Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Although I really love my Canon EOS 450D, one thing I have noticed recently is that I’m not taking as many photos as I would like to because it’s particularly convenient to take my camera clubbing or to gigs where they search your bags using ambiguous policies.

To counter this I decided to get my self a cheap camera which could serve such a purpose. I finally settled on the Sony DSC-W350 which for under £100 gets you 14 megapixels (two more than my 450D as it happens) and easy point and click operation in something that will easy fit into my pocket.

Size was really my primary concern when making the decision and the W350 holds up well. It’s about the same size as a credit card so if you’re thinking “wow, it’s only slightly better than a paperclip” I should point out that that is a very big paperclip lol.

It comes in at a depth of 17mm, just slightly shy of being twice that of my iPhone 4 at 9.3mm. That seems a little bulky in comparison but it is perhaps an unfair test to compare it to the world’s thinnest smartphone, and it manages to come in thinner than most of the competition I looked at with most of the slim cameras in it’s price range coming in at around 23mm.

Picture quality is mediocre. It is significantly better than my iPhone 4 but having shot with nothing but a DSLR for two and a half years now, my quality expectations have come to rest somewhat high. Just viewing the photos on my 23″ monitor you can see the photos aren’t quite perfect but then for a compact under a £100, you would have to be very demanding to expect them to be – if I need print publication-quality photos, I’ll take my real camera.

What I do like is that the wide-angle lens produces usually warm images in comparison to my DSLR and as the camera’s main use will be taking shots of my friends while we’re out, this actually makes for more than adequate results for what I need it to do.

Work having shat all over my Friday night plans where I was supposed to be delivering a session of the Answers course at Atheist Society and then spending some time with Elina, I eventually made it home around 9pm, still in need of grabbing some dinner.

So, having rescheduled Elina to tomorrow, myself and George headed out to grab some much needed food. While I had heard some mixed reviews since the last time I went, they consistently delivered again with some amazing food. My Weeping Tiger actually tasted more of beef than tiger, but then I’ve never actually had tiger, so maybe it tastes the same.

On Friday, myself, Si and Sarann headed into town to grab some dinner.

We ended up at Cafe Rouge in The Light, which was looking fairly empty for a Friday night – ideal for some good conversation. Service was a little disappointing given how few people were in there but the quite atmosphere was enjoyable.

The food was mediocre, I went with the Steak Rouge which was OK, but given there are so many great places to have steak in Leeds, it wasn’t any more enjoyable than say the £6 steak I had enjoyed at Wetherspoon’s the previous Tuesday.

Afterward, we headed over to Browns for a few rounds of cocktails. Apparently they will mix anything to your order but we didn’t put them to the challenge and rather opted just to work out way through their signature menu.

After a few rounds of cocktails and the wine I had had at dinner, I found myself leaving the bar somewhat intoxicated whereas Si, the supposed teetotaler until a year ago, didn’t seem to be feeling it. Maybe Si is a secret alcoholic after all?

With the anniversary of Arthur Fonzarelli having arrived once again, I organised a birthday meal at Piccolino. As it happened Fonze turned up late to his own birthday shin dig so we ended up eating the main course without him, but never the less we didn’t let his tardiness spoil our fun.

The restaurant was a reasonably up market place and this was evident from the pitiful amount of change I received back from my £10 note having ordered myself and Elina a drink.

The staff were friendly though it was sometimes a little hard to get their attention. Some of them didn’t seem to speak very good English which I always find a good sign in restaurants as it can often be because they’re actually from the country that the restaurant’s food style is based on, though of course equally it could be a placebo effect.

The food was nice, the portions were small but I didn’t come away from the meal still feeling hungry so no concerns there. I had the crispy duck for main which wasn’t actually that crispy but the sauce was excellent and duck is a fantastic meat in general. Piccolino’s real strength seems to be in it’s desserts however.

I enjoyed the meal, but given the above average bill which didn’t translate into above average food, I think I would pick one of the multitude of great restaurants in the city centre rather than heading back there any time soon.

A few weeks ago Oli was in Leeds so we decided to hit the town for a meal. Having meaning to get myself over to Cafe Guru for quite a while I suggested it would be a great lace to grab some dinner.

We entered the restaurant just after 7pm, which being a Saturday night I expected them to be quite busy – especially as last time I had tried to get a table on a Thursday evening and had been turned down. However, we walked in to find we had the entire restaurant to ourselves.

It certainly wasn’t what I expected. In my mind I had somehow conjured up a small cosy traditional Indian restaurant, based on what I had seen on their website and that it was based at Brewery Wharf. What we actually found was a modern, possibly even futuristic style restaurant, almost entire open plan and capable of seating over a hundred people. It didn’t fit with the Indian food.

