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Making the choice to be optimistic is always worth it, especially when it’s the more difficult decision to make. As Bob Iger, who leads Disney, puts it, optimism is the ability to focus on what matters—steering your team towards the best possible outcome, and moving forward in spite of setbacks. It also means letting go […] The post Optimism vs. delusion appeared first on Herbert Lui.
In an ideal world, you’d be prepared for everything you want to participate in. That’s not realistic though. New opportunities pop up all the time. It can feel tempting to want more time to prepare for all of it. What tends to happen is you don’t have energy to, or you’re not able to prioritize […] The post Participate, even if you’re not prepared appeared first on Herbert Lui.
Two will like you. There is potential to become best friends. Seven will feel indifferent towards you. You will become acquaintances at best. One will dislike you. At best, you will both treat each other with civility. You can’t please everyone. Sometimes—perhaps many times—in order to meet the two people, you need to sort through […] The post You meet ten people… appeared first on Herbert Lui.
A business delivers a good product or service to a customer. A satisfied customer tells other people about the business. Those people find the business and become customers. As the years go by, the business builds enough of a reputation and customer base to sustain itself. If we agree that’s the core loop of a […] The post Customer satisfaction builds momentum appeared first on Herbert Lui.
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all images courtesy the artist | used with permission Erica Ward is a California-born ink and watercolor artist who has called Tokyo her home for over 10 years. Inspired by Japanese designs and imagery, as well as the ever-changing landscape of Tokyo, Ward reinterprets everyday sights and objects in surreal ways within her artworks, asking […] Related posts: The Tokyoiter Presents Diverse Visions of Tokyo Louis Vuitton Tokyo City Guide &TOKYO: City of Tokyo Announces New Logo
I have eaten at El Moli a number of times over the 40 or so years I and my family have been visiting this part of the world. The first couple of visits were pre-blog and pre-camera phone and I don't remember much about it other than being sat in those same ancient vaulted rooms (some parts of the building are 12th century) and being bitten by mosquitos. I went back with a couple of friends in 2007 and had a dreadful meal - it's possible that the food had been terrible on previous visits and I just had lower standards, or maybe we were just unlucky this time, but you can read about how awful it was here. Decades passed - understandably - before I was willing to give it another shot, but in October last year I had a genuinely lovely meal of interesting seafood and seasonal home-grown veg (El Moli have their own kitchen garden nearby) but thanks to a suspiciously cheap SD card reader picked up on the streets of Girona, managed to lose all my photos and so couldn't write it up. Before that though, the snacks. L'Escala is famous for its anchovies, and so you'd expect one of the town's leading restaurants to showcase these lovely salty little fellows in various different ways. So here is gorgeous crusty homemade anchovy sourdough served with anchovy butter... ...anchovy-stuffed olives which had a brilliant balance of soft savouriness and saline punch... ...and anchovy and truffle seaweed crackers, possibly the most distressingly addictive snack I've come across in the last few years. Even a couple of under 10s on our table who usually eat little else other than white bread and chocolate managed to gobble a number of these down, a testament to their universal appeal. From the starters proper, first to arrive were smoked sardines, something that had become a bit of a theme of the trip thanks to the discovery of a place in town that made their own using north Atlantic fish. I'm not sure where El Moli source theirs, but they were still very nice, accompanied by green beans and a gentle herby vinaigrette. White asparagus, carefully grilled to get a few dainty char marks but not so much to make them tough or dry, were served in another light vinaigrette which made the most of the veg. El Moli do have a slight tendency to add one or two more ingredients than strictly necessary to a plate - the usual Spanish style is to have the main item and nothing more - but this dish was a model of restraint, and all the better for it. White prawns next, from Llançà, a little fishing town just around the coast near the French border. Dressed simply with olive oil and salt - which is all they needed really - I'll forgive them the slightly redundant sprig of frisée lettuce on top partly because it was nice and crunchy and fresh and also because it soaked up the leftover dressing very well. I've never had grouper before in any form and though this arrangement of sashimi was perfectly pleasant, I'm not entirely sure there was enough flavour in the raw product to justify serving it raw. That said, I don't know where else you can get grouper sashimi so life experience ticked off there. Now it was time for the larger plates, but not before one of the more excruciating moments I've ever been through in a restaurant. We had, during ordering earlier, enquired about the smallest available Cap de Creus spiny lobster, a rare and expensive beastie with a short season, hand caught in the waters around Roses bay. We were told initially that they had a 300g specimen, which at €18/100g mean that we could have a taste of this delicacy for €54 - punchy, but not ridiculous. However, they later realised that the smallest lobster they had was in fact 700g (and brought it out still kicking to show us), meaning a significantly more damaging outlay of €126, so we reluctantly turned it down. Now, two things to say about this. Firstly, the staff couldn't have been nicer about