On the European SOUL tour with Seal

It’s the fourth week of six on the road with Seal, and I haven’t posted a single blog entry here. Terrible, I know. I’ve had enough of a challenge getting the photos up to seal.com, but found a groove a couple of weeks or so ago and am now getting the photos from any given show online within 24 hours. Which doesn’t sound like much until you realize that immediately after each show, we get on the bus and drive to the next city, usually sleeping on the bus (kind of a half sleep as the bus rocks along), get into a new city at maybe 5, 6, 11am, then often go back to bed for a few more hours. If there’s another show that night, I’ll scramble to get the photos out before soundcheck ‘cause usually once that starts, I can’t get back onto the computer to finish an edit.

Anyway I’ve started uploading the same photos to my own gallery. You can always see the freshest at seal.com/tour/tour-gallery but as I can I’ll upload them to my own gallery on josephlinaschke.com (where you can see them larger than on seal.com).

I’ve uploaded the first five shows; Birmingham, Edinburgh, London, Oxford, and Manchester. We completed show 16 in Lucerne, Switzerland last night, and have just arrived in Carcassonne, France where we have two days off before the show here Tuesday night. 

Here’s a favorite from each of those five shows; click each one to open the complete gallery. 

Seal in Birmingham, EnglandSeal in Edinburgh, ScotlandSeal in London, EnglandSteve “Sid” Sidelnyk on drums in Oxford, EnglandSeal in Manchester, England

Acorn House

(catching up on posts so this is slightly out of sync and is from Saturday night in London)…

This restaurant came highly recommended (by the same friend who pointed me to flat white, so who am I to argue!), so for my last dinner in London, which was to be with friends who live there, I requested that we dine at Acorn House. It's walking distance from the King's Cross/St. Pancras train station, which happens to be the London base for the Eurostar to Paris.

Acorn House

Acorn House is unique in that the chef makes exceptional efforts to be 'green' about everything that comes in and out of his restaurant. I picked up his cookbook, and the forward is written by Jamie Oliver who goes as far as to call him the "original green chef". A big part of this is purchasing local, sustainable ingredients, and only buying what's in season. The menu is actually updated twice a day to accommodate!

My appetizer was a fantastic goat cheese on toast with a pistachio pesto (!) and a very sticky, very black, balsamic drizzle. It was absolutely divine, and so unfortunately I had to eat the whole thing. Hate it when that happens.

Goats cheese, toasted sour dough, wild garlic & pistachio pesto

Next up was a pan fried sea trout, which was good but honestly a little fishy. I didn't find the dish to be remarkable, although the presentation was very nice. My friend had the pork belly with feijoada which he really enjoyed, so perhaps I'd try that next time.

Pan fried sea trout, zucchini, lemon & ‘Cassini’ olive oil

Of course this was accompanied by a fine bottle of wine. Like the rest of the menu, they go to great lengths to find quality organic wines, but even here there was the 'next level' of organic; biodynamic [wiki link]. It's a holistic approach to growing the grapes, and since everything else about the evening was so green (yes I took the train to get there!), I decided that we had to try one of these special wines. I must say the wine was superb. I won't try to review the wine here as this meal was now several days ago and I didn't take any notes, but again it was absolutely delicious; enough so that I photographed the label so I could track it down later.

Domaine Granges de Mirabel Viognier, Coteaux de L'Ardeche, France

Overall a good meal and an enjoyable, learning experience. I'll likely go again, preferably in a different season just to see how the menu has changed.

Acorn House 69 Swinton Street London WC1X 9NT

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rating: 4 feet

verdict: I love the 'green-ness' of the place. It's a great idea who's time has come, and the quality of (most of) the food shows it. I'll be back in a different season, and I did buy the cookbook so look forward to trying a few things at home.

UPDATED: Wagamama in Heathrow Terminal 5!

I loved this funny little noodle place in London. Not so little anymore!

wagamama's menu

UPDATE: Unfortunately I'm less than impressed. Growth, it would appear, has not been good. The noodles were overcooked and mushy, the same for the veggies, and horribly disappointingly, the carrot juice with ginger -- one of my all-time favorites -- appeared to be watered down.

Wagamama London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 wagamama.com

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rating: 2 feet

verdict: The only reason it's getting a "2 feet" rating is that it used to be good. Perhaps it still is and I got unlucky. Otherwise, it's just a 1. Sad, sad, sad.

Wandering London

I used to live in London, so really didn't do the "tourist" thing on my free Saturday. Actually to be perfectly honest, I slept 'till noon, did some email then slept again 'till 2:30. It felt good to finally catch up on my sleep though!

So just for giggles, here's two photos from the short time I did get out that Saturday before dinner.

London Cab

Cute store selling Banksy images. Too bad they weren't open.

flat white

A short post for now. I'm in Paris, very tired after a dinner of lamb burger and absinthe, and will catch up on blogs tomorrow. However I'll post this one as I have the photos ready to go.

Back in London, a friend recommended a café called "flat white", which was quite close to my hotel. Claimed it had the best coffee in town. Boy, he wasn't kidding.

You can order the standard fare of cappuccino's, latte's and the like, but of course the top item on the menu is the flat white. There's a "definition" on the wall, which is followed by a lat/long reading (someone later told me that Flat White is also a place in New Zealand), and the definition on the wall reads an antipodean style coffee which is served as a strong shot of espresso served in a small cup with textured milk; a damn good strong coffee. Not quite sure what "textured" milk is, but the resulting drink is pure velvet. Absolutely delicious, sweet on the tongue and entirely too drinkable. It doesn't take much to put away a cup of flat white.

a flat white…

at flat white

flat white 17 Berwick Street Soho, London www.flat-white.co.uk +44 20-7734-0370

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rating: 5 feet

verdict: Perfect coffee. What else can you ask for?