It’s difficult to deny that French cuisine is one of the best of the world when they produce such culinary excellence as this…. Part of the Tapas Collection released a few years ago, this was the best of the range. Not that this was hard, as there was only one other to my knowledge, which was pesto. I need to get out more….
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..
Blue Flag
I’ve never heard of this phrase, but the dictionary defines it as “he has hoisted the blue flag; he has commenced publican, or taken a public house, an allusion to the blue aprons worn by publicans”. Other dictionaries at the time also referred to it as being a name for those becoming fishmongers, for the same reason of the blue aprons. The term now is better known for representing clean beaches, but I like the phrase, which was used between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries.
Part of my Streets of Norwich project….
The above map is from the 1870s, with no substantial changes to Bank Street since then, although the area to the south of it was turned into a hotel.
On the left is the entrance to what was Wade’s Court, although has also been known, and is now signed as Wade’s Yard. On the right is the back of the Royal Hotel, which takes up the whole block and which was built between 1896 and 1897. When they were demolishing the buildings on the site they discovered archaeological remains from the outer precincts of Norwich Castle. Built with 65 bedrooms for guests, the hotel remained trading until 1977 when a lack of car parking saw its demise. Fortunately, plans in the 1970s to demolish it and replace it with a glass office block were rejected, with the building more recently being used for offices.
The second building on the left, with the sign hanging up above the door, is the former Bank Tavern. Later on part of the Steward & Patteson brewery, this pub first opened in the early part of the nineteenth century and it remained trading until November 1965.
Looking back down Bank Street towards Bank Plain.
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..
Blue Devils
The dictionary defined this as “low spirits”, although it’s today more commonly used in reference to military regiments and sporting teams which have taken on the nickname. However, its original meaning of depression and feeling down is still in usage, more commonly today just as ‘the blues’ and is where the term ‘blues music’ came from. There’s a theory that the original ‘blue devils’ came about from the hallucinations which came after withdrawing from alcohol, although that isn’t entirely certain.
Back to 2017, and the much missed (well, by me) unlimited appetisers which were offered by TGI Fridays in Norwich.
That’s the offer, you can order endless appetisers for £9.99 if you want huge amounts of the same thing, or £12.99 to order from any of the dishes listed. The staff member told me that no-one had ever ordered the same appetiser for £9.99 to his knowledge, I suspect it’s just there to lower the headline price so they can say “from £9.99”.
My visit here was with Liam, and we planned to get through all of the options between us if we could, with a few exceptions obviously such as the salad. The options were a pulled pork sundae, garlic ciabatta bread, taquito bites, BBQ houmous, mozzarella dippers, nachos, potato skins, loaded fries, bruschetta, chicken wings, house salad, onion rings and crispy fries.
The pulled pork sundae, which consists of mashed potato with BBQ pulled pork, bacon, cheese and jalapenos.
Chicken wings in a cola sauce (there were a choice of different options for the chicken wings, with the others being BBQ, hot, scorpion hot and boneless).
Um, I have no idea, but I think it might be the garlic ciabatta bread with cheese.
Potato skins.
Onion rings.
Taquito bites.
Boneless chicken wings, which were very moreish.
I’m not that keen on mozzarella dippers, so fortunately Liam went for those.
Nachos.
They definitely need to do this again. The service was efficient and engaging, although it’s hard for the waiting staff to be able to offer any upsells, so it’s a different style of service to usual, especially since the soft drinks have free refills. There were no real delays in more food being brought out, noticeable by how much we got through. The highlights for me were the onion rings, boneless chicken wings and the taquito bites, with only the pulled pork sundae being a bit of a mash of tastes and textures that I wasn’t that thrilled about.
The food at TGI Fridays is usually reasonable, although priced at the higher end of the scale, so this was a useful offer in terms of getting better value for money. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that they’ve repeated this offer since 2018, but perhaps when Covid-19 is over then it might come back.
Located in a prominent riverside site in the heart of Oradea is the Neolog synagogue, which is one of the largest buildings of its type in Europe. There were two Jewish communities in Oradea, the Neolog and the Orthodox, which jointly made the city one of the hearts of Judaism in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The stone records the completion of the synagogue, which was in 1878, with work having started in October 1876. The building could house over 1,000 people and was similar in design to the synagogue in Nuremberg, which the Nazis ripped down in 1938.
