I invite you to take a map of London and the surrounding area, stick a compass point in the centre of London and then draw a circle taking in everything in a one hundred mile radius of that point. Nowhere on that map, other than in Beaconsfield Road, St Albans, will you find a single Indian or Asian restaurant that can rival Asia (the pan asian dining room) at 2 Beaconsfield Road, St Albans, Hertforshire AL1 3RD. Their telephone number is 01727 800002. Why not telephone them and book a table? You will have the best culinary experience ever, this I promise.
In my view, the best Italian Restaurant in London is the San Carlo at: 2 Highgate High Street, London N6 5JL. The telephone number is 020 8340 5823. If you would like to see a map to the San Carlo you could go to the following website and request one: www.thefoodplace.co.uk. Alternatively, you could go to http://maps.google.co.uk/ and enter the postcode: N6 5JL
In my view the best place to have lunch in London is the Wallace Restaurant (formerly the Cafe Bagatelle) at The Wallace Collection in Manchester Square (a short way from the junction of Oxford Street and Baker Street) in Central London.
Not only is the food very good at this venue, but the restaurant itself is set within a beautiful atrium with palm trees and a fountain. What is more, when you have finished your meal, you can wander around the wonderful Galleries of the Wallace Collection. It is here that you will find the famous painting of The Laughing Cavalier. However, that is not the only treasure you will see at the Wallace Collection. There are several Rembrants for example. The collection of armaments is also a "must see" item. There are samarai swords, full suites of armour for horse and rider and a somewhat amazing cannon too.
The best Lebanese restaurant I have ever visited north of the Edgware Rd and Mayfair is the Jabal Lebanon restaurant in Luton. The address of the Jabal Lebanon Restaurant is 14 Wellington Road, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU1 2QH. The telephone number is 01582 411412.
There is also a sister restaurant in St Albans at 17 Heritage Close, the telephone number is 01727 812301. The Luton restaurant serves classic Lebanese Dishes. The St Albans Restaurant serves more modern dishes. The food at the Luton Restaurant is fabulous. However, the St Albans restaurant is probably unique in that the modern Lebanese cuisine served there is quite unlike the more classic menu available at most Lebanese Restaurants one comes across.
In my view the best Tapas Bar / restaurant in Greater London is La Bota at 31 Broadway Parade, Tottenham Lane, London N8 9DB. The telephone number of this palace of culinary delights is: 020 340 3082. London N8 is the postcode for Crouch End. This is a very nice part of London and there are a lot of very fine restaurants within a five minute walk of the Clock Tower, which is the at the start of Broadway Parade. Indeed, in the days when I lived in Highgate, I was in the habit of referring to Crouch End as "Restaurant Heaven". Aside from Upper Street in Islington and Shepheards Market in Mayfair, there can be few places in London which come close to Crouch End in providing such a wonderful selection of pleasant and relaxing places to eat.
If you visit La Bota, I would particularly recommend their Chorizo al Vino accompanied with their Berenjenas Gratinadas. Also, if you should happen to be eating there alone, you will be able to accompany your meal with a half bottle of some very nice Rioja. They have both red and white Rioja in half bottles.
La Bota can be a wonderful place to have lunch on a Saturday. Stroll in with a copy of the Guardian, sit yourself down, enjoy a fabulous meal and catch up with the week's news. I do not think there can be a better way of starting a Saturday afternoon than this!
Diwana's Restaurant is a good restaurant to visit at any time, for any reason. If you want a sit down meal, you can get a most excellent meal there at a very reasonable price. If you find yourself on the way to a picnic, and your route takes you anywhere within a five mile radius of Diwana's Restaurant, it is well worth making a detour to pick up a take-away portion of their fabulous Bhel Poori (with or without a compliment of samosa's and suchlike snack food). I have often purchased a Bhel Poori and samosas to take to a picnic. Bhel Poori is a snack which can be eaten hot or cold. It is fabulous for eating at picnics, Open Air Concerts, and suchlike. Indeed, apart from purchasing a bottle of wine, which one needs to purchase elsewhere, because Diwana's restaurant does not have a liquor licence, I have generally found that there is no need to take anything to a picnic, other than the wonderful snacks the Diwana Restaurant can provide.
If one is going to enjoy a sit down meal at Diwana's one can go there at any time. However, the very best time to go is at lunchtime, Monday to Friday, when for little more than £5, Diwana's lay on the very best "Eat as much as you can buffet" you are ever likely to find!
The Address of the Diwana restaurant is:
Diwana Bhel Poori House 121 Drummond Street, London, NW1 2HL Telephone: 0871 3328344
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As it happens I know of a number of very nice restaurants in Hove. There are at least three very fine restaurants on Church Road in the 200 metre stretch between Wilbury Road and Hove Villas. However, of all of these restaurants, I feel that the one which is by far the best is the Latino Tapas Bar and Pasta Restaurant at 36 Church Road, Hove. The telephone number is 01273 770 355. They have a very fine selection of Tapas and a nice choice of wines. In addition the owner and staff are warm and friendly, yet efficient. This is a very nice place to have one's lunch if one is visiting Hove for a day at the seaside. Hove itself is a wonderful place. It is much more peaceful, tranquil and relaxing than nearby Brighton. It is a wonderful place to stroll along the promenade or to laze on the beach and watch the world go by. However, should one suddenly find that one is in the mode for the entertainment and excitement that Brighton has to offer it is but a short stroll along the seafront.
