kiteless

Hey kids,

I prefer Antwerp myself as for a city to visit yet I'm moving there for work a year or so, there's not much of a choice.

I've settled for Ixelles, Central Bruxelles and Ste Catherine.

Thanks for your input, anyone else with other suggestions?

"EU building" -- I guess you are referring to Shaarbeek?

Not a Brussels native, but the area around rue Antoine Dansaert seemed lovely, devoid of tourists, but really close to the center nonetheless, lots of rests. and cafes with purely local crowd (took me and a waiter a while to translate a menu). Lots of interesting stores on that street too, most notably Stijl (#74).

Do you know which area that would be?

Dear all,

I am relocating to Brussels in a few months and will probably look into renting or buying a property there in the city or the burbs.

I need suggestions of neighborhoods to start look at -- what I'm basically looking at is a small townhouse/apartment/loft in an area with:

1) lively community with good independent shops and galleries rather than a 100% residential area

2) proximity to green areas (I'm accompanied by a dog)

3) relatively safe (as I'll spend most of my time away travelling)

in order of priority.

Think West Village in NYC

Thanks in advance

you probably already ran across these pages but anyway:

http://www.filminflorida.com/

http://www.filmfla.com/index.cfm

permits and legals in south beach can be an arse -- i was there last month to visit a set, right after the hurricane season ended ("we won't be needing the wind machine")

Edited by kiteless on Dec 29, 2005 at 06:27 PM

while in waiting for the new do & co to open inside the haas haus there's only one semi-decent place to stay, which is the terence conran owned das triest. vienna is really centered and focused inside the ring which makes it convenient (you can walk or bike on the free bikes anywhere): great for sightseeing (if baroque architecture is your cup of tea), shopping is somewhat lousy but except for the hundreds of nice cafés i've lost the name of, there are a couple of decent restaurants (restaurant fabio, my favourite, on tuchlauben strasse).

you've probably done the art collection in the museum quarter (once again, all centralised geographically) -- and one of my favourite private exhibit places in europe is located here as well: the bawag foundation, which is a charity founded by the austrian bank to promote cutting edge contemporary art. it's located coincidentally just across from the above mentioned restaurant...

found this thread as i happen to be in miami beach over the w-end to do the usual chores; sky bar, blue door, barton g etc.

there's an excellent guide i picked up called "hg2 (hedonists guide to) miami" which came out just a couple of weeks ago: very up-to-date on bars, restaurants + clubs ("the locals moved on from delano WEEKS ago", "the nikki club is very last year" etc) but crap shopping wise - then again, shopping here really sucks.

i said tall, not necessarily slim (although it helps). i'm 5'11 and their jackets in EU46/UK36 are at least two inches too long. I took them all to Westbourne House to have them adjusted a few years ago. They're all designed with a tall person in mind, probably something to do with PS himself being a tall person himself.

i haven't bought anything from paul smith in years, perhaps because he hasn't brought out anything wearable for years.

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Pretty much EVERY designer makes a slim fitted blazer. Now my favorite pinstripe blazer is from a company I don't always support: theory. It's a wonderful 2 button black with white pinstripes. If I were you I would check out Paul Smith, the label is all about pinstripes right now and the fit is slim like you requested. Please don't go for a blazer made by a jeans company, those are usually crap and overpriced for the quality level...

Edited by Fuuma on Oct 1, 2005 at 10:07 AM

--- Original message by Fuuma on Oct 1, 2005 10:06 AM

i share your ambivalence towards Theory. I ended up buying some basic items like their unprinted, plain and solid t-shirts, silk/wool sweaters etc whenever I was in Tokyo from the Hankyu department store - while the items i found in the US or at Selfridges in London is pretty awful, and below par in both fitting and materials. It pretty much looks like what you'd find at Target. as you'd presume, i would never consider buying their jackets - even less a suit - unless i was going to a fancy dress party as a retired miami giggolo. if this means they're doing parallel collections for japan and elsewhere or Hankyu having superior purchasers, i'm uncertain.

