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Aperol Spritz Terrazza, London

9/8/2016

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Words and pictures by Anna Delaney

​“The secret to making a fine aperol spritz is to add as little soda as possible...” Advice from the vibrant and cheeky Loris who delighted us in the art of making the perfect aperol spritz, Venetian style.


I remember visiting Venice a few years ago and being introduced to the aperol spritz - something to be enjoyed when the sun starts to set, the air begins to cool and the working day comes to an end. The sharp and sophisticated head to their local to drink and eat cicchetti or Venetian tapas, an indisputably classy way to do after-work drinks.

​Then three years ago everybody was talking about THE drink of the summer. Aperol! Have you not heard? The less medicinal and sweeter version of Campari! However, unlike other fads that have been sent to the graveyard (who remembers foam? soon to be joined by smashed avocados for brunch) I am pleased to announce that the blood orange concoction was no fleeting dalliance.

​It now even has a summer London residency; the
Aperol Spritz Terrazza, located on the rooftop at the Bird of Smithfield. Cosy and intimate, with a charming view of the city, it’s the perfect place for a date or refined after work drinks. Plus, it’s still obscure enough not to be plagued by those city types, #safefornow.


Like any cocktail worth its salty rim, this bar comes with a twist and is hosting a series of Aperol Spritz Socials. Collaborations with the Dalston Print School, The School of Life and Soho Radio have put on a range of enlightening and interactive workshops.

I tried out one of the “spritz suppers”; a culinary masterclass in making small plates to accompany our aperitifs. The team of Forza Win showed us how to rustle up some simple but tasty dishes; vibrant ripe yellow and orange tomatoes with red onions served on rustic bread, cannellini beans over foccacia with a dash of dill on top (basically the Italian version of beans on toast) and some tender pieces of lamb and salsa verde. Lots of sampling, lots of laughter and certainly a more entertaining and informative way of getting less drunk than usual, which is the Italian style, after all.

If you’re still in mourning over leaving the EU, head to this terrazza. It’s the closest you’ll get to La Dolce Vita this side of the pond.

How to make the perfect Aperol Spritz:
  1. Fill the glasses generously with cubed ice.
  2. Pour 3 parts of Prosecco over the ice.
  3. Pour 2 parts Aperol into each glass in a circular movement.
  4. Finish with a dash of Soda.
  5. Garnish with a slice of orange.
  6. Don sunglasses.
  7. Drink.

The Aperol Spritz Terrazza will be open until 31st August from Monday – Saturday until 10pm. More information can be found at AperolSpritzSocials.com
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The Shandy Pockets Guide to London

4/8/2016

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London Guide
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Beni, vidi, vici

15/2/2016

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Anna Delaney lets Benidorm work its charms 

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In Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel, the author recounts the story of Duc des Esseintes, who never went to England because he knew it would be disappointing. He feared the reality would not match his expectations. I had similar feelings about Benidorm, but not because I thought it might not live up to high expectations. Brit stag-dos on tap and high-rise uber-development? That's how they roll there, right? 

Leaving London on a damp, winter morning, I boarded an early flight to Alicante. I had only to gain, surely.
 A few hours later, with the good Duc very firmly in mind, I was being sensuously assaulted by the panorama and sun of the Southern Spanish coast. Tranquility in the midst of untainted nature. Was this really the Benidorm I thought I knew?

Protected by mountains, this stretch of the Costa Blanca is guaranteed warm weather all year long. There are only ten days of rain during the year, apparently, hence the Brit appeal and a microclimate that makes Benidorm a haven for outdoor activities. I headed off on a four-hour hike during my stay across the Sierra Halada Nature Park, a challenging clamber up and down the sprawling craggy mountains, topped with the satisfaction of overlooking the Mediterranean coastline at the summit.

If a hike seems a bit much, then Tao Biking is a less gruelling alternative but equally rewarding. The Tao Bike is an electric bicycle with manual options - so you can monitor how hard you want to work. Whizzing up the steep inclines was lots of fun and rewarded you (no matter how you ascended) with views of the six kilometre stretch from Levante Beach in the east to Poniente Beach in the west.

I’d also recommend taking a jeep tour in the nature reserve, which has you right in the heart of the rocks, greenery and loquat trees on the Sierra Cortina mountain range. On our bumpy jaunt, Denis, our guide, directed our attention to  Finestrat’s great mountain, the 'Puig Campana', famous for having a huge chunk missing, creating a “U” shape in the rock. Legend has it that an irate giant kicked the piece out of the mountain when a fisherman refused to give his daughter’s hand in marriage. The rock landed on the father, killed him, and left the giant and daughter free to marry. Well, that’s one way to do it.


