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Blogdigger Media search for Signs

The Emergence of London’s New Underground

Underground restaurants are the dining equivalent of a speak-easy or a rave. Whether they are entirely legal or not is a bit of a grey area. But this is part of their allure. There’s something very intoxicating about the combination of being “in the know� and illicitness that creates an experience that people can’t help but talk about. It’s word of mouth marketing at its most powerful.

Underground restaurants are new to the UK in the guise of MsMarmitelover’s Underground Restaurant in Kilburn and Horton Jupiter’s Secret Ingredient in Hackney, but are much more familiar in other parts of the world. In America the underground dining scene is well established with covert organisations such as Ghetto Gourmet leading the charge. (You can read our interview with the founder of this movement, Jeremy Townsend here.) Ghetto Gourmet events tend to be relatively large scale and involve much creative collaboration between chefs, musicians and artists (you can see photographs from a recent event here. The scene is well established with a dynamic community network and very slick sites for other underground restaurants such as Undergrounds Unite.

Whilst the underground dining movement is clearly well developed in America, it is also alive and well in Cuba, but for different reasons. Paladares are restaurants in people’s homes where they invite people to dine with them in exchange for their tourist dollars. It used to be illegal as it stands against Cuba’s communist ethos, but the rules have been slackened enough, but not too much, to maintain the heady balance of secrecy mixed with the assurance of safety. The best example of a Cuban paladar is La Guarida which serves the best food on the island and was the focus of Fresa y Chocolate. You can find similar underground restaurants in Bologna, China, Paris, Sydney - and now London.

London’s much vaunted restaurant scene has been slow to pick up on this trend. The pop up restaurants from the brains behind Bistroteque, such as Reindeer and Flash are the closest thing London has had. So why has the underground restaurant scene suddenly sprung up in early 2009?

The reasons are twofold. The easy answer is the recession – as money has got tighter diners are looking for something more exciting but for less money. The second part of the answer is the internet. The online foodie community is very dynamic in London (recent Time Out and Times Online articles support this), which makes the marketing of an underground restaurant a doddle. As soon as MsMarmitelover mentioned her idea to open an underground restaurant the response from the people who subscribe to her RSS feed and follow her on Twitter was overwhelming. Within a week a plethora of food bloggers had either helped out or written very positive reviews which in turn were lapped up by their broader readerships. This bottom up approach to marketing a restaurant has not gone unnoticed by the mainstream media or other restaurateurs. The Guardian reviewed the opening night and AA Gill wrote a piece about how bored he was with normal restaurants and how all he wanted to do was actually find an underground restaurant so he could review it!

MsMarmitelover has been writing a blog called the English Can Cook for years. It’s an open diary of her passion for food and desire to open a restaurant which she has now achieved, albeit not as close to the sea as she has hoped! For her, the motivation isn’t money, it’s about sharing. Sharing her passion for food and her wealth of creative talents and to a lesser extent her view on life. It’s the sort of story you might find in “The Gift�; a fascinating book that discusses the obligation for creatively gifted people to share their talents with others. MsMarmitelover’s labour of love could easily form the basis for an additional chapter.
Her anarchist background has trained her in the dark arts of grass roots movements. It all comes very naturally, having cooked for communal gatherings at Anti G8 summits as well as chefing once a week at a vegan restaurant called Pogos café in Clapton. She’s also interested by the dominance of men in restaurants around the world, despite the fact that women do the vast majority of the world’s cooking. Her article about “Ceserina’s� in Bologna is well worth a read.

We were stunned by the MsMarmitelover event we attended. It was more like going to a brilliant dinner party where you don’t actually know anyone, but know you’ll have a great time because your all interested in food. For a full write up of the evening you can read it here.

Her restaurant is only open on Saturdays and to keep things fresh she has a constantly changing theme. One week is was Mexican, next week it will be Indian. There’s also an astrology theme in the pipeline. She’s keen for the Summer months to arrive so she can entertain al fresco on her garden terrace.
We’re also keeping our ears perked for news from two other London underground restaurant making waves: The Moveable Restaurant and  The Secret Ingredient, which is run by musician Horton Jupiter. You can explore more on his facebook group here.

