Gourmet Burger Kitchen Review

Continuing my reviews of eating establishments, I visited Gourmet Burger Kitchen Gardner Street Brighton, who focus on nothing but burgers and fries!

Upon arrival with a friend I noted the fresh, modern interior and informal atmosphere of the restaurant. The ordering system worked much like that of a pub, with each table having a number and once a selection had been made from the menu, the order was placed at the counter and the food was brought to the table when it was ready.

Perusing through the menu I had difficulties in making a decision, with a large selection of beef, chicken, lamb, venison and vegetarian burgers available with every topping imaginable. In the end I chose the avocado and bacon beef burger and my friend went for the pesto burger. Having witnessed the size of what other people in the restaurant were eating, we decided to share a portion of fries!

When the burgers were placed before us by a friendly waiter I was staggered! They must have measured about fifteen centimetres (six inches) tall and were held together with a cocktail stick and packed with the usual toppings plus in mine, the more unusual avocado.

The taste of my burger was even better than its appearance – all the ingredients were fresh and appetising and the flavour of the avocado worked really well with the bacon. Unlike McDonalds or Burger King where burgers the thickness of a slice of ham are cooked until the flavour disappears, the meat at in my gourmet burger was thick and perfectly grilled - still slightly rare in the middle. There was so much of it that I really struggled to finish. I would suggest that though delicious, the fries are only necessary for those with a phenomenal appetite.

The price of the meal for two people came to around twenty quid, which sounds a lot as we were eating something usually sold cheaply to the masses. But these were not ordinary burgers – they were something a whole lot better – perhaps the word burger shouldn’t be used to describe something so tasty. Most people wouldn’t think twice about spending 20-30 quid each on a ‘proper’ meal so in my opinion Gourmet Burger Kitchen represents great value for money. Will I be going back? Certainly and soon.

Sushi Garden Review

As someone who thinks that food is one of life’s great privileges and a lifetime local resident, I have eaten out in a large number of restaurants in Brighton and surrounding Sussex. My aim is slowly build up a comprehensive guide of the best (and worst) places to eat.

This week I visited the Sushi Garden Preston Street Brighton with my wife, Michiko, and was immediately disappointed to find out I’d just missed out on the 4.99 special lunch menu which runs from 12-3pm (the time was 3:10).

Although this was my first visit I immediately recognised the evocative smell of fresh sushi that I had often encountered in Japan. The surroundings were pleasant with Japanese styling, and the waitresses even wore kimonos for an authentic feel.

Looking through the menu, I decided to opt for the beef yaki soba - Japanese style noodles fried with beef and vegetables in a light sauce. Michiko went for the bento box which included mixed vegetable & seafood tempura, four different types of sushi, rice and miso soup plus the usual accompanying pickles and sauces.

My food was very tasty, if a little sweet and the texture was good. What I tried of Michiko’s bento box was even better, with an almost perfect crunch to the tempura and well formed sushi. I also thought the service was very good as food came quickly, the waitresses were polite, looked like they didn’t hate their job and were not overbearing.

After we’d finished, the waitress brought us sliced orange along with the mandatory mints, which I thought was a nice touch and very refreshing. The price was reasonable with the total coming in at under thirty pounds including service. Would I go again? Definitely, but next time I’ll make sure I’m there before three!

V-Festival 2006 Review

The basic idea is that the festival is spread over two sites – one in Weston Park, Stafford the other in Hylands Park, Chelmsford and bands playing at one site on Saturday will play at the other on Sunday and vice versa.

This was my third visit to the V-Festival in Chelmsford having been previously in 2002 and 2003, but my first time camping and the omens did not look good, with the weather forecasts predicting rain throughout the weekend. Upon arrival with Ian, a close friend, my fears were realised, with the ground sodden with water and slippery mud everywhere. A gruelling walk from the blue car park to the red campsite didn’t help, but once the tent was pitched I managed begin to get into the festival mood. That was until I realised that it was going to cost a tenner just to find out what time the bands were playing (the organisers had cunningly omitted the line-up times from the official website) – last time it was a fiver!

