Double Date Thursday

Last Thursday evening involved a nice double date with myself and the boy, Kirsty and her lovely boyfriend Hugo. The fact that I got the boy out on a double date without realising/complaining is a huge achievement in itself so well done me!

We started off by attending #freefoodthursdays at The Hoxton Pony. Free food I hear you cry? Yep you read correctly, every Thursday there is free food given away between 6 and 9pm, with a Moroccan meal night and new winter cocktail tasting session all coming up, for free, over the next few weeks. Thank me later for this perfect after work freeness on a Thursday.

We got chatting to one of the owners of Dub Plates Kitchen (check their Twitter here) and found out a bit about the venture; two friends growing up in London with West Indian heritage decided to 'remix' traditional Caribbean food, adding London influences and coming up with some great new dishes in the process.

Bored of chicken wings? Not when they're in a sorrel chilli sauce you're not! Like beer battered fish? Red Stripe batter only makes them better (the fish was my absolute fave). Sliders are everywhere..but curry goat sliders? My friends assured me they were delicious. I love the idea of presenting Caribbean food with a London twist, the veggie sausage and herby mash were delish as was the gunga pea hummus with fried green banana chips. I'm only sad I didn't get to try the jerk smoked mozzarella and heirloom tomato salad. Dub Plates Kitchen currently run supper clubs and pop-ups so keep an eye out for where they might end up next.

Literally around the corner, Rivington Place is exhibiting Black Chronicles II. A free exhibition, it looks at the presence of Black people in Britain before the second world war through studio portraiture, with all photos taken before 1938. There are over 200 photographs on display, many never seen before, dug up from archives and re-examined. There are incredible photographs of the African Choir, when they toured Britain and many stunning unidentified sitters, giving us a glance at history we are rarely taught about; black and Asian people in Britain years before the Windrush, which is when we are often led to believe was the first time black people set foot on this island.

The exhibition is dedicated to the late cultural theorist Stuart Hall, who I studied at both college and university, and the walls are adorned with beautiful phrases from his keynote speech on archives and cultural memory, actually held at Rivington Place in 2008, as well as audio excerpts playing in the second exhibition space. He spoke a lot about forgetting being an important trope of memory and how we have to do our best to acknowledge and preserve the history of our ancestors in this country. With it being black history month, it's the perfect time to visit and learn a little more about the history of Black people in the country I was born in.

You can't take photos in the gallery itself (although there was nothing they could do about our cheeky ones from outside!) but you can see a few on the Autograph APB site as well as a bit more information. The exhibition runs until 29th November so plenty of time to get down there.

Last stop of the night!

The FatKyds t-shirt launch at Shoreditch House. FatKyds commission an artist to create limited edition t-shirts, that are one off designs and all produced in London. Backing British all the way! They had flute playing beatboxers and alcohol flowing as well as Polaroid girls knocking about. I can't resist a good Polaroid shot, me.