Roffing about town has been much harder of late – mainly because we’re in the midst of a dietary revolution involving 5-a-day, reduced fat and increased roughage. Why should that make things harder? Well, we’re losing weight making it even colder (relatively speaking) outside without our healthy whale blubber to insulate our limp organs. Not just that, but the extra roughage has made it nigh on impossible to venture more than 15 minutes away from a toilet we trust… yeah that’s right – we have toilets that we trust. We want to avoid the 2004 situation where, whilst a trainee, RofAboutTown was happily sat enjoying laying cable when we received a double tap on our shoe from the cubicle next to us. The next few minutes are a blur, but it involved unexpected (and unwelcome) protrusions from the dividing wall between bogs. We wouldn’t think about it at all, but it was, conveniently, how we met Piers n’ Maffew. JUST KIDDING – it wasn’t a toilet.
Sorry, all this blue chat is because we were hijacked the other night in Angel. It was a totally pleasant evening out with a friend when he suggested a jaunty trip to the Screen on the Green – a regular hotbed of cool cinematic sophistication. If you haven’t been before, it’s one of those uber-cool places where all the blokes seem to be wearing black jeans and black t-shirts regardless of the time of day or weather. The ladies invariably wear horn-rimmed spectacles and vintage clothing of some era that passed us by. It is, in short, bloody cool. The screen is high definition of some sort, the chairs (and sofas) are so comfy you’re liable to fall asleep and miss the film. At the back, a beacon of light in the dark recesses (the surprisingly large recesses) sits a bar churning out genuinely good food and drink for quiet consumption during the film. We say film, but we probably mean Cinematic Masterpiece that the lads in black t-shirts and black skinny jeans chatter about in the paradoxically hushed yet piercingly loud voices intended to advertise their intelligence, imagination and general understanding of the meaning of every second of what you just saw.
What we did actually see there was the latest offering from Steve (Rodney) McQueen – Shame. It’s highly acclaimed in many intellectual circles (circles that were formed, no doubt, following his equally highly acclaimed Hunger). It was actually a very special screening – the black t-shirts had turned into white shirts with thin black ties and a practically see-through black jumper that probably does nothing in the current weather. Frankly, that put us off – as well as seeing Michael Fassbender’s young private parts flapping about on large screen. It was intimidating (but tastefully done). It’s definitely beautifully shot and there are possibly some deep and meaningful themes that passed us by (maybe we were distracted by the weird and wonderful exploits of Mini-Fassbender) but we didn’t love it. That said, people that act far smarter than us have suggested it is insightful and moving. We’d suggest seeing it at Screen on the Green given its dark and cool recesses to hide any blushes.
http://www.everymancinema.com/cinemas/screen-on-the-green/fri-20-01-12/whats-on
After an evening watching Fassbender flop his kimchi about, we were yearning for some Korean
After all that smut we figured a healthy dose of (possibly) unhealthy Korean – it cleanses the soul by replacing it with a spicy substance that burns initially, but the memories of which bring you back to where you encountered it previously. We’re not sure why we do it to ourselves – perhaps it’s like that strange thing about childbirth where mothers ‘forget’ the pain and suffering encountered during labour. Apparently it encourages them to have more children (or at least it doesn’t discourage them). We’re not quite sure what gene or enzyme works its magic to ensure parents forget about the chronic lack of sleep, frustrated crying and nappies though. Maybe that’s just the gin and teetering mental stability. Anyway… the point is we forget how spicy effects us on the day of ingestion. We have sensitive tummies.
Thus, armed with gum and mild antacids, we ventured into the ‘Seoul-arium’ near Centre Point. It’s almost certainly not referred to as Little Korea but seeing as this tiny strip of about half a dozen shops contains 3-4 Korean cafes/restaurants, we’d like to think that some wag somewhere has christened it as such. Maybe that’s just us.
Upon rocking up to St Giles High Street in the shadow of Richard Seifert’s errr… most famous but possibly least popular creation, we see the huddle of Korean eateries – each with confusing ‘foreign’ on the outside. We could barely remember where we ate last time, until the familiar door of ‘Po Chung Ma Cha’ or ‘Po Cha’ for short. We say the door is familiar mainly because it’s an ordinary house door that looks most unwelcoming – exactly the sort of thing we like to see in the doorway of places we want to visit (we refer you to the urges of black t-shirt people above). It’s not, frankly, the most illustrious of restaurants with cool gleaming widescreen tv’s or that new-vintage look that seems to be popular, but we don’t care about that – we care that the food (the spicy pork with rice) is tasty and reasonably priced. Both of these things are ticked and, judging from the way it is always overflowing with customers, we’re not the only ones that enjoy a bit of lunchtime Korean spice. The Korean bbq items also look attractive, though we haven’t yet gathered up the courage to try it. For us, the spicy pork contains the right addictive items to keep us happily entertained and coming back for more. We hear the soondubu jjigae is worth a look here too… though we’re too intimidated by the spelling to order it.
Po Cha
56 St Giles High Street
London
WC2H 8LH