Elliptigo – Channel View Leisure Centre

A few weeks back we saw a few new Elliptigo elliptical bikes on display at the Channel View Centre in Cardiff Bay and our curiosity was tweaked. If you’ve ever seen an elliptical trainer in a gym then imagine that set on wheels and you’ve got a good idea of what they look like. I have to say I wasn’t too keen to hire one as the thought of scooting around Cardiff on a giant-sized child’s scooter in electric green was less than appealing. But she-who-must-be-obeyed insisted and so there I was this morning signing away my life to rent an oversized scooter

In the words of my daughter when she saw the photos – “you guys are so embarrassing”

A quick tutorial in the car-park by the Elliptigo evangelist in-residence Steve and we were on our way

And what fun it was! The most fun I’ve had with clothes on all week.
The experience is like cycling without the butt-ache and like running without the knee impact pain. Pretty much the perfect exercise for an arthritic old fart with shot knees like me.

The raised upright body position means that you have excellent all-round vision and the bikes stand out so much that traffic did not feel like an issue at all – although we cycled mainly off-road today. (I have to say that Cardiff Bay and the linked Taff-Trail which runs all the way to Brecon and beyond make Cardiff heaven for cyclists).

If I were to describe the motion of the bike then I’d say it’s akin to running on air, or like running in water without the water resistance. You travel along at what feels like a huge lope and the Elliptigo really comes into its own on long open stretches of road such as the one crossing the Cardiff Bay Barrage – so good we did it twice

It did help that the weather in the Bay today was pretty glorious and that there was so much to see such as a visiting Swedish sailing-ship, “Eye of the Wind”

a chap carving maritime figureheads

and a weird new building near the Dr Who exhibition – which appears to be made of Japanese “shou sugi ban” shingle in the shape off a strange stubby legged toad

The missus and I (who both suffer with various joint or muscle problems) were very taken with the Elliptigo. Enormous fun and a real head turner. I lost count of the number of adults that gave us a smile or a “what the… is that thing” look, and of the number of kids who looked on slack-jawed or said “Wow!” as we glided past.

The bike’s build feels very sturdy and well engineered and it has some neat little details such as the ergonomic grips

We only managed a very flat ride in the short spell for which we used the Elliptigo today. My heart rate for the ride averaged 70BPM and I got it up to 110BPM without too much effort “sprinting” across the barrage.  Bearing in mind my resting rate is 45 that’s pretty good. We are keen now to see how it goes on hills – Steve assures us it’s the shizz so next week we’re looking to tackle Penarth Hill.

Overall we were impressed however I have a few concerns. Firstly although stable and easy to ride, they are quite cumbersome – so right turns, gates etc can be tricky. Secondly the clearance is not huge so I would imagine even the gentlest off-roading would be a non-starter. Also it wasn’t clear to us in this short trial how easy it would be to deal with a puncture or other technical issue.
Lastly and most significantly is that price is an issue. The eight gear version goes for around £2000 for what is essentially a bike – a huge, potentially prohibitive investment. It makes the £6.50 an hour charged by Channel View seem a bit of a bargain but even this had a drawback. Each time a bike is rented a £50 deposit is taken off your credit-card and then re-deposited on safe return of the bike. Actually taking the money seemed a little “heavy-handed” and I did wonder if there isn’t a better easy of handling this – maybe similar to the way hotels hold a reserve without actually taking the money from the account.
But rental definitely seems the best option especially as there is a 4 hours for the price off 3 deal.
To begin with at least renting is what I will be what I’ll be doing until I’m utterly convinced that I need to buy.  A plus-point to this is that you get to meet Steve and the rest of the staff at Channel View – all of whom are lovely

All in all a great day, a really fun experience and a fantastic piece of kit – I can’t wait to give it another go.

La Cuina

We spotted La Cuina recently in a Wales Online “top 50 Cardiff restaurants” list and we’re amazed that we had never come across it before. We assumed it must be a new venue but it turns out it has been open since 2012. One look at the website was enough to convince me a booking was required as soon as possible so a visit from my brother was the perfect excuse to make a reservation.

