I (heart) Cool Convenience Store Design

I love e-Types’ concept and visual identify for C, a Copenhagen based convenience store.  e-Types, is a Copenhagen design firm.

The combination of the black and white with the heart is so eye catching for something as generic and boring as a convenience store.

I was just in Frederiksberg on the weekend and I missed checking this place out!

Oh well, next time.

Photo Sources: 1-3, 4

My Home (apt) Decor

Isn’t moving fun?  I think so.   I’ve become somewhat of a moving pro. Since 2010, I’ve set up and moved into three different apartments in three different countries.

Moving is the best time to purge unwanted, or underused objects.  If you’re a pack-rat like me, or as I like to call it, a sentimental person who likes to cherish objects, moving represents a time to reorganize, consider new uses for existing objects and do a bit of updating with new objects.  This is, in fact, the exact same message I gave my brother who moved into a new apartment in Chicago this past weekend.

I am almost done setting up my new flat in Copenhagen.  I still have the dining room to take care of, which is currently in shambles.  We are dinning by candle light until we get the last component for our pendant light.

Here is a look at some of our fun purchases this past month:

01 We bought two red Nud classic collection pendant lights for our front hall. We decided to use a cylindrical edison bulb instead of the round ones.

02 Two Mr. P lamps to go on our bedside tables.  Yes, I know a bit crude but these lamps make us laugh every night before we go to bed.

03 One Raskog Ikea kitchen cart which we turned into a bar cart.

04 A Normann Copenhagen hang lamp which is currently sitting on the floor until we buy a hook to put it in the ceiling.

05 A Lucky Boy Sunday pillow at my husband’s request.  I have this great Anthropologie pillow that I bought a couple years ago in Toronto.  It has lots of texture and wool which my husband says it’s too itchy and flat out detests.  He wanted to replace the itchy pillow with something softer, so he chose this baby alpaca pillow. My anthro pillow has been re-purposed to another room.

06 A Normann Copenhagen tablo table in warm grey.  We did not have a side table and have currently been using poor Balloona.

All will be tidy and in its place by the end of the week, as we are preparing to receive our first Copenhagen visitors: my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

Date Night #2 Sticks ‘n’ Sushi

For Date Night #2, my husband and I decided to come out of our year and a half sushi hibernation in Prague and jump back on the bandwagon.  We went to Sticks ‘n’ Sushi.

On one of our week night walks, we noticed a busy looking sushi restaurant, so we memorized the name, and made a reservation when we got home for the following Friday. We went to dinner without reading a review or the menu.  This was a blind sushi tasting.  In most European cities, this is the same as a dining death sentence- unless you are prepared to pay for some high-end sushi!  I am sorry to say but non-high end sushi restaurants are hit and miss.

You could say we approached our date night at Sticks ‘n’ Sushi with much anticipation, curiosity and perspiration.

Wipe sweat off brow- this place was mind-blowingly good.  It came up in conversation with our waiter that we had just moved to Copenhagen two weeks ago and had not eaten sushi in almost two years.

He asked us if we had been to any other sushi restaurants in Copenhagen.  We said, he was our first.  “Good” he replied. “We are the best in the city, so you came to the right spot.”  And this is coming from a sushi chain (shudder shudder).

Photo Sources 1, 2-3 (mine), 4, 5, 6, 7

We ordered edamame that came topped with salt and a wedge of lemon and slices of raw salmon that was topped with mushrooms, shredded beets, onions and a mustard sauce. For sushi we ordered three rolls.  Each roll came creatively topped with unidentifiable glazes, sesame seeds, or crunchy bits.  Melt in your mouth fish.  The rolls had the texture, the flavour and the freshness all in one.  After a pot of freshly brewed loose leaf jasmine tea (bonus), we were tempted into trying their trio of sorbet (yuzu, hazelnut and vanilla), which also came topped with sculptural stuff (chocolate, crunchy butterscotch bits and a thin cotton candy-watermelon tasting sugar).

We left stuffed, satisfied and wanting to put sushi in our monthly rotation of date nights.  We won’t though because that will take away from visiting other restaurants.  I am still curious about other sushi restaurants in Copenhagen, so Sticks ‘n’ Sushi will not rein supreme until I test out a couple other spots.

The last thing I found interesting about this spot, was that not only was this restaurant packed, it was also lining up bag after take-away bag of sushi the entire time we were there.  People kept walking in and out to pick up their take-away sushi.