Water sports are plentiful. Never having kayaked before, I faced the challenge with mild trepidation. But I needn’t have worried, help was at hand from the Marco Polo Kayaking team on the Benidorm bay and it turned out to be one of the best moments of the trip. A glorious memory was mine: kayaking towards the sunset, rolling across the water, which stretched out like a shining carpet. Take that, des Esseintes, with your weird opposite of FOMO. 

There’s nothing too demanding about the pace of mealtimes in Southern Spain. The Ulia Restaurant serves a damn good seafood paella and Casa de la Portuguesa oozes character, mostly due to its owners - a husband and wife team in their 70s who served up a spread of delicious tuna, tomatoes and rice. The fishermen of Benidorm became legendary throughout Europe during the 1600s and mastered the Arabic fishing technique of 'Almadraba', a way to catch tuna which they inherited from the Moors. The craft is no longer in practice, but in Benidorm, tuna is on every menu, distinctively tasty, and this town certainly won’t disappoint the pescetarian.

We also ventured into the cobbled streets of the old town to “Tapas Alley”, which is, unsurprisingly, abundant in tapas eateries and bustling with diners into the early hours of the morning. For those of you who thought that Benidorm tapas was egg and chips, many cosy haunts offer homely cuisine such as Bacalao al pil pil (cod), Jamón Ibérico (Iberian ham), and Berenjenas fritas con miel de nísperos (fried aubergines in honey). Away from the crowds, the Villa Venecia Boutique Hotel and Restaurant Belvedere not only serve up fine food, but spectacular rooftop views too. There’s always something very special overlooking the sea under moonlight, with a glass of cava in your hand. Always.


And what is it about European wine that it seems to glide down the throat so well, and leave you in peace the morning after, hangover free? In a bid to discover, I visited the local winery of Enrique Mendoza and learnt about the production of their wine, but also sampled generous quantities of their grape (hell yes). Its creator, Enrique, a jovial man of character, even joined us during our tasting, whilst regaling us with stories of his wines. Most of the wines are red, including the robust Santa Rosa (named after his mother). Yet another beautiful Benidorm moment was unexpectedly achieved, looking over the vineyard at dusk as we sipped the wine, an interlude that was only enhanced by the accompanying cheeses, meats and chocolates.

The lovely thing about Benidorm is that that lifeless lull, often prevalent in the winter in popular summer tourist towns, just doesn’t happen. The winter sun was in fact preferable to summer. No humidity. No mosquitos. No crowds. Nightlife was still happening, whether it's a quiet cocktail bar or crazy dancing - all can be found along the Levante beach. However, amid the views, the wine and the sun, it's the characters of Benidorm that really make the place special. It would be conceivable to imagine eye-rolling or resentfulness from the locals at the sight of a British tourist, but I met only sincere courtesy and a genuine welcome.

Benidorm, you surprised me. It’s time your reputation was set straight.


Benidorm Tourist Board - http://en.visitbenidorm.es 

MORE TRAVEL FEATURES
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Krewe de Who? 

21/2/2015

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Mardi Gras happened in New Orleans this week with a suitably reassuring level of predictability, weather that knocked last year's costume-rending Polar Vortex into a cocked hat and ample mountains of Chinese-made, coloured plastic beads for all, whether you showed your boobs or not (spoiler: no-one did). We ourselves did make the funny list of fake participants for your judging pleasure. See: THE TEN MARDI GRAS KREWES YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF. 
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How we used to blog

5/11/2014

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Apologies for Shandy Pockets radio silence, we've been working hard getting ready for our book launch tomorrow for New Orleans Historic Hotels, which, if you're in New Orleans, you should definitely come to!    

