Local area Tip Offs

I've received a number of comments on this journal recently which seem to give some local tip offs about various developments in the area:

a. Apparently Amici, which owns two restaurants in Kennington (confusingly known as "Amici" and "R Due Amici", has apparently leased/bought the now shutdown Franklins and will open a third restaurant. This tip-off is from an anonymous commentator who advised that the lady next door at Thai Ming (previously Thai Silk) mentioned it.

b. Commentator "John" asks whether anybody has tried Grand Union (burger pub/club) on Kennington Road (near the Imperial War Museum)? It has changed 2 or 3 times in the past few years. I haven't, but am contemplating visiting it at the weekend.

c. A number of people have commented favourably on Toulouse Lautrec restaurant (both on this blog, on London SE1 and in real life), but also noted that it's expensive. It probably isn't that expensive compared with its sister restaurant, The Lobster Pot, and also compared with central London restaurant prices. It is expensive compared with some of the other offerings in the SE11 area. However, to combat the expense (in these credit crunch times), we opted for a large Sunday morning brunch (croissants, french bread, scrambled eggs and salmon) as well as the very good French hot chocolate and excellent coffee (£14.00 total). I recommend it.

Does anybody else have any news on the cafe that was formerly Dippy Egg, formerly Jado?

Kennington Fete

There is lots of SE11 related news to post today... First up, the three wheeled pleb visited Kennington Fete, held in Cleaver Square. This is only the second fete that has been held in recent years, to my knowledge. Not having been able to be there last year, I can't make any comparisons, but it was very well attended this year. The day was warm, but grey, which probably helped.

Stalls included numerous general bric-a-brac and a plant stall whose attendant grew a rather large selection of plants in his own garden. There was a book stall, a flower stall, a steel band from the Archbishop Sumner Primary School and a human fruit machine (which I didn't see in operation, but consisted of a large cardboard structure with children in it). Also, there were food stalls provided by the Lobster Pot (the prawn cocktail, I'm told, was delicious) and Kennington Tandoori. A stall by Franklins displayed some exquisitely decorated fairy cakes. There were about 20 people doing a Tai Chi demonstration at one end (presumably the Tai Chi in the park people, who I've not yet blogged about), a Punch and Judy show / balloon modelling man near the other end, and lots and lots of happy looking people. I don't know if they were resident SE11-ites, or Kennington-ites, or outsiders, but there seemed to be a rather large contingent of the comfortably well-to-do (not surprising considering the location). The whole thing was sponsored by Winkworth, who are to be commended for their contribution to the local area.

I've put the photos up above. I'm afraid I failed to get a picture of the, ahem, attractive lamp shade that two men running one of the bric-a-brack stalls attempted to sell me, but that's not necessarily a bad thing! I took general shots, as I rather sought to avoid photographing anybody in particular, but that's somewhat impossible at a fete! Needless to say, if anybody spots themselves and would rather not be in the photo(s), I'm happy to either blur you out or remove the photo from the blog and map completely.