A craze for Maze

I started this blog on my birthday back in February, and on Friday night I got to finally enjoy a belated birthday present from my wife - dinner at Maze restaurant in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair.

We took the opportunity to make a really decadent night of it - the kids were packed off for a sleepover at their Aunty's house, while we arranged pre-dinner drinks with friends and booked a 5 star hotel (cheaply!) on lastminute.com. We were most definitely having a night out!


Braving the torrential April showers on the way, we enjoyed some quality cocktails and 80s tunes at Mahiki with friends, something we haven't done in quite a while.

The cocktails at Mahiki

We had to wrench ourselves away from what was obviously going to be a good night out, for what would prove to be an even better one at Maze.

The restaurant is in Grosvenor Square in the heart of Mayfair, and from the minute we walked in we were given top class service from a thoroughly competent and professional team.

We enjoyed a Gin Martini each, then with guidance from our knowledgeable and cheerful waitress I chose the 7 course tasting menu, while my wife opted for 4 dishes from the a la carte menu. Before you consider us complete and utter gluttons, a word of explanation: Maze is a "tasting" restaurant which means that all the portions are small yet perfectly formed.*

*Just like my ears, as I was reliably informed last month by a German artist in a pub in Herne Hill. Do you honestly think I could make up a detail like that?


Our Sommelier, Jacques, helped us select "Flights" of wine to accompany our meal. If you don't know what that means (we didn't!), a "Flight" of wine is 3 x 125ml glasses selected to match your food. We decided that this was the most appropriate strategy, since we were having such a variety of food.


Jacques international background* and polished training, combined with his broad knowledge and open-minded approach to selecting the wines, meant that we tried several wine varieties that we would never have considered ourselves.

*He told us he has a French father & South African mother, to which my wife blurted out (much to her own amusement) "You must be confused!"


We then learnt that Jacques had been due to travel to New Zealand at the end of the year, to work at a South Otago winemaker. Unfortunately the business had recently suffered badly from the global downturn, and his trip had been cancelled even though he had just received his work visa. Through our own network of contacts, we're hoping we might be able to help him find another job in the NZ wine industry - I have his email address, so if anyone thinks they can help please get in touch!


Anyway, back to the dinner. To avoid turning this into foodie porn, I won't go into the exact detail (just have a look at the Maze website for the full descriptions). Suffice it to say that we were suitably astonished, delighted and thoroughly satisfied by the food and wine that we were served.


After the meal, I was even given a delicious portion of chocolate cake with a candle for my birthday to round the evening off, courtesy of our ever attentive waitress . Shortly afterwards as we wandered back to our hotel, we realised that we had been there for 4 hours!


I can thoroughly recommend Maze to anyone looking for a top class restaurant or a culinary adventure. It manages to deliver fantastic wine, food and service without being snobby or pretentious.


Now, I just have to convince my wife to take me to Maze Grill for my next birthday ...

In a venue far, far away ...

Obi-Wan Kenobi meets his nemesis: a heavy-breathing, failed student dressed in black

It was always going to be a struggle to choose a title for this post that wasn't straight out of Star Wars, so I've applied my usual standard of determination and given in immediately.

On Good Friday, a month of waiting was over for my 7 year-old son Duncan as I took him to the O2 Arena for his main birthday present: Star Wars - A Musical Journey. My wife would argue that I was equally excited, which is preposterous. I was definitely more excited.

This event was a celebration of John Williams music for the Star Wars films, accompanied by film excerpts and narration by one of the original actors.

Actually Duncan was almost as excited just getting there. Our journey was a long and tricky one, thanks to engineering works that ruled out going by train. Instead, we drove into London and were able to park very near Waterloo Pier, for our boat trip to the O2 Arena at Greenwich.

First though, there was time for a walk around a farmers market where Duncan had the world's largest hotdog (followed by an ice cream of course), and a few coins for the musical statues entertaining the tourists by the London Eye.

Then it was time for the boat trip on the O2 Express, run by Thames Clippers. This is a direct service from Waterloo Millenium Pier to the O2 Arena, which takes approximately 25-30 minutes. Duncan was literally bouncing up and down with excitement, and we enjoyed the sights as we cruised down the Thames. After we cleared the last of the bridges, the boat (a high-speed catamaran) was able to get up to full cruising speed, which got interesting as a few swells got us pitching up and down quite heavily.

All of a sudden it was there - the O2 Arena appeared as we rounded a bend in the river, all lit up and displaying the Star Wars title on flashing billboards. Within minutes we had docked, and we walked up the ramp towards the venue.

Immediately we knew we were amongst some truly dedicated Star Wars fans. Apart from the thousands of kids wearing the off-the-shelf Star Wars outfits, there were mainly 30-40 year old men (and some women) milling around dressed as their favourite Star Wars characters*.

*These are tailored and often expensive - apparently a deluxe Stormtrooper outfit will set you back £1800!

The most dedicated of these fans hire themselves out to appear at events just like this one. Squads of Stormtroopers and Jedi Knights with glowing lightsabres posed for photos, while Darth Vader and R2-D2 also mingled in the crowd. Duncan was too scared to pose with any of them, except for R2-D2. In his mind, these characters were all very real - so to have a 6 foot Storm Trooper looming over you is actually quite a scary experience. Especially when they sound like them too with "Com-Link" sound effects through their helmets!

We raced through the exhibition of props and costumes from the films, as Duncan desperately wanted to get to our seats. We paused only to buy the programme and a mini-light sabre as we found our way to the upper tier, to the left of the main stage.

