Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Canary Wharf

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Canary Wharf – Manjal Indian

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Canary Wharf – Manjal Indian

    A few weeks ago, I went to Hard Rock Cafe on an offer with The Fork (who annoy me, but we won’t go there today) which gave 50% off the food and £20 to spend at another restaurant. I was sceptical whether that £20 offer would actually arrive, but it did and I decided to spend it at the Manjal Indian at Canary Wharf. I also forgot that Richard was coming down to London for his decadent purposes, which made things more confusing but, fortunately, nothing that the restaurant couldn’t handle.

    The view from the restaurant. Indian cuisine is one of my favourites and I’ve had a long-running project of visiting an Indian restaurant in every country that I’ve been to. Unfortunately, I haven’t added many restaurants to my list over the last couple of years as travel has been just a little impacted. I’ve decided that India do the best Indian food, which is not really a revelation that I will send to a local newspaper….. The United States and Poland also manage to deal with Indian food very well. Anyway, I digress.

    The entrance is a little fiddly as there’s an Italian restaurant on the ground floor, which has to direct customers to the Indian one upstairs. Perhaps they’re jointly owned, but the signage really isn’t entirely clear here. When diners get upstairs, there’s a seating area (see above photo) for those waiting for their meals. The welcome from the staff member was polite and he was able to understand my exacting requirements of £20 off for me and charge Richard what they like (I didn’t put it like that, but that was my priority).

    The interior of the restaurant, all clean and comfortable. They also had a private dining room which had glass doors facing the main part of the restaurant, although this wasn’t used when we were there.

    The mango lassi, one of the better ones that I’ve had. Very mangoey (is that a word?). Richard had a cocktail. I didn’t like to ask why.

    Richard’s food is cluttering up my photo here, mine is the peshwari naan on the left, pilau rice and chicken chettinad. Richard had a cheese naan as it makes him sneeze, more rice and some egg curry thing. My naan and rice tasted as they should, although there was perhaps a little too much rice (but not enough for us to have shared one). The chicken in the curry was thigh meat, which was tender and rich in flavour. The curry had a depth of flavour and comprised of yoghurt, turmeric (which is where the restaurant name of Manjal comes from) and spices, with a decent amount of heat behind it. I’m sure that Bev would moan that it wasn’t very authentic, but I liked it.

    The reviews of the restaurant are broadly positive and that’s what gave me confidence to book it in the first place. Service was efficient, but we were never rushed and I was delighted to get a little chocolate at the end (I always feel the need to mention these little touches) because I’m easily pleased. The restaurant also managed to give me my £20 reduction without any issue, so my meal cost £5 including the service charge (which they added automatically and without advance notice), which I thought was very reasonable. I’d merrily recommend the restaurant to others, which must be struggling at the moment given the reduced number of people currently coming to Canary Wharf.

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Canary Wharf – Brewdog (Attempt 2)

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Canary Wharf – Brewdog (Attempt 2)

    I tried to visit Brewdog at Canary Wharf at the end of last year and I was partly successful….. This was at a time when customers could go indoors, but there was a problem with the door to get in, so the only seating option was outside. This sufficed for a quick visit, but I wanted to return to see the main event.

    Richard accompanied me as he’s becoming ever more enthused about this whole beer drinking thing, although he’s now got some sort of weird obsession with brightly coloured gins. I try not to encourage that, but fortunately, he was entirely agreeable that this would be a beer night. Well, sort of, we left Brewdog and he then gets the most ridiculous coloured gin in the next pub, but I didn’t say anything.

    I’m not sure that Canary Wharf is ever really that busy on a Sunday night in summer, but it was certainly quiet during our visit. It’s a spacious bar, although not quite as large as I had expected, but we didn’t have any shortage of tables to choose from. I can imagine that when Canary Wharf is in full flow that this must be a very busy location and I can imagine the money that they make is substantial. As for this quiet Sunday evening, I can’t imagine there was much profit being made.