Having decided to play it by ear I walked over to the Channel 4 stage, and there before me were – shock horror – Kula Shaker! What were they doing here? Had I entered a time warp and gone back ten years? No, I was not hallucinating; I really was witnessing a band that I thought had died a death years ago. Anyway, having gritted my teeth through a few songs it was off to the main stage. On came the Magic Numbers who were every bit as good as I had remembered from the Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

Next came Bloc Party, one of the highlights of the festival, who played an excellent energy charged set that really got the crowd going. The only minus point was the soaking I got from the cups of beer that flew through the air whenever the crowd got excited. I walked away happy with beer encrusted hair.

Keane followed Bloc Party but there was something lacking from the performance which I couldn’t quite put my finger on. They were good, but not great. I later found out that sadly, their lead singer, Tom Chaplin had cancelled the rest of the touring commitments as he was about to enter rehab for drink and drug abuse. I wish him all the best for a full recovery.

After Keane a rest was needed as we were fast approaching Radiohead time, and main reason for attending the festival. Having returned to the main stage early to ensure a good viewing position I had high hopes. They did not disappoint. Radiohead played what I would describe as their ‘greatest hits’ with the best from each of their albums from The Bends right through to Hail to the Thief. They finished with a superb rendition of Creep from their debut album, Pablo Honey. Thom Yorke was in fine voice and the band played with plenty of emotion; the crowd becoming more excited with every passing song. The visuals were also incredible with a backdrop similar in appearance to shattered glass showing the band from a multitude of angles.

I walked to my tent on the Saturday with a great feeling of satisfaction as I had already seen the band I came for and knew that I could have gone home now and it still would have been fantastic value for money – but I had another day to enjoy. Neither the huge queue to re-enter campsite or the bone dry chicken nuggets and fries or even the torrential downpour could darken my mood.

After managing a couple of hours sleep in my sleeping bag I awoke to what looked like a third-world refugee camp, with bleary-eyed festival goers emerging from their tightly packed tents under grey skies. After consuming a coffee and a poorly constructed hotdog I returned to the land of the living and went back to the festival arena. Would the Sunday be as good as the Saturday?

The first music of the day was courtesy of Richard Hawley, who played a very chilled out set, harking back to the past which I think even my dad would have enjoyed. Then came Hard-Fi, who were good for the songs that I knew, but I couldn’t appreciate them fully as I’m not a big fan. Later in the day I saw Paul Weller, who threw back the years with some classic tracks from Wild Wood and even an old one from The Jam, A Town Called Malice.

As evening set in, I watched the Beautiful South in the JJB Arena (basically a huge circus tent) who sounded great, and who really got the crowd going. Although they are not one of my favourite bands, their enthusiastic performance was one the highlights of the whole festival. After this came The Charlatans, who I love and have long wanted to see live – they were slightly disappointing, but not for the quality the music but for their selection of tracks. They should have played more of their early, and in my opinion, better tracks. I did not hear a single song from their self titled album, which is a personal favourite.

Another person who suffered from poor track selection was the uncompromising Morrissey, who headlined the Sunday. I felt that as he was playing a festival, he should have played more of his more well-known songs, and perhaps a few more tracks from his days in The Smiths. As it was, the majority of the tracks played were from his new album and not well known by large sections of the crowd. However, Morrissey’s onstage wit and persona more than made up for the disappointing unfamiliarity of the music, and the song performances were right on-key.

I returned home utterly exhausted, almost unable to move from all the walking and standing of the previous two days, but strangely I felt mentally refreshed as if the cobwebs of boredom and dullness experienced in day-to-day life had been blown away. Would I return next year? If the line-up is as strong as V2006, definitely.

Hypnosis Helps Out

Hypnotherapist Andrew Stratton explains the ins and outs of hypnotherapy and how it can help to maximise your life and rid you of old unwanted behaviours...

What is trance? It's something you experience all the time and is a totally natural state. Typical examples are when you're absorbed in a film or when you get that sense of flow while doing something active or creative.

How does hynotherapy work? Often, if we're directly told to change in a certain way, it can seem like a big challenge. By putting someone into trance, they will be more likely to accept helpful suggestions at a subconcious level and so easily adopt more helpful patterns of behaviour.