the whole thing and swiftly and graciously took the lobster back kitchen-side, presumably to make for some rather more extravagant than normal staff dinner. So they could not have handled the situation any better from that point of view. And secondly, although you'd be tempted to blame such lack of communication on the language barrier, I can promise you that our waiter spoke better English than most front of house in London, so that wasn't the issue either. It was just one of those things, an unfortunate combination of us (probably) not quite rejecting the thing as forcefully as we could and them misreading our English politeness incorrectly, which if it had been an extra portion of chips or a plate of croquetas would have been unfortunate, but regarding a €126 serving of some of the Costa Brava's finest seafood became something else entirely. Anyway, I'm happy to say that the mains we did order were definitely worth our while. Scorpionfish came whole-roasted, boasting a lovely crisp salty skin and bright white, meaty flesh inside, alongside some more grilled vegetables from the kitchen garden. This was partly ordered out of curiosity as I don't think I'd ever tried scorpionfish before, but it was a lovely thing indeed, rather reminiscent of hake in texture. And it wasn't all about the seafood - this is a 500g "Txogitxu" Txuleton on the bone for an astonishingly reasonable €37.50 - bargains are to be found in all corners of a Spanish restaurant menu. The Txogitxu website proudly states they specialise in "Fat old cows", which can be both an amusing turn of phrase and completely true at the same time. We had all the desserts, too - well, apart from the Recuit goats cheese and honey which had run out. Torrija is a kind of Spanish French toast, buttery and crunchy on the outside and complimented by a rich homemade ice cream... ...Mille-fuille of seasonal citrus fruit was gorgeous to look out and incredibly easy to eat, with layers of lemon curd binding together delicate flakes of pastry. We probably should have ordered two of these, it disappeared so quickly... ...Basque-style cheesecake, of which we did order two, which had a fantastic creamy flavour and texture topped with sugared hazelnuts... ...chocolate mousse with toasted "garam bread" (fortunately not nearly as weird as it sounds) with olive oil and salt... ...and a strawberry pavlova hiding under a blanket of mousse-like meringue which was full of the joys of summer. There was also a cheese course, all excellent needless to say, but don't ask me to tell you what they were because I forgot to make a note and they were all super-local varieties that you probably wouldn't see outside of this corner of Spain even if you looked for them. By this point, aided by a couple of bottles of nice cava (a ludicrously reasonable €20 each) and a glass of treacly Pedro Ximines, we had largely put the Unfortunate Lobster Incident behind us and were further cheered by a bill of €522.30 - pretty good indeed for 11 people. Admittedly the under 10s mainly ate chicken fingers and bread (as well as those puffed seaweed snacks) but a couple of the older kids had oysters and roast hake and chips, and there was definitely plenty of food and drink for everyone. So when I say the spend per head was only just over €47, well, I'm only stretching the truth slightly. The point is, I can recommend El Moli de l'Escala with endless enthusiasm. Their style of food and service is unpretentious but considered, rarely overcomplicated and always bursting with flavour and charm. They offer a range of exciting and unusual seafood throughout the year (if you ever see Palamos prawns, get them - this applies to any other restaurant too) at prices that feel moderate bordering on bargainous. And when Incidents arise, they handle them with grace and charm. I do hope they found a willing customer (internal or otherwise) for that Cap de Creus lobster. And either way, I hope this post serves as enough of a thank-you. 8/10
The London Lens In today's edition we investigate art, science, conspiracy and just what did the councillors know? It looks important, heavily signposted in gleaming red letters from both Greenhill Way and Station Road. A chain of blue and green lights beckons through an alleyway between a cake shop and a chicken shop, while a sign on a lamppost lures you in with promises of STREET FOOD ART AND MORE. But beyond the skips all we found was a silent cluster of lockable units, adapted containers and pseudo-greenhouses, all connected via a chain of timber ramps because this tumbleweed corner is nothing if not accessible. Who precisely is accountable for whatever hasn't happened here? special activities hitching onto the coattails of the London Festival of Architecture. Our bet is that the live music and local food was better appreciated than the panel on incremental urbanism, especially on a Thursday evening. And yet a month later nobody is here, not unless they're walking through from the adjacent street market, and the empty units echo with the sound of misplaced investment. Subscribe! But first — a quick look at the big London stories this week: Welcome to The London Lens. We're the capital's essential news magazine, delivered exclusively by Substack and online. Sign up to our mailing list and get free editions of The London Lens full of tantalising titbits you need to know about the city, although for the in-depth proper journalistic stuff we want your money because we have mortgages to pay. Please consider becoming a backer of The London Lens at just £7.95 a month, which is quite small if you think of it in terms of 'three coffees' and definitely not nearly £100 a year if you do the actual maths. The Cultural Lens Thirst! It's all about water and the lack of it, because we love to bring you the exclusives. Please subscribe!! Thirst! continues until February 2026 which is basically forever, so it'll be worth a visit on a glum winter Saturday when you've run out of interesting things to do. This article was