The seating is steep and compact, which offers clear views but is somewhat precarious when getting past other people to your seats. Doubly so, when you find your path blocked by a gentleman and his lady friend whom I can only describe as very generously proportioned. We did our best impressions of tight-rope walkers as we teetered between a wall of rounded flesh straining under "Jedi vs Sith" T-shirts, and a steep plunge onto the Arena floor.

The show began 15 minutes late - finally silencing Duncan's impatient demands for the show to start. Massive curtains separated to floor and ceiling revealing the Royal Philarmonic Orchestra as they launched into the main Star Wars theme, while the main title sequence was displayed on an enormous 100 foot video wall behind them.

The sound quality and acoustics were superb, and the crowd absolutely loved it. Anthony Daniels (who played C3-PO in all 6 Star Wars films) took to the stage as narrator, and provided the necessary links between the musical pieces.

Star Wars fans are sharply divided on the merits of Episodes 1-3 (the prequel trilogy), which came out between 1999-2005. It has the same ingredients as the original trilogy (Episodes 4-6, released 1977-1983) such as awesome special effects, a basic theme of good vs evil and execrably wooden dialogue.

However the original trilogy benefited from excellent direction and astute casting, that exceeded the sum of its parts. Despite the presence of good actors like Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman in the prequel trilogy, these failed to capture the public imagination in the same way.

Primarily this was because it was a vanity project for George Lucas. Despite him claiming to give the fans what they wanted, he chose to direct all 3 films himself and the special effects dominated nearly every scene. It must have been near impossible for the actors to provide any depth or meaning, when they were acting against blue screens with imaginary characters or props.

Anyway, I digress - back to the show. Anthony Daniels did his best to give the prequel trilogy some importance as various themes were explored, but it was only after the 30 minute intermission (wayyyyyy too long) that things really got going as the original trilogy came to life again.

Huge cheers erupted as the original heroes were mentioned in turn by Daniels, and some of the best music was then played out to the most exciting film excerpts. Lasers flickered across the arena in time to the music as the show built to its climax. The music from the final scene of Episode 4 (where the heroes are awarded medals by Princess Leia) concluded the show to rapturous applause.

Duncan was exhausted both from the excitement of the whole day (not to mention being awake hours past his usual bedtime), so as we made our way home he fell asleep in the car. Once we were home I carried him up to bed (no easy task, he's a big lad!) . As I tucked him in, he opened one eyelid slightly and mumbled: "Thank you for the best birthday present ever ..."

Even Darth Vader's bottom lip would have wobbled at that.

Never mind the Bankers

By previous standards, yesterday's G20 protest/riot (delete as applicable) was a pale shadow of the riots of yesteryear.

Despite the best efforts of a hard core that laid waste to the Threadneedle St office of RBS (mainly owned by us tax-payers now, so that's a fantastic own goal there fellas), and the tragic death of one protestor who was within the police cordon (apparently from natural causes), this was largely a noisy but peaceful affair.

Various descriptions abounded on the digital media outlets:

".. the atmosphere seems that of a slightly aggressive folk festival .."

".. looking out my window, it appears that the hair-dye ratio in Bishopsgate has just increased .."

The composition of the crowd at Bank seemed to be equal parts protestor, curious on-looker and media. Indeed the smashing of the windows at the RBS office shows just a handful of rioters enacting the damage, while a semi-circle of media filmed it from every possible angle.

Twitterers from every major media outlet circulated in the crowd providing real-time updates, while for every upraised fist of a chanting protestor there were 2 or 3 more holding up a mobile phone or digital camera.

For me, the 21st century British version of public protest and our attitude to it was caught neatly in microcosm yesterday when Russell Brand, the famous sex addict and abusive phone-caller, emerged through the crowd next to me.

Here we were in the midst of a major public demonstration about the economy and our livelihoods when up strolls this B-list celebrity, brimming with self-importance. Immediately a scrum of about 100 people (media and onlookers) formed around him as he made his way towards the main crowd gathered outside the Bank of England.

His progress was stop-start, as he paused for photos with young women who flocked around him, before he veered off for a bizarre interlude in an Austin Reed store. He re-appeared shortly after, soaking up the attention before disappearing from my view.

Afterwards I read that he had come "to learn" and that he found the whole thing "beautiful". I think this was the perfect illustration of the 21st Century cult of celebrity, where their talent is secondary to their ability to sell media coverage, no matter how vacuous or shallow the utterings of that "celeb" is. An illustration thrown sharply into relief against the backdrop of the biggest economic crisis for decades.

Getting back onto topic, the scale of the protest was far lower than expected given the scale of the crisis that we are facing. The serious message of the majority of protestors was made into a farce by a small group of idiots attacking an institution now owned by the taxpayers. Although being anarchists, surely they are above taxation or any other form of representative government themselves, right?

It was also slightly comical to see how many of us had "dressed down" following company advice in a clearly visible City worker dressed down uniform - blue jeans, polo shirts etc. With some of the protestors dressing up in pinstripe suits and bowler hats too, we'd reached the completely surreal situation of the (nominally) opposing groups attempting to dress like each other (and failing utterly)!

To paraphrase those anarchist cheerleaders The Sex Pistols: Never mind the Bankers*.

*If you can ignore the hypocrisy of the capitalist rewards being so transparently enjoyed by their frontman Johnny Rotten in the last few years :-)