To whet your appetite, here's a short excerpt:

In the mid-19th century, peer-review websites were, of course, the stuff of a madman’s dreams, but luckily we have the published diaries of affluent travelers (surely the travel blogs of the day) to give us some insight as to how the older hotels and boarding establishments operated. Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, an English poet and writer, stayed at a hotel called The Verandah in 1849. She  wrote about it in a book which documents her travels in the United States between 1849 and 1850, a book which bears the unswervingly literal title of 'Travels Within the United States During 1849 and 1850'.
  Here’s what Lady Wortley had to report: “We are at a very splendid and comfortable hotel called The Verandah. It reminds me of a Parisian one. The St. Charles is the largest of all the hotels in New Orleans but it is much crowded, and we were recommended to try this, as it is quieter, and thus pleasanter for the ladies.”
  Lady W. goes on to praise the St. Charles at some length, implying that she actually would rather be staying there, then damns the Verandah with faint praise and ends with a complaint about the price: “The attendance at [this hotel] is admirable, and all the arrangements excellent. But the charges are much higher than usual in the States.”
  She then relates a rather tedious story about being harassed by “a little Swede” at dinner (someone from Sweden, not the root vegetable). In any case, she is by and large quite impressed by the place, especially the “airy apartments” as they saved her from “an early termination from these frying- pan temperatures.” She was being dramatic then, of course, but her early termination sadly did come just five years later, when she died of dysentery while traveling in the Ottoman Empire, an unfortunate case of out of the frying pan and onto the pyre.


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Run like the tube

16/9/2014

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If you've ever traveled in London and taken the tube from Leicester Square to Covent Garden, you'll know from bitter experience that you should have walked because of all the locals that will tell you that you should have walked because it's only one stop and it's actually quicker to walk, actually and YOU SHOULD HAVE WALKED YOU KNOW-NOTHING CRETIN. In short: you should have walked. Well, the next time anyone tells you that they got the tube from Mansion House to Canon Street, you can tell them with no small amount of smugness: "Oh, you should have sprinted with such lung-busting effort that you got to the station marginally slower than the tube but with just enough time to collapse through the doors in an exhausted heap YOU REALLY SHOULD HAVE SPRINTED." That said, this is still pretty cool.

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Hello, kitty

3/9/2014

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It’s a Sunday afternoon and my friend meets me at the Ratchatewi Sky Train stop. She wants to take me to this novelty café she’d heard about – “It’s meant to be super cute!” she tells me.

I’m not someone who is regularly swayed by public displays of wanton cuteness, but I was going to keep an open mind. As we got to the café, there were some clues as to what lay inside – plastic, manga-style cat models, walls full of child-like doodles and excited squeals coming from inside.

I peeked through the window, and even my jaded, seen-it-all, post-modern, end of times western eyes found it hard not to be completely charmed. Inside the café were these enchanting little creatures, running around, eating from bowls, preening themselves and generally being as adorable as you can imagine. I watched them play and eat and show off their multi-coloured coats and revel in their little toys and accessories. I couldn’t wait to get inside and among them, and a minute later, we were called in to be seated.

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As we walked through the dining room, they shifted and stirred, some of them curling their legs up, squirming around, making way for us to sit down. Some of them were close up to our table, some in far corners...basically everywhere you looked, there was yet another and another, each more outlandishly adorable than the last. It was hard to know where to look. They made the sweetest little noises as their food came out, and I just wanted to take them all home with me, pinch their cute little ears, have them nibble on my fingers, and watch them as they ate their kibble with heartbreaking delicacy.

It’s no wonder they’re so universally loved, with their endearingly aloof air, their loveably quirky behaviour and unknowable ways – awwww, wook at you, sidling up to the table….what’s that you’re trying to say to me? Awwwwww…I don’t know what you want, I REALLY DON’T, but you look as cute as hell trying to tell me. What is it you want, you adorable little creature, you? What is it? Whadda ya waaaaaant? Is it this toy? Is it? Do you want to play? Do you? What’s that? Oh, you want to take my order? Fair enough.
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Yes, there really should be more cafes full of Asian people. I could stay all day just watching them interact and play with cats. Oh yeah, there are cats in this café. I forgot to mention that. They were pretty cool too. Not sure how hygienic that can be, but they served decent coffee, I guess.

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Bed Scuppered Club

22/8/2014

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Shandy Pockets just arrived in Bangkok and rolled up to stay at their perennial base of operations, Aloft Hotel, which is on colourful Soi 11 in Sukhumvit. As well as being a solid Bangkok hotel, it always had the added bonus of looking over the weird space egg that was one of our favourite eating spots, Bed Supper Club. If Apple made restaurants, they would look like this, a none-more-white pod that somehow plopped down in the middle of Bangkok and started serving food and drink in between its avant-garde performance art shows.

Sadly, there's a giant iPod-shaped hole where BSC used to be, it having been demolished in our absence. This makes us sad as we were very much looking forward to eating squid-ink pasta and drinking bellinis while children in shark costumes danced their interpretation of Romeo and Juliet or whatever their next intra-meal show was going to be.