Tucked away off Cowbridge Road East, La Cuina is an understated but classy little venue. The decor reflects the unfussy nature of the dishes on offer – no frills, just bloody good food

We were offered both the main and tapas menus and all elected to go for the main menu (but I’ve no doubt we’ll be back to try the tapas menu soon).

To start I tried the scallops with Catalan black sausage. The scallops were perfectly cooked, moist and delicate, and were the perfect foil to the earthy flavors of the black sausage which was similar to but lighter than a black pudding.

The others opted for the octopus with aioli on a bed of potatoes and black sausage. Another excellent dish. I’m not often a fan of octopus add it can be rubbery but this was perfectly cooked with a delicious smoky flavor.

I tried both starters and they were equally good.
For the main course I chose the Lamb – which is a sharing dish for two. It was a stunning dish and a very generous portion, a whole roast lamb shoulder. Again – no frills, the quality of the ingredients were allowed to speak for themselves. The meat was so perfectly cooked it melted in the mouth like butter. Superb.

The other two diners both went for the dish of the day which was hake served on a bed of roast vegetables together with samphire and a delicious saffron sauce. Another perfectly cooked fabulous dish.

We decided to push the boat out and to order desserts as well. We shared a  Crema Catalan and a “Pa amb xocolata”. The Crema Catalan was similar to a creme brulee topped with strawberries.  A little runnier than we expected but delicious nonetheless

The “pa amb xocolata” consisted of a couple of quenelles of chocolate ganache with sea-salted bread and olive oil (!). A highly unusual sounding flavour combination but spot-on. Delicious.

Together with a couple of half bottles of wine, a few beers and coffees the meal came to about £45 pounds per head. Not cheap but well worth it for the quality.

As they say in Catalonia “A vegades una gallina cega troba un gra” and by picking  La Cuina for a meal last night it looks like even this blind pig occasionally picks up an acorn. On this showing La Cuina is an absolute gem.
Highly recommended.

Tortilla – Caroline Street

“So farwell then SpiceBerry we loved you but you didn’t last. I’ll have to add you to my list of Curry Houses (past)” (with thanks to E.J.Thribb)

Alas Spice Berry is no more and has been replaced by a new Mexican takeaway/restaurant called Tortilla

I was hoping for something up there with Chipotle or even better a Tacos No.1 but then they would be competing not just on taste but with my hazy golden memory of a fabulous week in New York so probably not a fair comparison and probably no surprise that it didn’t quite reach that level for me.
Tortilla are located on Caroline Street – a street that has changed beyond all recognition from the days when it was a post-match chip-shop and curry sauce stop-off. Now you’re more likely to find up-market chains like Five Guys and Bistro Pierre than a trad chippy.
The place looks great outside and in:

The decor is urban chic with beer-bottle chandeliers and lots of reclaimed wood and industrial metal partitioning.

The setup is familiar to anyone who’s been to Mission Burrito our Wok To Walk. Select the size, various fillings and relishes and presto! You have a burrito

The grrrl and I both went for the medium size wrap – which even by my hungry standard was pretty huge. The missus went for the veggie option whereas I went for the steak (70p extra but worth it – very good), mediterranean rice, peppers, guacamole, cheese and sour cream with hot (hot) sauce.

All the ingredients were freshly prepared and the flavors were excellent – particularly the steak and the hot sauce.

If you’re looking for a reasonably priced quick bite or maybe an upmarket sandwich for lunch then Tortilla is well worth a visit

Zwift – Richmond VA

Zwift have released a new course to coincide with the UCI Road World Championships.

Their course designers have been out on the course mapping all the nooks, crannies and cobbles, every uphill climb and downhill rush and have come up with a corker.
For a fuller description as to how the course was built read the  blog by the awesome DC Rainmaker here http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2015/09/course-championships-richmond.html
At 16km it’s significantly longer than the 9km Zwift Watopia Island course although probably not as pretty.

Richmond is more”street” – I half expect to see old newspaper blowing across the road at some points and there are a few under-passes where I wouldn’t want to get a puncture. Definitely a course to ride with Bruce’s “Racing in the Streets” or “Darkness at the Edge of Town” blasting in the headphones.
At the moment it’s taking me about 28 mins to complete which puts me about 1300th of 4400 – not too shabby but I can get better (I CAN).
I was getting some well-dodgy wattage statistics out of my Wahoo Kickr but a restart seems to have sorted that out.

