Saturday afternoon at Hoxton Square

I had lunch at Macondo, a little cafe-restaurant facing Hoxton Square, East London. I had came here previously a couple of times (see, for example, 1st May 2005). Everytime I come here, my impression of this place improves. What's good about this place is three little nice dishes of my own choice from the menu of the day for "only" (by London standards) 6.95 quid. The basic thrust of the menu at this place is Spanish (including Latin Americans). The choices include tortillas (Spanish omelettes), nicely cooked vegetables, and other specialties of the day. Today I chose a broccoli tortilla (which is tasty unexpectedly as I'd never had broccolis inside an omelette), baked asparagus with cheese, and Bolivian prawn ceviche.

This thing called ceviche is a revelation. Prawn, chopped tomatoes and onions in lemon juice, olive oil, and coriander. Now I want to try proper Bolivian cuisine.

Macondo also boasts its fresh juice. Unfortunately, mixed berry juice (which was fantastic the last time I came here) ran out today. So I ordered banana smoothie (which was fantastic as well the last time I came here). But unfortunaly again ice cubes ran out. So mine was warm... (A few minutes later a guy carrying two large bags of ice cubes came to the cafe.)

But ceviche makes up for all this.

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Then I visited Whitecube, a contemporary art gallery facing Hoxton Square. This month's featured artist is Anselm Kiefer, who, of course, I didn't know anything about.

You can learn what is in display by reading the Whitecube's description (Look for the paragraph beginning with "Part II opens on 2 August with ...").

The installations clearly indicate something couldn't be achieved: derelict concrete staircase stuck on the wall leading to nowhere, scattered pieces of shattered glass, a lead boat looking like running aground against rumps of concrete...

All the same, I simply felt they looked beautiful, very beautifully "organised".

I saw a few people having a five-second look and quickly leaving the place as if they didn't understand anything. I guess these people didn't go through severe setbacks in the past or everything for them currently is going well.