When the building was restored recently, this letter from 1878 was found in a sealed container.
This photo is taken from upstairs and it’s a beautiful building, being spacious and light. I didn’t expect this synagogue to be open, it’s rare to find a building such as this which survives, given the damage done to them during the Nazi years. There was a small admission charge to get in (5 lei, so just under £1), but they’ve allowed access to nearly all parts of the building.
However, the restoration of the building is recent and must have been a real labour of love to get to this stage. The Jewish community in the city was nearly destroyed by the time that the Second World War had ended, so the synagogue fell out of religious use. There had been efforts to keep the synagogue open for religious services in the late 1940s, but the new communist regime didn’t take positively to this plan. The small Jewish community that had survived the war, which was just a few hundred, decided though that they wanted to try and keep the building for what might be a more positive future and so they maintained it as best as they could.
Another photo from upstairs, looking towards the rear of the synagogue.
The organ.
Looking down into the synagogue.
Two photos of the dome.
The whole building is ornately decorated. One mystery to me is how the Jewish community managed to keep ownership of this building during the communist era in Romania, I’m surprised that this piece of prime real estate wasn’t taken off of them. I can only imagine that there were some determined members of the community who fought to prevent any such action.
Two panels, which again I’m surprised have survived as so many of these were lost during the Second World War and the run up to it. The last rabbi of the synagogue was István Vajda, who was forced to become a member of the Jewish council overseeing the new ghetto, and he had to endure the knowledge that his wife was being tortured. He sadly died in a concentration camp.
Standing proud once again in the heart of Oradea.
Just photos, this is the Crișul Repede, which runs through the heart of Oradea. It would be nice if they could complete a riverside path all the way along, but unfortunately there are some buildings where access isn’t possible at the moment along the bank. Some of the buildings also need some repair, although when I visited in 2017 there were numerous projects to fix things up, so I assume progress is being made.
The building at the rear of the below photo is Oradea’s Town Hall, it’s not possible to walk along the left-hand side bank to get to it, but that would make a marvellous little promenade area.
I had heard of this book, but I hadn’t realised that the contents of it were on-line. It’s the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B., which was the list of names produced by the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1940 who were to have been arrested if the Germans had successfully invaded the UK. There are 2,820 names in the book and in some cases, it gives information on which division of the SS had authorised the arrest and who would have received the prisoner.
At the rear of the book, there are also a list of organisations and establishments that the SS would have shown an interest in. More on this book in future posts….
The Text of the Book (.pdf format)
I’ve been to relatively few JD Wetherspoon pubs in Essex, but I visited here in 2017. It’s a grand former Post Office building which was constructed in 1896, with the transformation into a pub being sympathetic.
When I visited the pub in the evening there was a fight taking place and customers being dragged out by staff. Just what you want on a weekday in the early evening, but I like a bit of excitement to be fair. The photo above was taken during breakfast, when things were just a little more sedate and peaceful.
The half chicken and chips, something which has now been withdrawn from the menu, but which tasted fine. I can’t remember the real ale selection, but JD Wetherspoons rarely let me down in that regard.
And the breakfast, with the egg being overcooked, but all else was well.
Disappointingly, the pub seems to have picked up no comments on TripAdvisor that seem ridiculous, so nothing worth quoting from there. Well, other than the complaint:
“Ordered a bottle of Pinot Rose. Very rude bar staff with long brown hair argued with me for about then mins telling me there is no such thing as Pinot Rose and Pinot was White. Please educate your staff as Pinot is a brand n not a damn colour. Never felt so angry, the way she spoke to me was disgusting, serious attitude problem. Embarrassing. Then I got given some nasty Hardy’s Rose bottle.”
The staff member was likely right, I’ve got a copy of the 2017 menu and they did only sell Pinot as a white wine at the pub, so she would have struggled to give him another other type of Pinot.
This can’t be an easy operation to run, a cheap pub in a seaside destination which gets stag and hen groups amongst others, I imagine their door staff are frequently challenged. There’s always a risk that these beautiful Victorian buildings are lost, so all credit to JD Wetherspoons for ensuring that they have been kept and remain in use.