A recent amendment saw a second sprint section and a second KOM section added to add even more spice to those Strava segment comparisons

My Fitbit tells me I burn about 700 cals an hour riding the course which is less than I burn when running or playing five a side – hard to believe as my legs are jelly and my lungs are burning when I hop (fall) off.

My current setup is not quite ideal – I’d love a big immersive screen for the course image but with Zwift on my laptop and Rugby on my iPad I can easily spend an “enjoyable” hour getting my ass kicked on the bike

This will have to do until I can persuade the grrrl that we need to rebuild the glasshouse as a purpose built man-cave. Tiny steps.

Green Man

We bit the bullet and headed off to the Green Man festival for the first time this year. A great line-up in the rolling Brecon hills in glorious August. What could possibly go wrong?
Our girls, not at all happy that the ‘rents were gate-crashing their festival, needed to be sorted out first so I dropped them off on the Wednesday.

The weather was not looking too promising. In fact, as they say in France, “Il pleut comme vache qui pisse“.

We headed up on the Thursday and the rain had eased off a bit even giving us a rainbow – a sign? Or false hope for dry weather?

We rented ourselves a trolley named James (a trolley with a name – how middle class is that? My school mates would kick lumps out of me) and bundled our gear into the glamping tents provided (at eye watering cost) by Hotel Bell Tent.

We hit the food stalls and had a fab tartiflet and sausage washed down with an american IPA and a german wheatbeer from the beer festival tent

As we wandered past the Rough Trade tent the sounds of Scritti Politti on vinyl  drew us in and we spent an enjoyable hour browsing the records and books of that and the other sales tents

Later that evening we caught Leftfield in Far Out tent – they struck me at first as very Kraftwerk-lite but as the set moved on I realised they were so much more than that – a brilliant set full of dub trance  reggae.

After the brilliant Leftfield party we gathered outside around a huge wood fire

and checked out the wishes posted by the giant Green Man sculpture, soaking up the festival vibes

My favorite wish: “I wish James would behave better” “I wish you’d shut up”

Suitably chilled we dropped into the Chai-Wallah tent to indulge in a couple of whiskey coffees and refuelled, we danced till the early hours

Totally knackered we got a surprisingly good night’s sleep in our little bell tent. All in all a pretty brilliant start to the weekend.

Even though this glamping lark sounds posh it’s still just sleeping in a tent so we were up with the dawn to the smell of muddy grass and had a quick trot across the wet field to the showers (luxury!) Human again after a hot shower we set off in search of breakfast and discovered bacon and chorizo baps, churros and fabulous coffee. Heaven!
Later in the day reinforcements arrived in the shape of my browd and his missus and we collected their wristbands from Steve Buscemi (I’m sure it was him)

Then we found a spot and sat sipping Bloody Marys and smuggled Vodka and Tonics.  Even the cheapest smuggled Vodka tastes like Grey Goose. We kicked back and watched the Zephyr Wolves on the main stage.

We bought hats and headresses (almost) and spotted the daughters wandering about looking glitterified and fab.

Later we scarfed some excellent wood fired pizzas (as recommended by our friends at Ffwrnes Pizza) and handmade by genuine Neapolitan Italians in a huge oven mounted inside a landrover (“if you find this Landie please return to Naples”) then we headed off to watch the lovely lovely Rozi Plain play in the Walled Garden.

Did I mention how lovely she is? Lovely.

In the Walled Garden it felt like every one else was smoking weed and whatever – while our group was mainlining Ibuprofen. Old age and bad connections are a bitch. I’m waiting for my man. Or a delivery from Boots.

Every festival throws up at least one unexpected pleasure and this time it was Tom Robinson band – his new stuff is bloody excellent corruscating rock – doing the job god put him here for!
War Baby is such an outstanding song
and we all joined in on the chorus of Glad to be Gay
And bless him we were all in tears at the end – not just him

Best set of the day I think went to the wonderful Villagers (the tight walk rope walking fool) accompanied by Brecon thunder and glowering skies. There’s a moment in “So Naive” when the voice, trumpet and keyboard hit the same note that is truly transcendental. Or the fragrant smoke wafting around may have affected my thinking. Whatever – it was a moment.

