Momo of I’m Japanese. It was so good! The bowls and things on the table are a mixture of her’s and my dad’s. The fish in miso, the inari, and the Japanese potato salad were my favourites.

I’ve never really thought about it until editing these pictures but for some reason at my dad’s house we are always short by one dining chair so, as one of the junior members of the family, I am always sat on a piano stool. Not that I mind at all! I like it as it means I get to sit at the head of the table. I think now I would find it really weird to be on a real chair at a family meal anyway. It just occurred to me that in all these years no extra chair has ever been bought. A funny family thing I guess :)

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birthdays

By Alice | Published: January 13, 2013

The other thing that I am behind on posting is pictures from mine and Simon’s birthdays. Both our birthdays are just before Christmas. Pictured here are visits to MAO, Ashmolean restaurant and Threads of Silk and Gold exhibition, cake made by my sister, birthday breakfast at home, and a meal at The Magdalen Arms. It is becoming traditional to go to The Magdalen Arms on my birthday! Previous visits here, here, and here.

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Christmas and New Year

By Alice | Published: January 13, 2013


I hope it is not too late to post these pictures! After a very relaxing Christmas it is taking quite a while to get back up to speed. I cook the turkey and vegetables, others in my family cook and bring the ham, the Christmas pudding, and the Christmas cake.


Gluten-free Christmas cake made by my aunt.


My Christmas sandwich, THE sandwich of the year. I look forward to this all year. It is ciabatta bread with every element of the Christmas meal inside.


Working with clay and paint with my sister (and Beep).


New Year’s Eve soba noodles with my dad as is traditional in Japan. Just Hungry has a good explanation and recipe of the tradition in this post on Year-End soba.


A friend’s decorations


New Year’s day was lovely and bright and sunny.

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Supersonic 2012

By Alice | Published: October 23, 2012


Time for our annual trip to Birmingham for Supersonic Festival!


It is held in the Custard Factory, an atmospheric former factory complex that is now an arts and media area.


This was an installation called Vinyl Rally.


Savage Pencil Q&A


Tea room and market place.


Also one of the fun parts is exploring Birmingham! As we have visited for a lot of years running we have seen quite a lot of places now so we are now doing some re-visiting of favourite places.


We had a lovely dinner at The Warehouse Cafe, they do interesting vegetarian and vegan food. After dark it is quite hidden as it is above a Friends of The Earth place and if the door is locked you have to ring a bell for them to come and let you in. If you want booze you bring your own, they have ginger beer and so on.


Despite having visited Birmingham often we had never made it over to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, this time we remedied that and found they have lots of interesting things including some blockbuster Pre-Raphaelite works.


The Canalside Cafe is another place that we have been to before. We had breakfast there. I like it because of the decor and it is in a good location for canal watching and if you are on the way to the Ikon Gallery. They use organic milk and eggs which is nice too.


Ikon Gallery is always worth a visit. This and the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery are both free.


Another day we went back to get a coffee in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery as we’d liked the look of the cafe, very Edwardian. The food didn’t look that special but the tile, the plants, and the artworks made a mighty fine place to have a coffee.


We also went to see On The Road at The Electric Cinema, as well as normal cinema seats they also have some sofas that you can book – very comfy and you can text the bar your order for drinks or snacks.


Topokki was new to us, really nice Korean food and fresh modern decor.


Another really fun festival!

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Tonkotsu Ramen, Photographers Gallery, Paralympic Athletics

By Alice | Published: September 16, 2012


A couple of weekends ago we headed into London to go to the Paralympics and arrived early so we could do a few other things in London first. I keep my ears open for new Japanese restaurants that are getting decent reviews, Tonkotsu was one such place. It is in Soho right around the corner from Koya the good udon place we visited earlier in the year. We both got the house ramen and shared a portion of gyoza, we thought both were good and would visit again.


I hadn’t been to the Photographers Gallery since before its renovation and we went to check it out as I had been tipped off by a friend about an exhibition/reading room of contemporary Japanese photobooks which had some really interesting stuff. My favourite was Miyoko Ihara – Misao the Big Mama and Fukumara the Cat a book of pictures of a Grandmother and her cat in the Japanese countryside.


Then on to the Olympic Park, the wildflower planting was so beautiful! The transport, staff, and general layout seemed so good. We were both really impressed. Then we went into the stadium to our seats…


The little figure in a dark skirt is Kate Middleton handing out medals.


This is just before the start of the controversial 200m when Pistorius came second. We were just in the inexpensive £20 seats but we could see all the events really well.


The whole experience was really great, it was so exciting to see the sports in person, and the whole thing was really well run. We didn’t get back to Oxford until the early hours but it was well worth it. I don’t think I will get into doing sports photography though! ;D

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