Room

Room is Jack's story. He's just turned five and lives with his mother in a single room. They are regularly visited by "Old Nick" at night and Jack has to sleep in the wardrobe while he's there. The reader is left to wonder who Nick is and why Jack's mother never takes her child outside, even though - for example - she is desperately in need of dental work. The impression I got was that "Ma", whose real name we never find out, was agoraphobic. It is only later in the book we realise that Jack's mother was abducted at nineteen, that she is now twenty-six and that Jack is her second child by Nick; her first, a daughter, was still born. Despite being related through the eyes of a very young boy and with only two characters in a limited environment, it is a testament to the author that I never once lost interest. The denouement really takes place once Jack and his mother are liberated from the room (and no - I'm not going to give away the details of their escape! You'll have to read the book...) and they both struggle to adapt to the outside world. There is an authorial nod to the intense media interest that follows their appearance but the emphasis is mostly psychological as Jack tries to reconcile himself to "outside", asking his mother "do you ever wish we were still in Room?" while his mother is desperate to put it all behind her and rebuild her life. This is a well thought out, intelligently and sensitively written novel that benefits from the first person narrative of an unusual protagonist whose naivety allows the author to explore difficult topics while maintaining the sympathy of the reader. 

Eat Well? Indeed I Did!

As a food critic, I'm probably not supposed to have favourites. I should be forever impartial, bestowing equal love on every cuisine, my palate an eternal home for taste in all its forms.

So here's my confession: I'm a sucker for a good Chinese! And my favourite one in north west London is the Eat Well in Eastcote. If you don't mind travelling out to zone 5, I think you'll find it well worth the trip.

One of the main reasons I love it there is because, for a set price, they will bring you exactly what you want - again and again. So it's an all-you-can-eat but there's no buffet; no food congealing under the heater while other people stick their noses in it. You get a menu and you choose what you want and they bring it - promptly and with a smile. And if you want it again, you order it again - at no extra cost.

Can you keep a secret?

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda follows Kavita, a poor woman who lives in a village outside Mumbai in India with her family. With boys far more desirable children than girls, she is distraught after her first baby - a daughter - is taken away from her and - the reader understands implicitly - killed. So when Kavita falls pregnant again, she prays for a boy. But when her second daughter is born, she is determined that she will not suffer the same fate. Kavita travels to Mumbai when Usha (meaning "dawn") is three days old and leaves her in an orphanage, hoping that she will have a better life. Finally, Kavita has a son, who is named Vijay (which means "victory") and her husband dotes on him, which she quietly resents.

Next the reader is introduced to Somer - a Californian paediatrician who married her college sweetheart, Krishnan, an Indian man whose family is wealthy enough that he could study in America. He and Somer have been inseparable since but are devestated when they learn that she is unable to have children. After much soul-searching, they decide to adopt a baby from India.

The parallels between Kavita and Somer are evident even at this early stage in the book: both feel that they are not liing up to society's expectations of them - Kavita by having female children; and Somer by being unable conceive at all. When Somer visits Mumbai, she feels even more isolated and uncomfortable, just as Kavita does when she moves to the city.

Usha - whose name is distorted to Asha (which means "hope" - a lovely word play by the author) also feels like an outsider as she grows up in California, knowing she is adopted and different from her parents.

Determined to follow a journalistic career instead of the medical one her parents want for her, Asha moves to Mumbai for a year to work on a media project and get to know the Indian side of her family better. While there, she starts to appreciate the depth of poverty that exists in the slums of Mumbai and the life her parents saved her from. Although unable to find her birth parents, she learns to be at peace with her background and upbringing.

I thoroughly enjoyed the colourful descriptions of life in Mumbai and Indian culture; never having been, it was fascinating to read about and really inspired an unexpected desire to see it for myself.

The parallels between the women's lives continues although now we see the link between Kavita and Asha instead of Somer as Kavita's mother and Asha's grandfather both die and the reader follows the funeral ceremonies and mourning period of the mother and daughter.

The importance of women to the family unit is emphasised throughout the book - both Jasu, Kavita's husband, and Krishnan are lost without their wives and the longed-for son Vijay, turns out to be a disappointment to both Jasu and Kavita.

I'm not going to give away the ending but it is happily unsensationalist, erring on the side of realism, and all the more moving for that.

Secret Daughter is published by Harper Collins and has sold rights in 22 countries and been a bestseller in USA, Canada, Norway, Israel & Poland. Learn more at http://shilpigowda.com/

Ooh La La Du Du!

