It is the latest addition to the Ottolenghi stable of eateries. Unlike the other cafe cum food emporia, Nopi is a proper sit down restaurant - with a clean white and brass colour scheme. The menu, as one would expect, offers a range of flavour rich dishes. I sampled quite a few (the benefit of eating with a large group) - the Japanese aubergine was very succulent, the slow cooked pig cheeks were great and the prawns with feta cheese was full of flavours. I also and the chocolate cake (flour less) and that was yum. I went there with friends who brought their kids, and the staff were super nice to them. The convenient location is likely to attract a steady stream of shoppers who fancy a decent bite eat.
Those of us London-centric folks easily forget there are great concert halls in other parts of the world. I remember as a young kid buying DG LPs with von Karajan on the front cover conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. So as my first visit to the city, a visit to the Philharmonie to listen to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra was a must. Ivan Fisher started the evening's concert with Haydn Symphony 88. A light and delightful work. As I'd expected, the acoustic of the hall was amazing - probably a good 2.5 second of reverberation - and much more generous than the Royal Festival Hall in London. The strings sounded sweet and the timpani came through clearly with definition. The audience was then treated to Béla Bartók's Seven Pieces for Choir and Chamber Orchestra: the Berlin Phil reduced in size occupying only half of the stage while the Netherlands Youth Choir took the other half. These young performers (all female) sang in Hungarian from memory - not easy at all - and rea...
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