however, the women's wear seem to be a good basic wear in the same way Agnes B is for parisien women. theory's own store in upper west side is quite pleasant - far better than going loose at barney's or bergdorf.

i beg to differ on paul smith -- first, they'll fit you very well if you're tall. don't even consider it if you're under 5'11 or 6'. however, their new collections (london, luxury or ps) and the pinstripes look like shit. every once in a while, paul smith just completely gets lost and everything looks like floor carpeting and you'll look like a has-been who just walked into the groucho club trying too hard without a clue.

Edited by kiteless on Oct 2, 2005 at 12:36 PM

there are three large airliner alliances in the world: star alliance (based around lufthansa/united), skyteams (air france-delta-continental) and one world (BA). i think most business travellers and travel managers would agree on the advice to concentrate your miles on two networks: one of your local flagship carrier and another of your preference in accordance with destinations or to the network linked to your credit card. for instance, my local airliner is a star alliance member; my Amex membership award tranfers to Flying Blue (the merged programme between KLM's Flying Dutchman and Sky Blue, geddit?) hence i keep 99% of all my flights to two alliances: star and sky which is enough for global and local coverage. Air France is also excellent for hard-to-get destinations in the pacifics, which comes handy when vacation is due.

as for gold status: some, mostly smaller, airliners apply double standards for local residents and rest of the world, ie if you're joining star alliance, the best thing is to join SAS. while earned points on SIA or LH counts with same value, yet gold status arrive earlier if you live outside scandinavia. other airlines have other perks - in senator klasse and above for LH, the points never expire. as you may hear, i used to build an entire science around frequent flyer miles...

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after the excellent recommendations made by kiteless, the only other spot i would add is Freeman's. It's a cozy little destination on the lower east side (in an alley off Rivington), there's taxidermy on the walls, top notch cocktails, great service, and stick-to-your-ribs cuisine.

--- Original message by fmc on Sep 22, 2005 01:45 PM

thank you fmc. it's post like this that make narcissists like me re-visit this site ever so often.

i'll be going there on wednesday. any suggestions for a brief, 4 days stay?

strategies on how to compress shopping to one afternoon?

actually, acne was originally a swedish production company which made a limited run of jeans for their clients as a christmas gift. they eventually founded their own jeans label (as well as corporate design agency, online community for kids, synthesizer and drum machine manufacturing... and more). the jeans label had financial difficulties for several years before taking off last year and is now completely detached from the tv production business.

as for really fitted jackets - i think most designers, and even high street retailers have them now. anyone from agnes b to scum bags like j lindeberg and everyone inbetween. besides from previously mentioned dior homme and helmut lang - miu miu have done them with peaked lapels for almost 6-7 years now and they look great. unfortunately they usually have a wool/synthetic blend fabric i don't like. yohji yamamoto always had an one single button, high lapel in every collection, which will make you look like a homosexual waiter at a sloan square restaurant.

my favourite pinstripes are from helmut lang. their only problem though is that they make slightly disproportionately smaller trousers. i'm a 5'11 and 28" waist so i always wondered how they're supposed to fit on a normally built person. there are a couple from jil sander's last winter collection you should check out if you're looking for london city style pink stripes. i know, i can barely post without mentioning her name these days.

Edited by kiteless on Sep 18, 2005 at 02:04 PM

bumble & bumble, w 13th st/9th ave.

I got a couple of cashmere sweaters from Jil Sander, my appointed outfitter, for circa 250 GBP. I liked them so much I got another two this summer as the new winter collections I arrived - half cashmere and merino wool in heavy quality, which is perfect for harsh winters, for 100 pounds less. I'll admit the quality is not for every day wear and get worn quite quickly but it's fantastic value for the money.

if you're honeymooning, you can do actually quite well in BCN, especially in El Born where you're staying.