    There were the bright lights, looking only slightly like a brothel, that Brewdog often have in their pubs (I mean that Brewdog often have bright lights like this, not that they have brothels in their pubs).

    And the artworks on the wall, all very Brewdog.

    But, I’m not here to critique the bar’s interior design, it’s not that important to me. The main element here is the beer and there were numerous stouts for me to choose from. I went through a few beers here that included more than just stouts, doing my normal just purchasing them in one thirds, but the star of the show was the Russia Stout from Mikkeller. I ordered this one without much expectation and a staff member came over and said it was a beautiful example of its type, simple, but elegant. And he was right, this was just a well produced stout which didn’t have any gimmicks to it. It had a level of decadence that I didn’t expect it to have, meaning just small sips delivered the coffee and chocolate notes each time. Smooth, elegant and really rather lovely, rare to have such a richness when not an imperial stout (the ABV is just 5.1%).

    The staffing was excellent, knowledgeable, engaging and polite staff members who were keen to converse about the beers. The location was clean, the temperature wasn’t too hot, the beers were excellent, the staff knew what they were talking about and this is the first contender for my fiercely contested pub of the year award (when I say fiercely contested, I mean more, I think it should be fiercely contested). This is a bloody lovely bar. I suspect I’ll be back (although that sounds like a threat).

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Canary Wharf Amazon Fresh

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Canary Wharf Amazon Fresh

    I don’t usually shop on-line using Amazon, but I heard a few weeks ago that they had opened their first Amazon Fresh convenience store outlet in Ealing. They’ve opened a couple more now in London, with this one being in Canary Wharf. There are still only a handful of cities in the world that Amazon have opened in and it’s fair to say that the technology in action here is, well, breathtaking.

    The instructions to get in the store were prominently displayed outside. I was with Richard, who is pretty competent at technology, and we used his Amazon account since he actually has one he knows the password to. Customers need to have the Amazon App on their phone to scan their way into the store, but there’s no other registration process needed.

    A helpful staff member came out to check if we needed assistance, and he confirmed that the main cardholder can guest others in. There’s a lot of novelty about this whole process, so I suspect that the staff member is doing a lot of explaining. There is a slight catch though, if I picked anything up, it would be free of charge for me and would be charged to Richard’s Amazon account. I didn’t take advantage of this situation on this occasion, although I might in future. It’ll make family shopping interesting though, as if the child picks something up and hides it about their person, then the shopper who took them in will be charged.

    This whole shop works by cameras, sensors and technology that I don’t really understand. It knows when you pick things up from the shelf and when you put them back. You walk around the shop, put your purchases in a bag, your pocket or anywhere else, and just leave. The technology knows what you’ve had and unless you’ve got alcohol which needs a ID check, there is no human intervention in the process.

    This is undeniably all very clever, and regardless of whether this is good or bad for humanity, I was impressed at the smoothness of the entire operation. Amazon are working in partnership with Morrison’s, so this technology would allow every checkout staff member to be replaced, just having security guards to monitor the entrance to a store. How the technology would work in a larger and busier store, I don’t know, but I assume Amazon will find a way to solve any problems which are encountered.

    The store was laid out like any other convenience store would be, all neat and tidy. The prices were either the same as in Morrison’s, and there’s lots of their stock in the store, but they were mostly more expensive. This isn’t the cheapest shop to purchase items in, but it’s also not hugely more expensive so it’s still a viable choice for customers. For convenience, it’s perhaps unbeatable though.

    Richard purchased two items and on the first product he waved it about in the air a bit, to ensure the cameras and sensors had picked it up. For the second product, he just shoved it straight in a bag. And it was as simple as that, we then walked out into the darkness of the Canary Wharf maze of buildings.

    For the next hour, Richard was convinced that he’d shop-lifted as there was no receipt sent. However, an hour or so later he looked in his Amazon account and the two purchases were there, he’d been charged correctly. He seemed relieved that he wasn’t a shop-lifter, but we were mostly just both in awe at this technology. It has implications for staff numbers, but as a purely technological achievement, this is one of the most impressive things that I’ve seen. I’d be amazed if this doesn’t become the norm for convenience shops (and indeed entire supermarkets) in the future, it’s the end of shop-lifting and the end of queues.