What problems can it solve? Just about anything. If you think you beed a psychological shift in perspective, then hypnosis can help. Most commonly, people use it to stop smoking, but it's popular to use it to overcome phobias and reduce anxiety. It's even possible to change things deep in the subconcious mind and cure eczema or lower blood pressure.

Will I be made to cluck like a chicken? Only if you want to! You're completely in control when being hypnotised and if something happens you don't agree with, alarm bells will sound and your concious mind will be alerted.

Top tips for Self-hypnosis

Scan your body

It can be quite nice to spend a few moments noticing the sensations from your feet on the floor right up to the top of your head. You can imagine stepping into a warm bath or simply having each muscle gently soothed. Another fun thing to do is move your awareness up your back, around your head and face, back down the front of your body, around the soles of your feet and then keep circling around like this.

Special place

With each out breath you take, imagine going down some steps or a lift towards a relaxing place. Many people choose a beach, but it can be anywhere that makes you feel really calm. Use all your senses to build up a complete impression of this safe place. Once you're able to calm down to a comfortable level, you might like to visualise a healing object floating towards you, feeling its powers all the more asd it gets closer. Finally, take hold of this object and allow your body to feel invigorated and alive.

For more information and free downloads, visit Andrew's website: Change in Mind

All About the Music

While tuning the radio for the football results one day I came across some French voices. This would not normally be unusual because being on the south coast as we often pick up crackly long range radio from over the water. What was strange about this was that it was coming through crystal clear on the FM channel. I later found out that it was being broadcast illegally from the home of a local man.

The story goes that upon travelling to France on holiday and falling in love this radio station (called FIP), he decided to share his love of the channel by downloading a stream from the internet and sharing it over the airwaves for the local population to enjoy! What a kind man…

So what is special about FIP? Well, apart from having no adverts and the only the occasional interruption from the French speaking newsreaders there is none of the inane chat that seems to ruin many British stations. The selection of music FIP plays is wide and often eclectic – imagine listening to the theme tune to Chariots of Fire, followed by some obscure world music, followed by a track from Nirvana! Difficult to imagine, but somehow it all seems to fit together and it works!

Throughout the day, the FIP listener is bombarded with a range that is so diverse it would be impossible to become bored! Importantly, for listeners looking for originality, I don’t recall ever hearing the same song played twice – a lesson that UK stations could certainly learn from.

If you would like listen to this station, you can do so over the internet. You will need a player to decode the stream – I’ve found Winamp works well – the software can be downloaded at www.winamp.com and once this is downloaded, if you go to file, play URL and paste in:- http://ogg.tv-radio.fr:1441/encoderfip.ogg you should soon be able to form your own opinion about FIP.

Au revoir.

Casino Advice

There are new casinos opening up all of the time – both brick & mortar and online, with the industry worth billions every year. People will spend money they can’t afford to lose on roulette, blackjack, poker and the like; chasing a dream that for most will never happen. Why do they do it? The answer is simple – greed and the thought of easy money.

So how can you make money from a casino? The answer is simple – either buy shares in a casino company or open your own one!

Useful Free Tools

As you will probably be aware, finding exactly what you want on the internet can often be a time-consuming and frustrating process. There are so many thousands of programmes out there that it difficult to know what’s good from what’s bad – the only way to know is to test the programs yourself and discover which ones work for you.

My aim is to cut through to the heart of the problem and provide you with the best the web has to offer. And more importantly, all of the programs I recommend are free to download and run. Here are my recommendations:

Spybot Search and Destroy – Spyware Removal

http://www.safer-networking.org/

Zone Alarm – Firewall

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp

Avast – Virus Killer

http://www.avast.com/

Cole 2K – Video and Audio Codecs

http://www.cole2k.net/

ExtractNow – File decompression software

http://www.extractnow.com/

Firefox – Internet browser

http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

India

Last year I travelled to Goa in India and found that my view of the world changed forever…

I found the experience of travelling in a country lacking so many of the creature comforts that we take for granted in the West to be very liberating. I quickly found I could buy whatever I wanted and do anything I could think of without having to worry about money. For example, a delicious meal including a drink would cost no more than the equivalent of £2.50 in rupees, motorbike hire was £2 a day and fresh fruit could be bought for a few pennies.