As for restaurants you have the culinary institution Cal Pep for classic catalan tapas, modern classics like Taira, Santa Maria and Bestial on C/Comerc right on your doorstep.

Bars offering tapas Vascas (Basque tapas), or Pintxos, are literally everywhere now but I've always considered Irati on Placa del Pi as the best. You should also try one of Grupo Tragaluz restaurants, which I guess is the equivalent of Conran restaurants. The oldest, Tragaluz has an interior designed by Mariscal and introduced the fusion food to Catalonia. Agua (by the sea in Villa Olimpic) and the upmarket El Principal on C/Provenca off the main street Pg de Gracia are the most conveniently located and better choices.

The gentrified Raval had its renaissance the last few years with new clubs and small but ambitious restaurants opening every weekend. Restaurants like Silenus, Biblioteca, Dos Trece etc are well worth visiting and also have cheap and good menu lunches with menu del dia. If you ever get tired of the clubs, try La Paloma which is a 200 year old classic dancehall cum house club in Raval with the evenings kicking off with elderly dancing salsa and slowly turning into a club in the evening. Only place in the world where you'll see 70-year olds dancing to Royksopp.

There are literally hundred of restaurants worth mentioning, eclectic places like Ot or cool hotels like Neri - and i haven't even started to mention cool bars like Cafe Royal or great shopping places for the newlyweds like Vincon....

it's one of those many lower manhattan hotels owned by private equities with no hotelling experience and run by staff who may be aspiring models but never worked at a hotel. it's hideous. i'm not surprised that Surface design magazine (it was first conceived as a Surface Hotel) bailed out from the project very early and they've had problems finding financiers filling the gap. they've turning the top floors to serviced apartments - to reduce the number of rooms i may guess.

the weak dollar has created a huge influx of tourists to NYC and extreme shortage of hotel rooms at the moment. when that's gone - which will happen inevitably sooner or later - this, and many others will be out of business.

i've spent a considerable amount of time and energy in this subject due to previous weekly commuting over the north sea and the atlantic. my current setup, or my 4-4-2 as i call it, consists of a phillip starck duffel cabin bag on wheels which works for 90% of any trips regardless of duration and a samsonite industrial strength four wheeler for longer trips. their new carbon fibre series is feather-light, fit a small sized pakistani family and pretty much indestructable. i have a rule about never breaking sweat while travelling which means i'm serious about number of wheels (ie if it takes more than your index finger to pull it, you're doing it wrong).

for over nights i prefer mandarina duck work bag, which to my surprise seems extremely durable and may even double as a nuclear fallout shelter. it's a fantastic laptop bag - yet it may be replaced by radtech's mactruck which is customised for an apple powerbook http://www.radtech.us/Products/MacTruck.aspx -- it looks like a plain sleek aluminium briefcase. Few laptop bags carry my bitch, a k a a powerbook 17", i've noticed. i also use a gucci garment bag (clean black, no logos) for overnights. actually i ripped the little small metal logo becaused it embarressed me - you may call it the exact opposite of a canal street counterfeit.

i've never grown a passion for the tumi as many of my peers. most of them who favours tumi are also avid BMW drivers with careers in corporate finance. it may be the black leather thing that's too german for me, but tumi is your thing i suggest you check out Smartpack that are available from most high street department stores in UK: http://www.smartpack.biz/ -- which is far more space efficient with clever packaging solutions that will fit you a month of clothing in a wallet (well almost).

finally, as for carrying enough for a semester, i strongly suggest you contact an intercontinental moval service. i'm speaking from experience here as a c-class student who failed four schools on five different continents in same amount of years. you may not want to pack (or even less buy) household items like pans and duvets, especially if you're on a budget. there's no chance you'll fit that amount of items/clothing within most airlines 30 kg limit. and if you carry around a monsterous bag you won't have any place to store it when you get there, unless you want to share a 30 sq ft student bed sit with a 15 sq foot bag. besides, most IC mover charge by size (ie number of cardboard boxes, not the weight) which means it will cost you in the ballpark of an average students weekly budget for beer and pizza, at least for a british student anyway.

cheers!