The food itself was good, though it isn’t the best Indian I’ve ever had. The spicy starter I had was rather more spicy than I had anticipated which would have been fine but unfortunately they weren’t particularly fast bringing us our drinks, which at this point I was still waiting on despite the only other people in the restaurant by this point being one other couple who had only just arrived.

The wine was horrible. And by that I mean, even worse than the high levels of tolerance you usually extend to house wine.

In the end, the restaurant simply lacked the atmosphere and character I was hoping for. The staff were friendly and the food was nice, and severed promptly (though again, you would expect so given we were the only people in there), but there was a real sense of charm distinctly lacking from the place. At least we got mints with the bill though 😉 .

Having miserably failed to get an iPad 2 on launch date, I had back ordered one and quoted a time of 2-3 weeks. I was thus very pleased when I took a phone call the next Wednesday telling me that my iPad 2 was now really to collect.

First impressions have been great – it’s not the lightest device in the world but it is so amazingly thin (at 8.8mm, it’s .5mm thinner than my iPhone 4 – the world’s thinnest smartphone!) and the battery life is excellent. The screen doesn’t have smudge when you’re using it, but you can’t tell when it’s turned on so the display is excellent.

It’s fast – things that I have to weight to load on my iPhone 4 come up almost instantly and the graphics power for something so thin is bordering on witchcraft.

I’ve fallen in love with Garage Band. I can’t play any music instruments, despite trying to play the guitar on and off for five years (mostly off to be honest, I have no commitment to it, on purpose, but that’s a whole different story) so having the “smart guitar” which has the chords pre-defined into it is amazing.

Overall though, I see it more as a practical device than a toy. Being able to check my emails in bed, on a reasonable sized screen is fantastic and it means I can have access to a computer without having to lug my laptop to the pub.

We recently headed down to Distrikt for Sunday lunch.

It is located just across the road from my apartment which is convenient though it is a bit of dive inside. It’s nicely done out, but it is underground and that comes with inherent implications as well as it being like a sauna.

The bar itself had an excellent range of drinks including several flavours of Belvedere and 42 Below which are some of my favourite vodkas. The food itself was very nice. They do their beef really rare, which I don’t mind, but put some people off a little.

The bar staff were a little surly at first but I think they had just been having a hard time as their kitchen wasn’t working for the first thirty minutes. Things lightened up however, after she heard my ring tone however and discussed whether you would peg me as a Rhianna fan or not 😀 .

Having decided to stage a curry night to discuss some of the pressing issues for Leed Skeptics I set about trying to find us a nice restaurant to enjoy said curry. I eventually settled on Cafe Guru – but they were full so we went to Chaophraya instead.

Luckily, they didn’t disappoint either. The service was excellent and the restaurant was well fitted out. It was however very easy and the place itself was quite cramped with the amount of tables they were fitting into the size space. In reality though, it’s hard to fault a place with does a Thai curry sauce, in a Yorkshire pudding, on a steak.

James gave the place a similar thumbs up though having later spoken to Gijsbert about it, he said that he had a good experience the first time but since then it has been poor – maybe we need a second visit to get a more well rounded view, which definitely sounds like an excuse to go back.

Having finished up with the Perspective Citywide session on Zoroastrianism, we headed down to Livebait to grab some dinner.

I’m always dubious of sea food restaurants because they seem very lazy. They present you with food that it still in it’s shell and then expect you to get it out for them before you can eat it. This seems incongruent with other restaurants where it is traditional for the chefs to prepare the food for you before serving it.

I started off with the salmon which was good, but I prefer my salmon to be very well cooked and this definitely was not. The bread that came with it was very nice though.

Following this, I decided to give lobster a go. It’s not something I have ever really had a desire to eat but I do have a desire to try new things and given that I’ve never had lobster before and it didn’t seem too much more than the other mains I was looking at, it seemed worth a punt.

Overall I have to say I was disappointed. Not only was it tricky to get the meat out, but the meat itself just wasn’t that tasty. Opinions since have disagreed about the cause – Nicola suggests it is because lobster simply isn’t that nice, while Rebecca suggests I simply got bad lobster (having not been Durham educated, I’ve never had good lobster 😉 ).

The atmosphere in the restaurant was pleasurable – it’s a small place and having only sat down at 9pm, we found ourselves with the place to ourselves by the end of the meal. Service was acceptable – friendly but a little inattentive, especially given we had the place to ourselves. I wouldn’t go back in a hurry, but that is mainly down to me not being a huge fan of sea food.

While wandering around, trying to find an open pub at 11am on the Saturday morning we found a place which described itself as the “home of beef”. We decided this was something we really couldn’t ignore and so headed back there in the evening to check it out and grab some dinner.

The food was good but not great – it was very reasonably priced given that it was 400g of steak which was very well cooked but nothing compared to the great steaks I have had in Leeds. So worth checking out but no replacement for a proper steakhouse.