Artwork by Caroline McCurdy.

Pour chasser la grisaille et la déprime automnale, rien de mieux que franchir la porte du restaurant Rumi sur la rue Hutchison coin Fairmount. Le resto qui porte le nom du célèbre poète perse offre une atmosphère qui porte au calme et aux conversations intimes. Les murs sont ornés de décorations iraniennes et la pièce est remplie de plantes vertes. Assez pour croire à l’exotisme et penser un instant que nous sommes dans un salon de Téhéran. Dans un coin, des tables basses entourées de banquettes remplies de coussins aux couleurs pourpres. C’est là que nous passerons la soirée.

Tradition d’hospitalité oblige, on nous sert un verre de thé avec des carrés de sucre dès notre arrivée. Le menu offre les saveurs de la route de la soie. Cela va des grillades aux tajines, en passant par les mezze et le pain naan. En entrée, nous avons choisi l’humus et le pain naan, les deux faits maison. Pour le plat principal, nous avons goûté la tajine de poulet et la tajine d’agneau accompagné de riz basmati. C’était délicieux, la viande était très tendre et je recommande fortement l’agneau qui était très goûteux.

Nous avons choisi d’accompagner le repas avec un thé à la menthe. Servi dans une théière en argent, le thé est resté chaud tout le repas. Tellement délicieux et sucré à souhait que nous l’avons bu jusqu’à la dernière goutte. Pour moi qui ne boit pas de café et bois rarement du thé, je dois avouer que j’ai eu de la difficulté à trouver sommeil, mais comment résister à tant de saveur!

Bref, le restaurant est vraiment charmant et l’atmosphère a un petit quelque chose qui rend zen avec la musique de fond arabisante. J’y vois bien s’y dérouler un rendez-vous romantique, ou une soirée de confidences entres amies. De plus, je dirais que la nourriture plaira à la majorité, même si vos amis ne sont pas friands de nourriture dite ethnique, la cuisine n’est pas trop relevé et la carte assez variée.

J’ajouterais aussi que les fervents du Café Byblos sur la rue Laurier (un autre restaurant que j’adore) trouveront aussi leur compte chez Rumi. Et vice versa.

Source photos: http://restaurantrumi.com/

5198 rue Hutchison (coin Fairmount), Montréal

Tél. 514-490-1999

]]> http://bijougraphie.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/november-notables-pt-3/ Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:34:17 +0000 bijougraphie http://bijougraphie.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/november-notables-pt-3/ http://blog.becausexm.com/2009/11/03/east-london-innovation/ Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:52:58 +0000 richardnewcombe http://blog.becausexm.com/2009/11/03/east-london-innovation/

ATM's with personality on Roman Road, London

Most of the time visiting a cash point is a hum-drum part of life. Insert card, push buttons, take cash. However, we recently stumbled upon some cash points around east London that try to add a bit more spark to your everyday transaction.

Mixed in with the language options we have English, French and… Cockney, which when pressed will change the system from a regular bank of screens to a maze of amusing rhyming slang based options.

The fantastic little change is a great example of how adding a little local quirk to what my be a regular situation can make it fun, and memorable! A simple little experience which you may want to check out for yourself on Roman Road, Mile End if you are in the area.

We hope to see more like this all over London soon!

Perhaps it was a matter of just choosing the wrong day, but after two hours of walking between noon and two o’clock on a Saturday we were only able to see the work of two artists.

I’m all for supporting artist-run centres and like to see what is up and coming.  So after discovering that an area known as Mile End in Montreal had gone so far as to make a map of their galleries, centres and other related businesses to promote the area, I went to check it out.

The trip was disappointing.  Some of the mapped spaces were so poorly marked that we could not find them.  Others were not open at the standard Saturday time of noon and in another the artist was late and the gallery attendant didn’t know how to set up the installation.   Unfortunately, a couple more were in between shows (no foul there).  After a bunch of misses we didn’t even bother to walk over to Ave. De Gaspe which may have had something great, but those that came before turned us off.  The only two galleries that were ready and open for business were La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse and Galerie Push  (a commercial gallery not even on the Mile End map).

Is it too much to ask that if you’re going to go to the trouble and expense to advertise your spaces that you at minimum  make sure that you open at standard times — drop-ins rarely make special trips for your show — and mark your space clearly so that people who don’t know the area don’t have trouble finding you?

Ma première collaboration au chouette magazine web P45 a été publiée hier. J’ai réalisé un voxpop que vous pouvez voir ici. 

Et comme un genre de making of, voici les photos tout court, dans leur cadrage original:

Finally I managed to locate my camera with our finishing shots from FeltUnited.  We chose to highlight the Mile-End watertower up by the viaduc, a classic Clark ruelle and the intersection of Van Horne and Waverly to give out of towners an intimate view of our historic neighborhood.  Montreal- represent!

La 2e édition des ATELIERS PORTES OUVERTES du Mile-End commence demain et se terminera dimanche. C’est l’occasion d’entrer dans les ateliers et les galeries d’une centaine d’artistes du quartier. L’événement est présenté par Ubisoft Montréal et Clark.

Thanks to all the folks big and small who came together on October 3rd for the first International Day of Felt up at the Fiberalley studio, we felt excited…creative…inspired…..  Special thanks to Gwen Lamie who shed a little light on one of the events organizers, Cynthia Reynolds, a skillful and talented felter who happens to be Gwen’s daughter and hail from Montreal.  Rainy days kept us from displaying outside, so keep posted for our photo contributions that are due anytime the weather decides to cooperate.

It was a real felt frenzy last weekend at the St-Viateur mini-fest, part of the city wide Journee de Culture in Montreal- we even got picked up by CTV news! You can check it out here.  Very exciting for those of us on the grassroots level of the larger FeltUnited initiative that is set to take off next Saturday.  If you missed out on the fun, don’t worry there is still a chance to join our felt festivities this Saturday at 1pm up at Red Bird Studios #209 for interactive feltmaking workshops, exhibiting and appreciation.

Mile-End Community Felter’s Happenings will take place on the following dates:

Sept 19/ Introduction to Needle & Water felting::all ages welcome::135 Van Horne Studio #209::1pm

Sept 26/Interactive Felting Workshop::all ages welcome::St-Viateur Est @de Gaspe::1pm

October 3/Interactive Felting Workshop & Exhibition::all ages welcome::135 Van Horne Studio #209::1pm

local contacts Allison: astrialli@yahoo.ca and Pandora:p_hobby@hotmail.com

We are really pleased to announce that we are officially hosting another FeltUnited happening here in Montreal, and its is going to be a blast.  The Mile-End Community felters (a recently formed group of local fiber artists and crafty kids) will be linking up with the Journee de Culture, and first time event which celebrates reclaiming green and public spaces in the northern reaches of the Mile-End near the corner of St-Viateur and Rue de Gaspe. But the fun doesn’t stop there- our fantastic felting adventure will culminate on the 3rd of October when we juxtapose our small felted creations with our favorite parks and green spaces in the neighborhood, likely to gravitate around the rainroad tracks near the corner of Clark and Van Horne and the RedBird Studios warehouse building.  If you would like to join the Mile-End Community Felters please contact Allison at astrialli <at> yahoo.ca and we can link you up with all of the dates and locations.