I got this ridiculous idea few years ago with an architect that I would have tatami mats in one of the rooms - probably as a part of a process to acknowledge my cultural heritage, or something like that - which is funny because my family flew in wooden floors and terracotta tiles from italy to get rid of the tatami mats in the 70s

there are quasi rules to how they should be laid out in the room - in the past all floor plan were based around the measurement and length and width ratios of tatami mats in order to make the mats fit the room easier. don't expect your edwardian townhouse to be compatible with this medieval japanese metric.

also, they weigh tonnes and is a bitch as far as maintenance goes. spillage? it sunk in nanoseconds. vacuuming isn't supposed to be an ordinary affair - and they mold. but they look and smell nice, and do wonders to your blood circulation (at least thats what my mother used to say).

my idea was to have it as a subdued detail to an otherwise matt white room with detailings in bleached birch or teak wood.

Edited by kiteless on Aug 21, 2005 at 09:00 AM

although i love singapore as a great city and community, perhaps the only truly multiethnic society in that region (or even in the world) and a fantastic cultural hub, there's one thing that annoys me immensely - is that there's no true culture (fine or pop) except bland fashion and the mainstream.

although i enjoy the hypereconomy like everyone else with a credit card, there are no local art or music scenes like you'd have in cities even half the size of S'pore. A friend of mine and a fellow former Londoner, said "we [singapore] will never have our own culture - There'll be no White Cube, no Barbican, no Zadie Smith, no Peter Saville nor electroclash...". "Fucking great", I thought. I'll bloody move here. Few seconds later, the downsides dawned on me like a balsamic vinegar on savory icecream at the Mezza9 restaurant...

It's a society busy obsessing with consuming brands - that nothing is really ever created here but produced (with a nanosecond shelf life). There's no innovation. No culture or counter-culture. In fact, there aren't even local brands or trends to talk of. Despite all things mentioned afore, it's one of the poorest and saddest places on earth: completely bland, glossy, low-brow, lacking of substance despite its financial momentum. a spoiled brat amongst world capitals - a Paris Hilton of cities, if you like...

Edited by kiteless on Aug 20, 2005 at 11:22 AM

Went to En around Xmas and promised myself to never return. Not that it was bad, actually it was quite okay for the money, but they turned the bloody heating off (!) so we had to go back to the cloakroom and get our coats and jackets... ever had kinugoshi tofu while wearing coat, scarf and mittens?

other nyc eats of interest for the spice market loving visitor:

Bistro Moderne, Ono (only if you're staying there), Pastis, Per Se (the new french laundry spinoff), Frederick's & Opia (though the food is horrible)

anyone know what happened to the lunchbox btw?

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I like Prune

Are Kuruma and Masa really worth it? Comparing it to Yasuda, Ushiwakumaru

I was never impressed by Bond Street

--- Original message by DaBestSpoona on Aug 15, 2005 09:50 PM

Quote: Are Kuruma and Masa really worth it? Comparing it to Yasuda, Ushiwakumaru

If someone's looking at a place like Spice Market, he's hardly looking for value for his money...

As for sushi, I still regard Kuruma Sushi as one of the best outside Japan but leave Masa, Matsuri, Sushi Samba and Bond to the tunnel & bridges crowd... Megu may be the only neo-jap on Manhattan "worth it".

btw - I have a conspiracy theory on the Nobu Cookbook that they've changed the recipes in the books so people won't be able to make the dishes at home to keep them coming to the restaurants....

they stretch AND shrink like they were made of rubber... i'd say they stretched at least two inches.

i got a pair ruined while staying at a NYC hotel who washed them in hot water instead of dry cleaning them as instructed - and shrunk them about 7-8 inches. upon notification, the managing director of the hotel walked across the street to the helmut lang store himself and got me an identical pair, insisting it's common knowledge that a pair of HL shrink...