The weather turned nasty and the rain came in with a vengeance

The headliners Hot Chip produced a fab set finishing off with a cover of Brooce’s “Dancing in the Dark” together with giant bouncing balloons and we headed off to out tents blissed out and loved up

Saturday arrived, the sun came out for a while and it all became a blur, Colorama did a set, this guy was wandering around:

Greg Davis segued into Marika Hackman segued into Markie Mark. Wait… I mean Mark E Smith.

I caught the interview with the Fallmeister in the “Spoken Word” tent and he was just as funny, caustic, abrasive and difficult as expected
Treading a fine line between truth and friction. Stewart Lee’s celebrity question about writing postcards as Edward Bear pushed him over the edge and he walked out, mercifully cutting the interview short. Then there was rain, rain and more rain

We caught some bluegrass and a set from the Bat for Lashes and Toy collaboration called….. not Sex BaBomb but Sex Witch in the Far Out tent who created a good loud shoe-gazey noise

Then it was back to the Mountain Stage for Charles Bradley who was totally irresistible and got me up and dancing to his infectious James Brownesque chunes

A quick change for dry clothes and it was back out to watch Television doing the whole Mark E Smith album – err I mean Marquee Moon album. As we watched, smoke filled bubbles drifted over the Mountain Stage  recreating our blissed out experience of seeing the same live set at Primavera in Barcelona just over a year ago – the weather was a bit shinier there though.

It was wild wet and windy by the time Super Furry Animals came on for the headline set. As Gruff sang the words “Hello Sunshine” I swear the heavens responded with a flash of lightening and a crack of thunder. Mother Nature was having none of it and the rain came down heavier and heavier. The Furrys were as wonderful as ever performing a giant set in front of an adoring home crowd

At the end of the set we trudged off to find some after hours fun but it was so muddy the Chai Wallah tent was almost impossible to get in to – especially in my dancing shoes.
The light-weights with me all went back to their respective tents but I plowed on,  catching the James Blake DJ set in the Far Out tent where I  had one of the funniest moment of the weekend as I spotted my daughters in the crowd. The initial friendly wave from them followed by the look of horror as they thought I was about to join them was priceless. Remember Dad – don’t cramp our style!

Soaked to the bone I made it back to the tent at about 2:30am only to be woken again at 5am by the rain deciding to dial it up to eleven. To call it torrential doesn’t even come close.

Sunday morning came and more rain and we decided that was enough fun for one weekend so loaded up the car and – with apologies to our co-campers we decided to make a run for it back to Cardiff

A few hours in a centrally-heated house, a warm shower and a hot meal later we realised what a schoolboy error we had made. Sunday evening was the night for Matthew E White, Father John Misty and St Vincent! What in the name of holy God had we done. Suddenly starkly aware we had committed the crime of cowardice on the face of a bit of wet weather we jumped back into the car and headed back into the storm.

The sun came out briefly for the wonderful Matthew E White.

But it was Father John Misty we were there for. And then, to the strains of J’Taime and the scent of sex in the air Father John was on stage. Larger than life, bantering with the crowd and every inch the love-God both the female and male fans hoped he would be, he was magnificent. I can honestly say it was one of the best sets I have ever seen. Charismatic, charming, funny, brilliant lyrics, great voice. Just awesome. To think the world almost only knew him as a folk drummer. A stark and sobering thought

And that was that. We never made St Vincent but by all accounts she was brilliant. And picking the girls up the following day was like extracting the troops from ‘nam

But Jim Morrissey was wrong – we did make it out alive

Locke and Remedy

So this was a first, invited to a “soft opening” for a new venue in Cardiff called “Locke and Remedy“. What on earth I’ve done to deserve it apart from a few scratchy blog entries I have no idea but it was gratefully accepted none the less.
This is a new restaurant based in the old library building which is bang in the centre of Cardiff and is a pretty stunning venue both inside and out but for some reason had been a graveyard for the hopes of various business ventures over the past few years. Cardiff’s very own version of the Bermuda Triangle. 
We arrived fashionably late by about ten minutes in teeming rain and were warmly greeted at the door with a cocktail called a Welsh Princess – a delicious prosecco and aperol (no – me neither) based beverage which hit the spot nicely thank you very much.