It’s early days for the London Underground restaurant movement. We predict it will grow – rather like the way mycelium spread underground without anyone noticing and then bloom as mushrooms when the conditions are right. We’ll start to hear about more secret restaurants popping up. And hopefully we’ll see MsMarmitelover share her gift for inspiring others with her food in ever more interesting ways. As the going gets tough, creativity becomes more important.

- Contributed by Jonathan Brown

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By Contributing Writer | © PSFK, 2009. | Article Link | Comments | More stories in: Entertainment, Featured Articles, Food & Drink, Trends In The UK and dining, Food & Drink, london, Trends In The UK

40 Photoshop Illustration Tutorials

While Adobe Illustrator is the preferred tool by most designers for illustrating and drawing digitally, Photoshop can also be used for some types of illustration. This post includes a selection of tutorials that cover the process of drawing various objects in Photoshop.

Creating a Cartoon Hot Air Balloon Scene

How to Create a Delicious Ice Cream Bar

Create a TV in Photoshop

Create a Vector Style Illustration in Photoshop

Making a Digital Watch Icon

Illustrating a Cool Glass of Beer

Using Gradients to Make Light and Shadow - and a Coffee Cup

Rainbows - Making of

Psychedelic Life Tutorial

Create a Slick Black iMac in Photoshop

How to Create a Desk Environment in Photoshop from Scratch

Create a Sleek Illustration that Fades from Line Art to Color

How to Create a Classic Guitar from Scratch in Photoshop

Vanity License Plate

How to Create a Delicious Green Apple Illustration

Create a Poster Illustration with Floating Floral Elements

Create a Natural Composition with Light Shining Through a Rustic Fence

Amazing Retro Rainbow Curves

Illustrate a Traffic Cone in Photoshop

Create a Vector-Based Zune with Photoshop

Create a MacBook Air Ad

Red Gamble Dice Icon

Create a Shiny 3D Snooker Ball in Photoshop

Draw Your Own Hair

Aging Road Sign

Make a Realistic Football

Draw Your Snowman in Photoshop

Draw in Photoshop Using a Tablet

Custom Hard Drive Icon

Swiss Army Knife Tutorial

Drawing Hair with Photoshop

Draw an MP3 Player

Google Chrome Logo Design

Chalkboard

Making a Photoshop Shield

Drawing a Glossy Monitor

How to Make a Bangin’ Woofer Inbedded in Wood

Drawing a High-Detailed Glass Ball

Drawing Vector-Looking Cat Illustration Using Photoshop

Drawing Kirby

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Quick Parenting Tip for Meltdown-free Trips with the Kids
Some days with the kids are just rough. Parents need to have tricks up their sleeves to get things done some days. Here's a quick tip for avoiding toddler and baby meltdowns on the road.
9 Best Strollers - Parenting.com

Blogdigger Media search for Pooper Scoopers
Blogdigger Media search for Pooper Scoopers

Sunset Park Tops Brooklyn's List of Poopiest Nabes

Brooklyn came in second last year in the number of pooper-scooper violations; the County of Kings racked up 224 citations after Da Bronx's 354, reports The New York Post. The places you most have to watch your step? Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace (which The Post calls Park Slope) and, rather appropriately, Brownsville. Look out below.

Save Your Manhood Tip #52: It's a Privilege to Take Your Wife's Dog for Poo-Poo Walks

Dear Mr. Man Points,

Taking my wife’s toy poodle for poo-poo walks is really getting me down. To add to the insult, as I scoop up the doo-doo, the poodle looks on with a familiar hauteur and I realize the poodle’s features and my wife’s are becoming more and more similar so that I fear the poodle has become another Wife Boss giving me orders. This can’t be helping me in the Man Points department.

Cheer up, you whining sad sack. Truth be told, cleaning up the poodle’s dog crap is the best thing that ever happened to you. No doubt your clean-up duty is the penance you now must pay for being a two-faced predatory playboy during your bachelor days. All that scheming and lying with the ladies has caught up with you. Now you have the task of dog-doo duty with your wife’s supercilious poodle. Look at this task as a privilege and as an opportunity to learn humility. Embracing your purgatory with good cheer will earn you Man Points. So wipe off your pissy expression and pick up your dog crap like a man.