The scenery in Goa was fantastic – with palm trees and beautiful sandy beaches a short motorbike ride from my hotel. The colours were amazing with women often wearing garish clothes shown off by the bright sunshine. It would not be unusual to see a painted elephant parading around the town or a herd of goats to walk into the road while riding in a rickshaw.

One thing that really struck me about India was the poverty. Upon travelling to Karnataka (the state adjacent to Goa) by train, I was greeted by large numbers of beggars. The most upsetting thing was that many of them were children. It made me realise that whatever problems I faced in England, they were so insignificant in comparison. I don’t think anyone can understand the meaning of poverty until it stares them in the face in such a way, but I was glad for the experience as I believe it made me a stronger person.

One of my happiest memories was of a beach in the Northern part of Goa which I found by chance on motorbike. It was stunningly beautiful, almost completely deserted apart from a couple of beach cafés, and I spent the afternoon with my wife and a good friend reading, sipping on a soft drink and occasionally staring out to sea. Bliss. Whenever I am feeling stressed I just need to think of that place and it will bring calm…

Up the Albion

I’ve been a keen supporter of Brighton & Hove Albion since I was taken to my first match by my dad at the age of eight. We Lost. For some reason I decided to go again and eventually I became a fan for better or worse (usually worse!).

I’ve seen some very bad, bad, average and sometimes even some good games in my time - notably the 1-0 win over Bristol City at the Millennium Stadium for the Division 2 play-off final which was certainly a day to remember – if only for the atmosphere!

So how will the Albion fare this season? Well, hopefully better than the last – I only went to three games and all ended in defeat with some appalling defending and lacklustre displays in attack. On the upside we are doing much better this time around – we are undefeated as I speak and showed great promise in defeating a Gillingham team that boasted a defender with World Cup experience (albeit Trinidad and Tobago)!

Good old Sussex by the sea…

My Weight Loss

Since making a stupid agreement in March this year I immediately started to worry. Why? Because I had agreed to reduce my weight from 14 stone to 12.5 stone by the date of my wedding anniversary (19^th September). Failure would mean I would have to donate to charity the amount that a mug would have spent in same period if they were to pay monthly gym membership (£270).

Now for any normal person, this would seem like an easy task – simply watch what you eat and exercise three times a week. The problem is I’m not normal! I am Mr Lazy and the thought of exercise and cutting out my beloved fast food sent shivers down my spine…

Around the start of August, panic had set in – I was only just under 13.5 stone and the end date was fast approaching… there was only one thing to do – liposuction – damn, it costs more than the bet I’d lose. Then I had a thought…

All the advice out there tells us that we should consume 2500 calories a day if we are an average man and 2000 if we are a woman. Then I thought: ‘what is an average man or woman?’ I’m guessing this average person exercises 3 times a week and probably leads a healthy and active lifestyle. What do I do? I drive to work each morning, sit in front of a PC for 8 hours and then go back home and watch whatever happens to be on TV. Add to this the odd greasy takeaway and the occasional beer (or two!) and you have my life.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that I need nothing like 2500 calories to maintain my lifestyle and weight – more like 1500. So that’s where I’d been going wrong all these years! Armed with this new knowledge I decided to make a change – if I was to reduce my food intake to 1000 calories a day, my body would start to eat into my fat to maintain itself.

I decided the best way to reduce my calorie intake was not to go on one of those calorie controlled diet where the food tastes like crap and is unsatisfying – instead, I would simply either not eat lunch or dinner. It’s easy when you get used to it – you eat a healthy breakfast (I recommend a bowl of your favourite cereal) and just skip one of the other two ‘mandatory’ meals a day. In addition to this I drank plenty of water to keep the body hydrated and this also tricks the stomach into thinking it’s full. If the hunger became too great I would allow myself a piece of fruit.

The good thing about this ‘special’ diet is that at weekends it’s possible to revert back to normal eating habits including fast food (just don’t take the piss!). I started my regime a little over 2 weeks ago and have lost almost half a stone, and all I needed was a little will power! If I keep going at this rate I’ll easily win the bet and be able to stick two fingers up to my mates…

For an alternative view on things see Johan's Blog