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Greggs at Canary Wharf

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Greggs at Canary Wharf

    I was slightly surprised to see this at Canary Wharf, Greggs are opening their first ever outlet in the capital’s financial district. I always thought that this shopping centre was like Heathrow T5, where they tried to avoid any cheaper brands for fear of it damaging the prestige of their retail operation. I’m glad that sense has prevailed, and perhaps even Heathrow T5 will have a Greggs before we know it….

    I would say what a time to be alive, but that might be overkill just because a new Greggs is opening.

  • London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Canary Wharf – Brewdog

    London – Tower Hamlets (Borough of) – Canary Wharf – Brewdog

    Carrying on with my theme of working around the Brewdog pubs of the UK, this is their outlet at Canary Wharf. As may be visible from the photo, their rolling shutter was broken and so one of their staff had managed to get underneath to get in, but it was impossible for anyone else. This did mean that the inside of the pub was closed, but they could serve customers with the staff getting in and out via the fire escape.

    So, this was the limit of the Brewdog seating, this covered external area which was actually rather comfortable. There were a couple of other customers during the time that I was here, but a surprisingly small number of customers who tried to get in. This can’t be a good time for Brewdog at Canary Wharf even if they could open up properly.

    The Velvet Vengeance is Brewdog’s own beer and I’ve never had this one before. Poured badly and in a glass that was slightly chipped at the top, it wasn’t a tour de force from the staff. But, they were clearly in trying circumstances and they were unfailingly polite. There were tastes of chocolate and biscuits I thought, with it all being smooth, although not quite as rich as I had expected. Still decent though and at the appropriate slightly chilled temperature.

    So, this was all perfectly OK, although it’s not quite the visit that I had expected and there are of course no photos of the interior. I’m sure that I’ll have chance to pop in again at some point in the future though.

  • London – Canary Wharf (Couple on Seat by Lynn Chadwick)

    London – Canary Wharf (Couple on Seat by Lynn Chadwick)

    This pair of figures are located in the heart of the Canary Wharf development and, like many things, they confused me as I knew that I had seen something similar before. And, this is why I keep a blog, to remember the things I keep forgetting. I was able to establish that I had seen the Pair of Walking Figures before back in Norwich, at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

    For rush hour Canary Wharf, it wasn’t the busiest…..

    Lynn Chadwick (1914-2003) produced numerous sculptures with a heritage similar to that of Henry Moore, with this design created in 1984. There are six bronze castings and they were produced in the Morris Singer Foundry in London, with one of them selling for £1.4 million in 2006.

  • London – Canary Wharf (Floating Hot Tub)

    London – Canary Wharf (Floating Hot Tub)

    Whilst taking photos of Canary Wharf, there was a noticeable murmur of interest in what was passing by, visible in the centre of the above photo. It’s a floating hot tub, operated by Skuna Boats, which is an interesting concept, although I can think of slightly less public places to do it.

    And here’s the boat and its happy occupants, without much privacy and there were a fair few people taking photos. For those not facing a hot tub boat, there’s also a BBQ boat and the theme of that is fairly self-evident. The experience lasts for ninety minutes, with 75 minutes of that being floating about in the freshwater of the hot tub, replaced after each use.

    For anyone tempted, it costs between £225 and £250 per session for the entire boat, which is a bit over £30 per person if it’s at its maximum capacity of seven people. Booking is at https://www.skunaboats.com/, although I’m not entirely sure that it’s for me…… Having written that though, the reviews for this experience are very positive and it’s certainly something a little different.

  • London – Canary Wharf

    London – Canary Wharf

    Just photos in this post, as I wanted to visit Canary Wharf to see how busy it was at the moment. Despite going in what would normally be the rush-hour, it was relatively quiet and peaceful. Although London’s economy inevitably can’t take much more of this, it does make it a much more relaxing visit.