Cha Cha Moon: Its cheap but not very good

How we wanted to love Cha Cha Moon, the Chinese fast food emporium created by Alan Yau of Wagamama fame. You see, we love Wagamama. Perhaps too much. We eat there all the time and have for years. We recommend Wagamama to everyone who comes to London as the best fast, inexpensive meal in town but after the 1000th Chicken Chilli Ramen, one starts to wonder if there is some other place to eat that is cheap, cheerful and good.

Alas, Cha Cha Moon is not that place. Despite being in a fantastic location near Carnaby Street (with another outlet opening at Whiteleys Shopping Center in Bayswater this weekend), despite the hip décor, and despite being really cheap with main courses ranging from £3.40 to £5.50, the food at this Cha Cha Moon is just not very good. We had three different main courses with noodles: chicken, crispy duck and seafood. As Eloise, who is always a good eater, picked politely but unenthusiastically at her chicken, we were in perfect agreement that everything was OK but not great. And such is the demand for cheap eats in London that despite being mediocre, unless you get to ‘no reservations’ Cha Cha Moon early, you’ll be waiting a long time for a seat.

So it’s back to Wagamama for us. When we want Chinese, we'll head for one of the twelve Ping Pong Dim Sum outlets instead. Its not so cheap but oh, so much better. For cheap and cheerful Indian, we head for Marsala Zone. Anyone with suggestions on how to eat well in this town for under a ‘tenner’, we would love to hear from you.

Cha Cha Moon
15 – 21 Ganton Street
London W1F 9BN
Tel:0207 297 9800

Opening this weekend at

Whiteleys
151 Queensway

Photo Credit: Anelia Jetsetter on Flickr

Americans Go Free at Madame Tussauds

Quick. What’s the most over priced tourist attraction in London. For our money, it’s Madame Tussauds. At £22.50/$32.52 to see wax representations of Posh and Becks, we reckon there are about a thousand better things to do in this fabulous city with your time and money. But tomorrow, any American in London with “appropriate documentation” can get in to Madame Tussauds for free to see the new wax representation of our 44th president. And at that price, it’s a bargain.

As Madame Tussauds describes the experience:

“Standing in a recreation of the legendary Oval Office, President Obama is in a typical informal and relaxed pose, smiling with arms casually folded, dressed in a tailored suit.

Stepping right into the heart of the White House you can sit behind the iconic Resolute desk used by Presidents since 1880 or pace the ‘American Eagle’ monikered carpet and experience what it’s like to be a World Leader.”

Tomorrow, before the TV coverage commences, we’re grabbing our passport (not our wallet) and heading for Madame Tussauds. Right on, Washington!

There's No Such Thing as a Free Flight

Everyone knows that there is no such thing as a free lunch. I know this. I've heard it from my parents and told it to my children. So why did I waste an hour of my time chasing an illusion?

I was supposed to be working on an article for my church magazine but found it hard going and decided to reward myself with a bit of distracting email. In my inbox was this weeks Top 20 travel deals from Travelzoo where the editors comb hundreds of companies for their best sales and offers. It’s a bit of middle class travel porn, fun to look at but I’ve never been tempted to do more than that.

Then one of those offers from Ryanair caught my eye

£0.02 return flights to Europe including ALL taxes.

Wow, I wonder where you can go? Maybe I’ll surprise the editor with a quick trip somewhere if it really is only £0.02 per round trip flight.

I do lots of research and spend lots of time doing it. Then I decide I will only use the airport close to our home in southwest London because the expense and hassle of getting to the northern airports ruins the fun and savings. This pretty much limits our options to Ireland. So I find some free flights to Dublin, spend lots of time filling out stuff and declining the extra charges for priority boarding, luggage and travel insurance. I confirm that I am a citizen of an EU country and have the docs to prove it (you can’t check in online unless you are, otherwise, there is a charge for airport check-in). I provide all my credit card details and then, Ryanair hits me up with £16.04 of handling charges for using a credit or debit card – or any card for that matter.

OK, I've had enough. I exit the Ryanair site having successfully wasted an hour and not bought any free tickets which really cost £16.04.

You were right Dad, about a lot of stuff and especially about those lunches.

Image courtesy of the San Diego Zoo website.

Warwick Castle - History Lite at a Price

Recently, the editor invited me to tag along on a business trip to Warwickshire. Boasting two of Britain’s leading tourist attractions, Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick Castle and tons of other historic sites, there was plenty to keep me busy.

On day one, I decided to see what Merlin Entertainment Group (owners of Legoland and Madame Tussaud’s) had done to Warwick Castle, Britain’s most magnificent medieval fortress. I had last been there 15 years ago, travelling with three small boys who had found the dungeons and torture chambers very inspiring. They purchased plastic swords; beat the living day lights out of each other while the adults ignored them and soaked up the 1,000 years of English heritage. I don’t remember it being terribly expensive.