Both Brighton and Hove are easily accessible from Central London. Each is a mere one hour's train journey out of Victoria Station.
I have found a number of restaurants, which I really like in Paris. I am going to detail five of them here. I have photographs for four of them. Regretably I do not have a photograph for the fifth restaurant.
If there is a photograph of a particular restaurant in the restaurant details that follow the restaurants name will act as a link to a photograph of that restaurant.
Five of my favourite restaurants in Paris are as follows: There is La Pied de Cochon, the restaurant at the Musee D'Orsay, the restaurant on the top floor of the Pompidou Centre, the restaurant in the middle of the largest lake in the Bois de Boulogne and a very nice, but extremely expensive restaurant in Rue Lamark in Montmatre.
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In my view the best hotel in London is Jury's hotel in South Kensington. The hotels address is: 109-113 Queen's Gate, London SW7 5LR. If you would like to see a map detailing the location of the hotel please view Google's mapping website at: http://maps.google.co.uk/ and enter the postcode: SW7 5LR
In my view the best hotel in Paris is L'Ermitage at 24 Rue Lamarck, just around the corner from the church of Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.
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In my view, the best Internet Cafe in the entire world is: The Espresso Internet Cafe, 27 Wellington Street, Luton LU1 2QH. Their telephone number is: 01582 722700. Their web address is http://www.espressointernetcafe.co.uk/.
Their website may not be the best in the world. However, if that is the case, I would suggest it is because the proprietors address their best energies to serving the needs of their customers at the Internet cafe, rather than to creating a pretty website. A website is essentially just an advertising tool. In reality the Espresso Cafe in Luton do not need to advertise. Their reputation among their existing customers is already enough to ensure that they will never be short of customers.
I say that this is the best Internet Cafe in the World. Obviously, just as with those ubiquitous advertisements for Carlsberg Lager, I need to add "probably". I have not visited every Internet Cafe in the world. I am not really qualified to state that this one is absolutely the best available. However, it is certainly the best Internet Cafe I have ever visited. As it happens, I have visited quite a few!
I have found that there is a great deal of variability between one Internet Cafe and another. I once visited a certain Internet Cafe in Bedford where I could not even get Hotmail to work. In the Espresso Cafe Luton, things are very different. Everything works! There are a large number of PCs, so there is sufficient capacity for everyone who wants to use the Cafe. I have never had to wait for a PC when I have visited, and I have visited a lot. Each PC comes complete with a full compliment of Microsoft Software, including Microsoft Office. When I have visited the Cafe I have always found everything I needed to accomplish whatever tasks I needed to accomplish. In fact, I have been so impressed with the place, I once told the proprietor that visiting his Internet Cafe was rather like having my very own office. There is a large amount of equipment and software, which I myself have never needed to use but which is obviously of great use to many of the Cafe's other customers. For example: I believe each PC comes complete with its own webcam and image-capture software. Any customers who need to send their photograph to their e-mail correspondents is able to do so.
I cannot remember if the PCs are Skype enabled. I believe that they are. I am certain I remember seeing and hearing a couple of computer based conversations. However, the use of Skype, if it is used, is not excessive. I have never experienced any distraction as a result of PC based conversations going on around me.
The most important thing about this Internet Cafe however is that they know the seven magic words: "We can help you with that Sir." This may seem a simple phrase to utter. However, it is not a phrase to be uttered lightly. It is certainly not a phrase to be uttered lightly in the field of Information Technology (IT). In order to be able to keep this implied promise: One must own, maintain and be able to use and configure, a large variety of equipment and software. One never knows what an experienced IT user might wish to do. In this sphere of business, if one wishes to take it seriously, one must be ready for anything. At the Espresso Cafe Luton the proprietors rise to that very demanding challenge.
The Espresso Internet Cafe in Luton is a small family business. The proprietors are only a very small band of people. Nevertheless, they rise to the very demanding challenges posed by trying to run this sort of business in the way that such a business really should be run. I would suggest, having worked in the software industry for more than 20 years, that this is an extremely demanding challenge to rise to. They manage it nevertheless, and they manage it very well.
When I first started using the Espresso Internet Cafe in Luton I had just moved to Bedford and I did not have access to IT facilities at home. Its a long story, but my PC was effectively in storage, my BT line had not yet been connected, I had not reapplied to an Internet Service provider and I was out of work. I had nowhere to pick up my e-mail correspondence, nowhere to work on my CV, no printer to print it, et cetera. For a while I became a very frequent visitor to the Espresso Cafe in Luton. It was a very nice home. The desks were comfortable, when I sat at a PC and logged on to hotmail my e-mail correspondence was there waiting for me, when I needed a cup of coffee I was able to order a very fine Americano, if I needed a loo there was one available for the Cafe's customers. The place became my home from home.
Recently a friend of mine asked if he could use my PC for a very demanding task. He needed to download about 160 MB of evaluation software and put it on CD to take home. He could not do this on his own PC because he did not have a broadband connection. I had to turn down his request because my CD drive does not have a write capacity. Instead I made it my business to ring around a few Internet Cafes and IT Service stores. Most of them could not or would not help me. In the end I telephoned the Espresso Internet Cafe in Luton. I explained my problem in some detail and, once again, they said the magic words: "We can help you with that Sir. This really is a most excellent place!"
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