Com Tam

La Du Du in north west London is a Vietnamese restaurant clearly proud of its roots. The menu informed me that La Du Du means papaya leaf in Vietnamese. And did you know, proclaims a sign on the wall, that Vietnam is the second largest exporter of coffee in the world? Frankly, I didn't - and I'm not sure I needed to but hey ho!

We chose a range of starters: the cha gio (or spring rolls) were deep fried, stuffed with crispy pork, prawns and lettuce. Quite delicious but a smidgeon too oily; I actually wiped mine on a napkin before eating - and it left a massive smear. The muc don thit - stuffed baby calamari - were less familiar but much more tasty, plump with filling that spilled generously when you cut into it. Finallly, to refresh the palate, our final sharing starter was summer rolls (goi cuon) - rice paper wraps enfolding pork, prawns, vermicelli, cucumber, lettuce, coriander and mint. These were light and genuinely reminiscent of summer, setting a high standard for the main course to follow.
From the wide range of entrees, my companion opted for the com tam - pan fried marinated pork chops served with shredded pork skin with roasted rice powder, steamed crabmeat cake with a fried egg on top. Oh and don't forget the mountain of rice that accompanied the dish. And yes it was as mountainous as it sounds. My companion actually considered asking for a doggy bag! While the pork was lovely and tender, the shredded pork skin was disturbingly gelatinous and floppy and we just didn't like it. The crab cake was a real treat though - meaty and fresh and beautifully seasoned. I had the com da ga gion - twice cooked marinated crispy skin chicken with tomato rice. Although this was a bit more usual shall we say, the portion was equally garguantuan and I only ate about half of it, which was a shame as it was delicious - like the best roast chicken you've ever had at a family dinner on a Friday night.

By this point, we were so stuffed that we couldn't even contemplate dessert but we agreed that La Du Du would be a great first date venue as the food provided enough talking points to keep even the most nervous suitor articulate, while the prices were reasonable and the restaurant itself sophisticated enough without being too formal.

Learn more or make a reservation via www.ladudu.com

Oh to be in England...

Oh to be in England, now that summer's here! And what could be more English than to sit in the sunshine of the gardens of one's country pile and enjoy a light meal.

Failing that, what could be better than sitting in the gardens of someone else's beautifully landscaped former home (now a hotel and restaurant) and do the same!

Goat's cheese salad

The Grim's Dyke Hotel in north west London has a fabulous history: it was the home of Sir William Gilbert (the Gilbert from Gilbert & Sullivan) until his untimely death trying to save someone else from drowning in the lake. Following this, the property won awards for its gardens, was a sanitorium and hospital, the site of secret World War II projects, became a film set for Hammer horror films, and the location for many well known TV shows up to the present. In 1996 it underwent a £3 million restoration and refurbishment under the supervision of English Heritage to create the delightful hotel and restaurant it is today. To sum it up, it's the venue little girls' wedding dreams are made of.

Summer Pudding

As you can see, when I visited, the day was absolutely glorious so my companion and I sat outside and opted for the lighter bar menu, although there is an accomplished restaurant on site as well. We shared the appetising but unattractive Thai fish cakes that were slightly spongy and generic, if I'm honest. Far better was the hunk of warm goat's cheese with tangy red onion relish that had been prepared to order on site. I would recommend the chef sticks with savoury dishes that he makes himself as the skill level is definitely there! This was rich, gooey, sweet and sharp all at once.

Cream Tea

Afterwards, I chose the summer pudding, which was beautifully juicy, stuffed full of strawberries, blueberries, redcurrants, raspberries, cranberries and pomegranate seeds. It was summer pudding, Jim, but not as we know it! I've never had one so rich and generous yet at the same time light and summery. It must rate among my top ten desserts ever.

My companion had the homemade scones with cream and jam. Crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, these scones had clearly benefitted from a great deal of TLC from an expert hand.

If you're at a loose end one afternoon on a lovely warm day and you fancy some reasonably priced posh nosh (the Summer Pudding was only £6.00, and the Goat's Cheese Salad was £9.50) in a beautiful, tranquil environment (which FYI has free wifi!) the Grim's Dyke Hotel is for you. It is truly a place that summer was made for.

For more information on the Grim's Dyke Hotel, visit http://www.grimsdyke.com/

Welcome to the Panopticon

In a style reminiscent of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, The Panopticon is the story of fifteen-year-old Anais. Told through her eyes and in her voice, it takes some getting used to - throughout the book, I found the Scottish dialect ("I dinnae ken") slightly distracting.