The first indication that things had changed came when I entered the courtyard where you pay for tickets. The place had the look and feel of the Magic Kingdom with a lot of focus on line management. On the day I was there it was mid week and pissing down rain so that the control barriers weren’t really necessary. Still, when they asked me to shell out £17.95 for an Adult Walkup ticket ( discounts are available if you book online), I was not amused. What on earth can you do to a castle that can justify such a price?

Well, you can turn it into a wax work exhibition. Warwick Castle has two – the Kingmaker which tells the story of Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, who helped depose King Henry VI in favour of King Edward IV and a Royal Weekend Party which recreates the time when Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick would entertain the likes of Edward, Prince of Wales and Lady Randolph Churchill. Following on the wax theme, you can also have your picture taken with a wax model of Queen Elizabeth for £9 which, I have to say, was absolutely hilarious.

For £17.95 you also get a tour of the Ghost Tower where Sir Fulke Greville was brutally murdered. The tour includes a cast of ghostly actors whose remit is to scare the living daylights out of you and they are pretty good at it. One American lady on my tour burst into tears and assaulted her husband for forcing her into the tower “when you know how much I hate these things”. She wailed all the way to the finish line.

For £17.95 you also get special exhibitions of jousting, birds of prey and demonstrations of siege machines. Conveniently located throughout the site are opportunities to purchase the dear little plastic swords and weapons which are such a hit with the kiddies.

Arguably, the least commercial thing you can do at Warwick is to take the ramparts walk. The best thing about it is that anyone with “mobility issues”, “heart conditions”, “fear of heights” and the like is discouraged to attempt this daring athletic feat which involves climbing some steep narrow stairs. This conveniently eliminates both the tour groups of retirees and the families with small children leaving a much smaller subset of visitors to enjoy the experience. The views over the Warwickshire countryside are terrific.

So what’s the verdict on Warwick Castle? Frankly, it was disappointing. If you don’t mind spending £17.95 and you are not turned off by history lite, I suppose you could do worse things with both your time and your money. But for my money, don’t bother. A much better bet, if you do find yourself in Warwick, is to head for the Collegiate Church of St Mary, the historic church of the Earls of Warwick containing the magnificent Beauchamp Chapel, often described as the most important medieval chapel in England. The Beauchamp Chapel, which was built between 1442 and 1460 for the then phenomenal cost of £2,481 contains a fabulous gilded bronze effigy of Richard Beauchamp, the man who presided over the trial and burning at the stake of Joan of Arc. Of course they don’t charge for entry.

Hey, Burger TV - We're Not That Stupid

I know that many NoCrowds readers are expatriates and when I read in Friday’s newspaper about the launch of a new television channel called Burger TV targeted at expatriate Americans, I paid attention. According to Patrick Brunet, a director of the channel, “When you are an American living outside your country you miss two things: your television shows and a good burger.” Mr Brunet, you cannot be serious.

Ask any American expatriate what they miss, and it won’t be that. Nine times out of ten the response will be, ‘I miss my parents or brother and sisters or children’, sometimes we reminisce about places, landscapes, or times of the year, but in the 15+ years that I have lived ‘outside my country’, I have never once heard anyone say they missed “homely US dramas, game shows and news programmes.” For that matter, I rarely hear anyone say they miss a good burger. Food can loom large in one’s memories of home but a good burger, Mr. Brunet, is not my heart’s desire. More to the point, I’m not as stupid as you think, nor is any expatriate I have ever met.

Burger TV’s attempt to sell rehashed populist rubbish to overseas Americans deserves to fail and I’d put good money on the fact that it will. But I am really intrigued with the whole idea of national longings, what are the things we miss when we travel or live abroad and why? I’d love to begin a discussion of this topic and invite every reader to send me (either via email or the comments section) a description of the two things you miss when you are living or travelling outside your country. I would love to publish this material which I know will be much, much more interesting than anything on Burger TV.

And what do I miss most? I miss driving up to our farm in North Carolina under the long line of now grown live oaks, which my mother planted when I was a child. And not a day goes by that I don't miss eastern Carolina barbeque.