We've been here a number of times, and it's never been the same. For starters, it's all white exterior pervades the inside, too. Two white floors of dining space surround the central 'stage'. The dining spaces are large beds, and you recline to receive your food, so it kind of feels like brunch on the space shuttle. I can't remember there ever being a menu. Things just kind of arrived, delivered by models in utilitarian overalls like they've been forced to work in a space quarry for being too good looking.

As you reclined and ate and spilled almost everything that came along, situationist art happenings began to take place. Artists zip-lined from the ceiling, or silent dancers moved to an unheard beat or costumes were handed out to illustrate various ages of peace. On one occasion, my friend Ariel and I were handed lab coats and headphones as we entered, and we had to sit in absolute silence for about an hour, only being allowed to communicate via pen and paper or making patterns in the dry rice they'd put out. I know, I know, it sounds hipster-level pretentious, but it always felt like there was  a self-regarding humour to it and it was never annoying. If anything, it was worth watching the actual models who would turn up and be baffled by everything happening around them.

It was one of the first places I wrote about as a travel journalist, and never seemed to lose its creativity in the decade I went there. RIP, Bed Supper Club. I'm going to tell myself you just fired up your engines and took off.



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Chock and awe

19/6/2014

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Ever wonder JUST WHY some hotels leave chocolates on your pillow? US NEITHER, but glambot surrealist Eddie Izzard offers one theory as he wades his way through the US and stops at St Louis:
Post by Eddie Izzard.
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Love and Laughter Welcome Here

16/5/2014

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As we build up to our New Orleans special next week, we were thrilled to come across this example of perhaps the most defensive guest policy ever written.

The Historic Creole Lodge in the Marigny is relentlessly specific about what it is, and it doesn't want you as a guest. I mean, it wants you if you're not interested in 'luxuries' such as breakfast.

Their home page, which unfolds in increasingly hysterical language, makes this unmistakably clear (we'll use their bolding, underlining, excessive exclamation marks, etc): "Our area is NOT for modern enthusiasts and we ask you to not book here if you think we are a modern day bed and breakfast because we are NOT!!!!"

Erm, OK.

It seems that the establishment has had a continuous conveyorbelt of guests all expecting modern conveniences. Well, excuse us for turning up but The Creole Lodge has had it with you people and has decided to get mad about it. We'll allow them to state their case with their own brand of Southern charm:

"We welcome all people to our home but beware that you should read before you book a local stay because it may not be what you expect if you are status quo or have an obsessive compulsive disorder and we DO NOT WANT THOSE THOSE UNEDUCATED TRAVELERS STAYING HERE!   Here are 2 recent stories that we want to share with you about uneducated travelers:

1.  We had a teacher to stay here recently who was uneducated about the type of Inn we are and she was distraught because she had high class expectations.  So please read before you book! 

2.  We just had another person stay here who goes by Edward S. who was rude and arrogant and then preceded to degrade us on a travel site.  He "thought" he was staying at a "Bed and Breakfast" but arrived to "no breakfast"!  Needless to say his expectations were not properly aligned.
   Being an educated and informed reader and just reading this site would have saved him from being so disappointed that he wasn't going to get breakfast in bed.......lol  One really has to ask themselves "can anyone get a Bed and Breakfast for $49 a nite especially in New Orleans?"  If you answered yes to this question then do us and yourself a favor and don't even think about booking a stay here!  The owners of this establishment are military field grade officers and Ivy League graduates and we state clearly what type of place the Creole Inn is and the majority of our guests clearly state that also!  All we ask Edward S. is to educate yourself before you tell the public how disappointed you were.  We are here for guests who are nice and want a clean cheaper place to stay and not for arrogant people who have no respect for others."

Yes, 'teacher' (implication: free thinking Communist) and 'Edward S' (occupation unknown but certainly not a military field grade officer), with your unaligned, high class expectations, with your non-Ivy League "thoughts" and access to hotel review websites. FEEL THE WRATH OF THE CREOLE LODGE. We spell NITE however we want.

We especially like: 

The inference of "goes by", like Edward S is the criminal pseudonym of some gentleman con artist who travels the country undermining the hospitality industry.

The tab on the home page that is marked 'Buy Self Help Book' - the link goes nowhere so perhaps it's just a reminder that the owners wrote to themselves.

This glorious message: "If you require the stay of an aristocrat we ask that you kindly stay somewhere else and not with us." Yeah, you aristocrats. With your breakfasts.

The image at the bottom, which simply says: Love and Laughter Welcome Here.

Well, quite.

See it in its full glory.

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