published by The London Lens, a new quality Substack channel prioritising all things London. Several times a week we'll share with you a carefully curated story, plus our best recommendations, at least until we start to lose interest due to lack of subscriptions. We prioritise quality over quantity and delight in hiding all the best bits behind our paywall, tempting you in with dangling cliffhangers and hoping you'll cough up dosh to discover how things end. Please subscribe! Art Park continues unabated. map of the Art Park framed on the wall whose key is entirely empty, all the way from Units 1-14 to Galleries E-G. And yet it all started with such high hopes. Meanwhile Space on behalf of the London Borough of Harrow, the aim to "establish itself as a creative and social catalyst for Harrow's future". Beancounters should have run a mile when they read that the Art Park was to be "a hub of curiosity" but instead they paid up and this deadzone is the end result. Subscribe right now!! told the London Lens that the project highlighted Harrow Council's inability to plan and co-ordinate effectively, also that "hundreds of pounds in taxpayers' money is likely being wasted on keeping the lights on all day every day” which we're pretty sure is a ridiculous exaggeration. In response the Conservative council leader admitted it would take a few months to reach full occupancy as you'd expect with any new venue, then blamed Labour councillors for being too downbeat. "The Council is learning and adapting as we go along," he added, which to be fair did sound like a confession it was a bit rubbish at the moment. The remainder of this post is for paid subscribers only. Subscribe to The London Lens to read the second half of this and every newsletter going forward, because trust us we are really good at making the second half sound like it must be really interesting. £7.95 a month is nothing in the grand scheme of things, especially if you're the kind of Londoner who'll spaff twice that on a five-minute Uber journey, so why not share some of your disposable income with us? Please subscribe to the London Lens and keep the flames of proper newsgathering alive. It's better than doing a real job, especially now that so few real jobs for journalists remain. We implore you to subscribe!! Already a subscriber? Please sign in.
45 45 Squared 25) MARKET SQUARE, N9 Borough of Enfield, 70m×50m Market Square in Edmonton. New not old, enclosed not open, basic not aspirational, blouses not yogawear, also you can't drive a vehicle into it which I think is a first in this year-long series. Come with me to the heart of Edmonton Green Shopping Centre, N9's sinuous concrete stripmall. fairly typical town centre until the late 1960s when the newly-formed Enfield council decided to bulldoze the majority in favour of full-on retail redevelopment. Frederick Gibberd & Co (of Harlow fame) came up with an innovative brutalist concoction mixing tower blocks with shopping opportunities and car parks, while Edmonton Green was substantially remodelled for through traffic. A new bus station replaced the old marketplace and all the stalls were moved into a large covered square at the core of the new development. North Mall bears off from one corner, South Mall from the opposite corner and a lowlit connector to the outside world from one side, all feeding shoppers into Market Square. Five parallel bands of glass let the light in. The original stalls are long gone, replaced by brighter permanent units with standard fascias. Some are small with space for key-cutting, engraving or a nail bar, a few are substantially larger and the majority appropriate for medium-sized traders in luggage, Caribbean groceries or dried nuts. The three prime corner units are all occupied by greengrocers, such is the demand for low-priced fruit and veg hereabouts, all neatly arrayed in bands of red, orange and green across hundreds of plastic bowls. Why walk all the way to Asda or Lidl when Letherbarrow's has all the loose tomatoes, peppers and grapes any family could need? Then there's Crystal Meats who are from the shrinkwrapped tray school of butchery, any three for £10, also Fashion Express who sell those huge checked bags ideal for taking washing to the launderette. It's all impressively tidy. outer edge of the square, the remaining beacons including JD Sports and William Hill, although the draw was considerably higher when Superdrug was still a Tesco. As for the Railway Tavern this claims to be a traditional pub, and indeed the original did stand by the level crossing on the Green for years, but this glum replacement has all the character of a dingy unit in the corner of a postwar market. Oh and there's also an upstairs, assuming you can get there. For some impractical reason it's only accessible up a single tissue-strewn staircase, or an adjacent lift, so first floor businesses must suffer terribly from low footfall. That said if you want the Turkish accountants, the special needs theatre or the local MP's office, you're more likely to be on a mission than just ambling by. What's unexpected is that after you've walked round the balcony a separate passage heads out onto the open roof... and into a street in the sky. A lot of councils tried mall-top living in the 70s, notably in Wood Green, but it's still surprising to see a row of eight townhouses on top of Clarks and Cardfactory, complete with washing hanging on the line and a lady sipping coffee in her front garden. My initial conclusion was that Edmonton Green Shopping Centre was a postwar success, still very well used and with a minimum of empty units. Then I remembered that there is essentially nowhere else for Edmonton's shoppers to go, the exterior retail offering having been so comprehensively extinguished, so of course tumbleweed has been held at bay. At least Market Square itself remains a cut above what most towns of this size offer, still appealingly blessed with everyday essentials, so long as you don't look round the edge or go upstairs.