Harrods - A Timeless Tourist Trap

I’ve said it before, I don’t like Harrods anymore. I don’t like the current owner who displays a Madame Tussaud waxwork of himself in the Man’s Shop. I don’t like his creepy security guards who enforce the store’s dress code and tell you how to carry your handbag. I don’t like the tasteless Diana and Dodi Memorial on the lower ground floor. With that said, I was in the neighbourhood yesterday and thought it would be fun to drop in on Harrod’s exhibition “Timeless Luxury”, a celebration of the backstories of the world’s most iconic brands. How, for example, officers in World War I would commission Aquascutum, the inventor of the waterproof wool coat, to make coats with deep pockets for ammunition, ergo the name “trench coat” or how Louis Vuitton got his start packing trunks for Napoleon. Well, that sounded interesting.

When I arrived, I was directed to the Harrods Story Exhibition where I learned some amazingly cools things, like the fact that the store embalmed Sigmund Freud, delivered a baby elephant to Ronald Reagan and once employed Dave Prowse, the original Darth Vader, as a fitness instructor. There was an enthusiastic archivist on hand to answer questions. So far, so good, but I felt so sad to have missed the Harrods they were talking about, the eccentric, interesting and admirable Harrods that delivered a crocodile to Noel Coward, and daily fresh herring to Alfred Hitchcock in Hollywood, that would hire you an ambulance complete with a trained nurse or teach etiquette to debutantes. I kept asking myself how the Harrods of yesteryear, the one with class and esprit could have ended up as such a soulless temple of ueber-consumption, more Las Vegas than London.

But what about the brands? To tell you the truth, I only made it through part of the Baccarat Exhibition (very nice) when I started to get what I would describe as a Harrods' headache – too many people, silly prices and sillier rules. Here are some of the things that I missed:

The Ferragamo Exhibition - shoes worn by movie stars and royalty since the 1920s – (Sounded good, shoes are always interesting)

Valentino Exhibition – the vintage Valentino gown that was the inspiration for Julia Roberts Oscar dress (who cares?)

Turnbull & Asser Exhibition – Pieces worn by Rupert Evans and Mick Fleetwood (who?) and patterns of Winston Churchill, Laurence Olivier, Charlie Chaplin and Sean Connery (had potential)

The Little Black Dress Exhibition – featuring Versace’s safety pin show stopper made famous by Liz Hurley (haven’t these people seen Breakfast at Tiffanys? Now that was a ‘little black dress’!)

I’m really not sorry to have missed these exhibits, or Aerin Lauder’s Fragrance debut or the launch of Van Cleff & Arpels children’s collection (I could give up right here and become a Bolshevik) but what I am sorry to have missed is the Harrods that was more interested in pleasing the Royal Family than Kylie Minogue. Almost every visitor to London makes a pilgrimage to Harrods and to be fair, the food halls are fun to wander through, there are lots of nice overpriced places to eat and the toy department is far better than Hamleys. But if you are looking for that great old store – reader, it is gone. What’s left, as they say in the Michelin Guides, is not worth the detour.

London's Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising

I was hugely excited when I came across the website for the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising in Notting Hill. Wow, a museum in London I’d never heard of covering a sexy topic in a cool part of town – perfect. The museum had the backing of brand heavy weights such as Kellogg’s, Twinings and Cadbury. I love brands. My expectations were high.

Located in a hip mews space off the Portobello Road, from the outside, the place looked promising. Once inside, I entered a sort of time tunnel which, starting with the Victorians, lead me through a chronological history of British products and packages with over 10,000 items crammed into the exhibition cases. At first, I was amazed and entertained by the sheer amount of stuff. Package piled upon package, labels, toys, posters, cans, virtually everything consumed in this country in the last 120 years has found its way into this collection. The last time I had seen anything like this; I was in my grandmother’s attic. But what was the point? Where were the explanations of how a brand, an advertisement or a package drives consumer choice? What was I to make of all this stuff?

And I wasn’t the only one who felt something was missing. The morning I was there, several classes of teenage students were making their way through the museum. They seemed neither engaged nor were they old enough to participate in the nostalgia and based on their responses to their teacher’s questions, they didn’t learn much either. ”What did you notice as you made your way through the exhibition?” “The Mars bars were bigger back then.” Oh, the missed opportunity of it all.

At the end of the tour, near the exit, there was a newspaper article on the wall that made the whole experience fall into place. The core of this museum is actually the collection of Robert Opie, who has made it his life’s work to collect examples of everything ever sold in Britain. This is, in fact, a museum about collecting. At that level, it works. You can admire the obsessiveness. If you are old enough, you can enjoy the nostalgia. If you work at it, you can glean some social history from all these products, but in no way is this a proper museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising and with an entrance fee of £5.80, it’s also no bargain. I have rarely met a museum I didn’t like, but unless you are a huge fan of collecting or British nostalgia, I’d give the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising a pass.

The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising
Colville Mews
London W11 2AR
Tel: 0207 908 0880
www.museumofbrands.com
Closed Mondays, except Bank Holidays