At the behest of very persuasive mixologists (ok – they didn’t have to try toooo hard) we tried various other cocktails during the course of the evening including an Old Wives Tale (an exquisite citrus flavored gin and limoncello based potion) and a
Sailors Hydranger (a toffee and spiced rum libation which started promisingly but was cloying by the end of the glass)

The mainstays of the menu at “Locke and Remedy” are pizzas and burgers which may sound a bit basic but that’s definitely not the case here. The pizzas have some atypical but very well chosen flavor combinations and the burgers are hand-crafted with relishes such as American mustard and ketchup hand made in the restaurant.
In order for the guests to try a little of everything, pizzas prepared in-house and cooked in wood-fired oven were sliced and offered around the tables as pseudo-starters.

I loved the pizza’s perfectly crisp thin crusts and they had some interesting flavor combinations.  The salty mackerel on the mackerel and prawn went down surprisingly well for me but the missus is a traditionalist when it comes to pizza so she wasn’t overly keen. The spicy chicken and pepperoni had a delicious chili kick and the goats cheese and black olive pizza was a definite favorite. The mozzarella pizza had a lovely oregano flavor but my particular favorite was the palma ham and chorizo.

For mains we were offered a choice of burgers combined with a mix of fries (plain, cheese and sweet-potato)
Now I must admit I’m not normally a huge burger fan – too often the texture is poor and they’re an excuse for poor quality mince. So I’m happy the report that the glazed short rib burger I tried was pretty stunning, quite possibly the best I’ve ever had. It had more of a pressed steak texture the a mince and the american mustard relish gave it a pleasing dry spice kick. It was really (really) good.

The chicken burger was also good , moist tender breast in a batter with more than a hint of an upmarket “colonels secret recipe” spice going on.

For dessert, the chocolate cookies with vanilla ice cream were moist, gooey, malty and fab.

In the name of over-indulgence we tried a few more of the cocktails and eventually hit on our joint favorite which was the Margarita Rosa

So can “Locke and Remedy” escape the clutches of Cardiff’s Bermuda triangle?

On this showing I would give it a definite yes. Good food and drinks with imaginative flavor combinations, prepared and served with care and attention in wonderfully ambient surroundings

Highly recommended

Troy Charcoal Grill and Meze Bar

We decided to go for kebabs with a Turkish bent tonight and so we ended up at Troy on City Road.
Compared to a lot of the other kebab restaurants on City Road Troy comes with a few advantages. Firstly it takes cards as well as cash and secondly they serve alcohol. Double bubble.
The first thing that is noticeable is the ginormous open hot-coal fire pit upon which the kebabs get cooked. We were led past this to a cosy little enclave where we sat amongst a few other couples and some students who were obvious regulars.
The background music sounded at first like Turkish rap (Kanye Middle East maybe?), then morphed into something that wouldn’t be out of place on Stuart Maconie‘s Freak Show but eventually settled into traditional Turkish folk.
We ordered a couple of beers and starters – but before they arrived we were given a huge bowl of fresh sesame-seeded bread, olives, a tzatziki-esque garlic yoghurt sauce and a spicy chili-tomato sauce – all complimentary.

Starters were a deliciously nutty tahini-flavored hummus, marvelously creamy herb-flecked feta, a kisir salad and the best falafals I’ve ever tried.

For the main course we ordered a rich cheesy vegetable moussaka, chicken kebabs and a Troy special which was a combination of minced lamb kebabs, lamb chops, grilled chicken, chicken wings and quail.

All were served with an excellent crisp crunchy salad and perfectly cooked rice.
The dishes were all delicious – moist, flavourful and char-grilled to perfection.
The meal (which was huge as well as delicious) came to sixty five pounds for three people including starters and drinks and loads of complimentary extras – great quality food and stunning value

Highly recommended