Address:   Øster Farimagsgade 16, 2100 København Ø. Telefon +45 35 38 34 63

Il Pirata (Belfast)

Il Pirata in Belfast, Ireland is a small rustic Italian restaurant that was designed by Oscar & Oscar.

I love the wood floors, white subway tiles, iconic bar stools, and exposed industrial looking pendant lights hanging from the ceiling.

Simple, yet cosy don’t you think?

While I have not made it up to Belfast myself, I wanted to share an excellent restaurant review for Il Pirata from the Restaurant Pimp and another one from Joe Warwick at the Guardian, in case your travels take you up this way.

Normann and Kale

I think I was having one of those right-place-right-time moments last Friday. I happened to be scanning my Facebook feed and noticed that Normann Copenhagen, one of my favourite Danish designers, was having a one night sale at the flagship store between 7-10pm.  I went last night.

Copenhagen’s design aficionados were out in full force.  Young, old- everyone and their mother were at the store to get their hands on some iconic “discounted” Danish design products (they were also selling Acne, Hay and a few other brands).  I arrived at quarter after 7 and there was already a line out the door.

I grabbed a bunch of items as I walked through the narrow sale corridor onto the main floor, only to put three quarters of it back.  If you’ve ever been to a sample sale of any kind, you know the drill– grab what you can get, then edit and delete.  I snapped this picture of the crazy line and posted it on Instagram while I was board of waiting.

The check-out line was the killer.  Why did I attend such a claustrophobic-yet thrilling event? I was on a mission to obtain a dining room light.  My husband and I waited close to 35 minutes in the check out line to get our large Hang Lamp in white.  We also scored a Tablo table in warm grey and a potato peeler (my husband’s wish).  Not too shabby!

I got my design fix for the week and now onto more important matters such as nutrition.  On the weekend I must have opened a dozen or so tabs on kale.  Some of the more standout recipes included the ones from here, here and here.

Nothing was really piquing my interest, so I decided to a mix and match and invent my own dish. I call it “The spicy kale, quinoa, amaranth salad with miso glazed sweet potatoes and pesto.”  If that is not the longest title for a salad, I don’t know what is.  All I know, is that when I ate it, it was really, freaking good.

Here’s what I did:

1 Find yourself a big bunch of kale.  I found a big bag of kale at my local green grocer down the street.  For some reason, I have not seen kale in the major grocery stores.

2.  Wash your big bunch of kale and remove any wilted ends.  I also removed the leaves from the thick, tough spine, because it is rather unpleasant to chew on and then I chopped all the leaves up into strips.

3.  Start making your quinoa/grain mix.  I mixed 3/4 cup quinoa, 1/4 cup amaranth to 2 cups of water.  I also added in a teaspoon of vegetable bullion and a pinch of herbs du provence.  Put your grains and water in a pot, bring the water and grains to a boil, then turn down the heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes.  After the 10 minutes, I killed the heat and let the quinoa/amaranth mix sit for another 5-7 minutes (still covered) to finish cooking.  The grains have to cool down before they become salad, so I transferred them into a big porcelain dish and let them do their thing while I got back to making my spicy kale.

4. Mince some scallions, garlic or onions.  Heat up a frying pan with olive oil, put your scallion, onion or garlic in first until it starts to brown.  Then throw in your big bowl of cut up kale into the frying pan and start to stir the leaves around right away.  The kale will start to turn bright green quite quickly.  Note-you are not trying to wilt the kale in the pan.  You are simply trying to bring out its bright green colour and lightly cook the leaves.  As the kale cooks, I throw in a big pinch of chili pepper flakes and mix it all together. Take the kale off the burner and let it cool.

Next- I mixed the cooled grains and cooled kale together in a big bowl.  I topped the salad with cut up miso glazed sweet potatoes that I made over the weekend (I used this recipe and substituted squash for sweet potatoes and it was good!) followed by two big spoonfuls of almond-basil pesto.

Mix it all together and you get a salad that is sweet, spicy, crunchy, garlicky, pesto-ey, and full of protein and calcium.  This salad is now going to be a staple in my house.

I have made my declaration on the Internet!

The flavour combination was to die for and you can switch it up with whatever you have on hand.  Want more protein, throw in some chickpeas.  Want more crunch, throw in some raw cauliflower, or snap peas.  The options are endless-

Let me know if you try it!