Which was a shame, because Anais' story is a compelling and disturbing one. Having spent her life moving between care homes and foster parents, it is indicative of the unconventional nature of her upbringing that her favourite foster parent to date was Teresa, a prostitute.

When Teresa dies, and Anais is accused of putting a policewoman in a coma, she finds herself in the last chance saloon where troubled young people are sent: the panopticon. Conceived by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century, a panopticon is described as "a circular prison with cells so constructed that the prisoners can be observed at all times" (see image below).

Jenni Fagan

The place itself, though, didn't seem to live up to its name. The teenage inmates - including a bestialist, a self-harmer and a drug addict - are free to come and go as they please - regularly hitting the town in the evenings -  and there are hidden areas, like the roof, where they go when they want to be sure they aren't being watched. Drugs are rife - the night nurse often comments that Anais' pupils look dilated - but no one in authority seems to do anything about it, and prostitution is seen simply as an easy means of supplementing pocket money - for the male residents as well as the female ones. In a true panopticon, this would surely be impossible. Or is the book a social commentary on the inadequacy and/or impotence of the care system in the UK? I can't tell.

Our "heroine" (double-entendre intended) seems permanently high or low on something, which increases her paranoia and she becomes increasingly convinced that she's being watched all the time, even when she's not within the care home. Perhaps the title refers to a mental panopticon as opposed to the physical one? Clearly, the reference was a little too oblique for me.

Panopticon design

After one of her friends is abducted by a stranger after getting into his car to earn money and another kill herself out of guilt, Anais really begins to unravel and it is this mental anguish rather than the gang rape she experiences that is her undoing. When she attacks a stranger, she gives the police exactly what they need to put her away for good.

By turns brutally graphic, at other times poetically insightful, Anais' story always feels tragic. She comes across as a good person let down by the system and one can't help but wonder how many children are out there in the same situation. I can't describe the novel as anything other than depressing and it was hard going plus I still don't really know what was meant by the panopticon. Nonetheless, it feels like an important book to read for anyone who wants to understand despair and it left me grateful that, like Bob Geldof said "Tonight, thank god, it's them instead of you".

Plaintain two ways with mojito

Viva la Revolucion!

When you think of Cuba, you think of 1950's American cars, beautiful sandy beaches, honeymoons and salsa dancing. Food doesn't really come into it. What is Cuban cuisine? Anyone?

At Cubana - which is right next to Waterloo train station in London - I had the chance to find out. Doubling up as a music venue, this cosy restaurant required other guests to stand up so that we could get to our table. As the syncopated rhythms played in this colourful environment, troubles seemed to melt away as we perused the menu.

Pincho de gamas y mango

From some typically Caribbean fare such as fried plaintain and rice and peas, one sensed that the chefs had, like us, struggled to identify what Cuban food actually is, as we also choose chicken breast in tempura batter.

Perhaps this is because, as I later learned from a friend, the economic situation of Cuba means that there is inconsistent produce availability: one week the shops and restaurants serve chicken; the next week, they have only pork. As a result, it's difficult to nail down a typical Cuban meal. Even the tourist venues are not immune. That is slowly changing as international relations improve but for now, it remains an issue.

Croquetas de boniato y chorizo

In Cubana, however, the politics seemed a world away. Sipping from our happy hour jug of mojito, we munched on plaintain two ways: crispy chips and sweetly caramelised fried plaintain drizzled with lime to give it a bit of bite. To follow, we sampled the barbecued skewer of pincho de gambas y mango: grilled prawn kebabs with green peppers and mango marinated in a sweet sauce of guava, ginger, honey and lime.

My favourite dish, however, was the croquetas de boniato y chorizo con salsa: fried sweet potato croquettes mixed with chorizo. These are simply unmissable and it was worth going just for them as far as I'm concerned!

Cubana

As the evening wore on, the bar area started to get busier and eventually, the tables are cleared to make way for the expert salsa dancing we amateurishly imitated. The ambience was friendly, though, and we enjoyed every moment.

For a fun evening of food, drink and dance under one roof - or even if the weather permits, in the outside area - this is a great place to try. I have noticed that Cubana frequently hosts events such as a charity fundraiser for Children of the Andes as well as a salsa carnival; it's a lively, colourful and friendly place so come on down and bring your friends!

Find out more at http://www.cubana.co.uk/