Notting Hill Diary

Notting Hill Gang - Pick a Pocket

Occasionally I’m accused of writing about stuff that’s - well frankly not 100% Notting Hill related and more band related, but now I have a good excuse. Our first single, Pick a Pocket is now available in Rough Trade. Rough Trade is in Notting Hill.

The complete track listing is as follows:

Actually you can hear them and a few other tracks on our myspace page (our own website is in development).

Obviously like most bands we put the acappelas on as a not so subtle hint that we’re totally happy for you to go away and do your own remixes. As long as you send us a copy of course. If we get any good ones I’ll feature them here.

Oh - and I have 5 copies of the single sitting right here to give away free to anyone who can give me a good reason as to why they should have one.

Rough Trade
130 Talbot Road
London W11 1JA
020 7229 8541

Boris Johnson - yes he can!

Boris Johnson took a trip down to Portobello Market today to announce the very welcome news (around these parts) that the western extension of the congestion charge is to be scrapped as soon as possible.

Strictly speaking, and for reasons that no one seems to be able to explain, he’s unable to abolish it till 2010, although he’s looking into ways to do it earlier. Personally I can’t quite see why it’s not just a question of switching off the cameras. Yes, immediately, right now. Problem solved.

Now we qualify for the 90% discount. Great! But - er - it’s not really a 90% discount unless you use it a lot. The deal is that, having paid a tenner to register, you pay £4 to enter or drive about in the congestion zone and can then do so for the next 4 days. So if you only needed to drive in the zone on the one day (and typically I do), that’s only a 50% discount.

But I digress - fundamentally, this area doesn’t actually have a congestion problem. The roads are pretty quiet anyway at all times of the day (aside from when buses attempt to pass on Westbourne Park Road, but that’s an entirely different story). All the charge has done is to make it more expensive to drive along your own road, but cheaper to drive into the West End, which means that attempting to solve something that wasn’t a problem here has increased congestion in the original congestion zone.

Market traders and residents were understandably happy at his announcement, not least because 40 market stalls have disappeared and some shops are struggling since the extension came into force in February last year.

Salaam - our new favourite Persian

It’s been a while since I either a) wrote anything about Notting Hill other than as it pertains to the Rotten Hill Gang or b) reviewed a restaurant. I’m about to redress one of those at least.

OK so Harlesden High Street isn’t exactly in Notting Hill, but then this part of it isn’t exactly in what you’d think of as Harlseden. It’s really a bit of Harrow Road and only 5 minutes away from, say, Ladbroke Grove by car, so it’s definitely within striking distance and, as I can confirm, easy enough to reach twice in an evening to fetch your takeaway. More of that in a minute.

Whether it’s that there genuinely have been more restaurants opening up to serve Persian food in the last two years or that we’ve just become more aware of them, we’ve found ourselves craving them in the way that previously I’d crave Indian, or Wifey would crave sushi. While I can’t claim to know a Persian menu well enough to order blind in the way that any self respecting British person can order from most Indian restaurants without seeing the menu, I’ve developed a liking for certain dishes. That said, as a vegetarian most Persian restaurants usually struggle to offer more than one main course so I don’t find choosing that hard.

However we’ve never thought that we’d found a favourite Persian restaurant, until, that is, tonight. On a whim (the actual whim was for a pub dinner, but it’s amazing how hunger can blur the decision making process) we decided to order from Salaam, a fairly new place that had somehow been “speaking to us” for months. Our experience of places that “speak to us” have led to some disastrous consequences which is probably why we delayed going there.

We ordered starters of panir-o-sabzi (fresh mint and tarragon with spring onions, radish, feta cheese and walnuts) and kashk-o-bademjan, (fried aubergines with fried onions, walnuts, garlic spices and herbs) and way too much of their delicious naan bread. The sabzi I always order and the aubergine, with its barbecued overtones takes my current prize for the tastiest substance known to mankind.

For our mains I ordered Pollow Khoresh Bamiyeh, a stew of okra, green peppers and onions cooked in a tomato and tamarind sauce, while Wifey had … well I’m not quite sure what Wifey had actually. I’m just no good with these meat based dishes after 23 years of veggie-goodness and she’s asleep right now. Something with lamb in it at any rate and she was raving about it. Both came with rice. Suffice to say that despite the HUGE portions, we wolfed our food down with embarrassing ease.

Oh - and how did I find out that it’s close enough to get to twice? Well because the first time they managed to miss out my main course, they got Wifey’s main slightly wrong and they gave us plain rice instead of the dill rice we asked for, but despite that we will still most definitely go back! The food there is simply fantastic, the bill was only £21, the service super friendly and Salaam is now our favourite Persian restaurant in town.

Do yerselves a favour and hotfoot it down there.

Salaam Restaurant
203 High Street
Harlesden
London NW10 4TE
020 8838 0007

Rotten Hill Gang have a flurry of gigs coming up in December - more of that later, but first up in a few weeks we’re playing at Carbon Casino 9.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Carbon Casinos 1..7 were a series of nights hosted by Carbon Silicon, which is Mick Jones’s actual band. Yes I know he plays, records and generally helps us out with RHG and we’re most grateful, but he’s not exactly in (or even out) of the band. Nope Mick has his own outfit with Tony James, but of course most of you know that.

Carbon Casinos 1 to 7 (at Inn on the Green) were a fantastic success and CCs 8 and 9 look to build on that at on December 15 and 16 at The Hammersmith Club. In fact I’ve heard that they’re both sold out already, but there ya go. We’ll be playing the one on Dec 19 and we heartily thank Mick & Tone for the opportunity because the original CCs are where we started out as a live band.

The Hammersmith Club
Rutland Grove
Hammersmith
London W6 9DJ

Rotten Hill Gang are playing … oh crap. The title says it all.

Don’t know what time yet, I’ll update when I do.

OK now I know what time - 10pm.

Just a quicky, Wild Boar were due to play at Paradise tonight (we had 2 days’ notice), but Ed’s wife went into labour over 4 weeks early so it was cancelled. The result? A beautiful baby girl and very proud parents. Congratulations and love to Ed, Gita and Roxy Violet Harcourt.

Oh and I’m sure the club will be just fine without us.