Cambridge Day Trip: Hot Numbers II and a College Reunion

I don't have too many reasons to return to Cambridge, the town in which I studied and worked for a total of seven years, these days, but a reunion lunch in my college yesterday brought a number of my friends back into town. After weeks of sunshine, the heavens opened almost as soon as the train passed under the North Circular, and as I had a little time to spare before lunch, I sought shelter in Hot Numbers' second branch on Trumpington Street.

I visited the original Hot Numbers on Gwdir Street two summers ago and only recently discovered that they had opened up a new location, which also houses their roaster. Both cafés are located slightly south of the city centre, and they are both about 10 minutes' walk from the train station, although in opposite directions. The Trumpington Street branch, which opened last December, is smaller and although it was very busy, I managed to find a place to sit.

They were serving several espresso blends, and a caramelly, nutty filter variety that came, unusually enough, from Vietnam. If you like hand-brewed filter coffee, you are spoiled for choice at Hot Numbers, as they serve pourover, Aeropress and siphon methods, all for £2.50. I would have liked to try the siphon, but was in a bit of a hurry, so stuck to the Aeropress, which was flavoursome and full-bodied — the perfect complement to the grey, rainy morning. Local artworks adorn the walls and there is a friendly, buzzy vibe. The two Hot Numbers cafés are easily the best places to get a good coffee while you're in Cambridge — a town better known for its tea shops and chain restaurants.

After my coffee, I walked into the town centre and into my college. It was nice to catch up with friends and former course-mates, boat-mates and old acquaintances. Eventually, the sun came out and I walked along the backs, admiring the punting pile-ups on the River Cam.

I am more than slightly biased, but I still think my college is the most beautiful, with the almost-symmetrical 19th century New Court (new being a relative term in Cambridge), the pair of bridges over the Cam — Kitchen Bridge and its more famous sister, the Bridge of Sighs — and the red-brick buildings of First, Second and Third Court, the oldest parts of the college.

First years are housed in the apparently award-winning, brutalist 1960s concrete wing of the college, but I had nicer digs in my second and third years. My second-year room is one of the second-floor windows in the top photo. In my third year, my room was located right above the college's grand dining hall, two windows up and one along from the central arch in the second photo. Every time I return to Cambridge, and especially when I visit my old college, I remind myself how lucky I am to have spent so much time in such a beautiful place.

The Caffeine Chronicles: Counter Café Review

Update: Unfortunately, Counter Café is permanently closed, as of November 2016.

It's a bit of a faff to get to Hackney from Bermondsey, and I often forget how lovely it is to amble along the canal there on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Last weekend, I went to a preview screening of The Overnight at the cinema at the Stratford Westfield, and afterwards, a quick search of the interwebs for a new café to try in the area took me to Counter Café in Hackney Wick, a quiet 20-minute walk from the mega-mall. Nice Carly Simon quote on the A-board too!

Counter is located within Stour Space, an airy art gallery and exhibition space in a red-brick, canal-side building. The weekend brunch menu looked rather epic — I'd already eaten, so I'll definitely have to visit again to try the eggs Benedict or the bacon sarnie with home-made relish, and egg and/or bacon (because why choose?).

Instead, I settled for a white chocolate and hazelnut cookie (£1.50) and a coffee. They roast their own coffee and sell bags of their Secret Stash and Sugar Daddy single-origin filter beans. There weren't any hand-brewed filter coffees on offer, so I ordered a flat white (£2.50) and went to take a seat outside. There are a number of canal-side tables on the pontoon out back and I managed to nab one by the canal, where I could watch the boats and bikes dawdle and whiz by, respectively.

The table I chose also seemed to be one of the wobbliest, and just seconds after taking a picture of my coffee, a rather energetic customer stomped by and some of the coffee spilled into the saucer. This happened again, leaving about as much coffee in the saucer, and the barista kindly offered to make me another. This time, I decided that a macchiato was safer and I was able to prevent any further spills. The coffee was very good: rich, smooth and chocolatey — I'm not sure which espresso blend they were serving, but it went perfectly with my cookie.

Counter also has some covered and indoor seating areas for those days when the weather isn't quite so summery, but wherever you sit, you will probably like the view. And you'll probably like the café; it's already on my list of favourites.

Counter Café. 7 Roach Road, London, E3 2PA (Hackney Wick Overground). Website. Twitter.

Ho! For the West

If you can imagine a retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice set amid the sprawling, outlaw-ridden landscapes of the American West, John Maclean's accomplished new film Slow West is not far off. A sort of hybrid of True Grit (but with better weather) and pretty much any Sergio Leone film, Slow West features gorgeous, vibrant cinematography and strong central performances from Kodi Smit-McPhee and Michael Fassbender.

As the film opens, Jay (Smit-McPhee), a Scottish teenager is lying on his back somewhere in the middle of the United States shooting stars — or at least pointing his pistol at them. After a bodged Mexican standoff — not the last in this film — he is rescued by Silas (Fassbender), a gruff outlaw of few words. "You need a chaperone and I'm a chaperone," Silas insists when he hears of Jay's plan to reach the west. There is, of course, a fee for such a service, and perhaps even the tempting $2,000 bounty that has been placed on Rose (Caren Pistorius), the love of Jay's life, whose flight with her father to America prompted Jay's own journey.

Jay and Silas make an unlikely double act, although perhaps not as unlikely as Mattie and Rooster in True Grit, and as they travel slowly west, they learn a little about each other, love and life. We also learn a little more about Jay's past and what brought him to this point, mainly through brief dreams and reveries of his life back in Scotland with Rose. Amid the almost-bonding, however, it becomes clear that Jay and Silas aren't the only ones interested in finding Rose, and the limits of Jay's faith and his love for her are soon put to the test.

Slow West clocks in at just 1h25, but although there are many action-packed scenes, it still feels like a slow-burner in places. But the chemistry between Fassbender and Smit-McPhee is great, as we watch them to build an understated relationship that is somewhere between father-son and friendship. By giving the audience, but not Jay, reason to mistrust Silas, Maclean is able to create an air of unease and tension. Fassbender is excellent throughout, but Smit-McPhee takes a little longer to ease into the role; he comes into his own during the final act, though.

There are some sadder, more reflective moments, some great fight scenes and a couple of scares, but there are also some good lines and more than a few laughs in Maclean's script. During the film's gruelling but immaculately choreographed finale, there are a couple of great visual metaphors, especially one involving a jar salt during a particularly tense and emotional scene. The beauty of the photography and the attention to detail in Slow West are also particularly impressive. The end sequence takes place in and around a small hut so pristine and attractively styled that it looks like it came right out of Ikea's summer catalogue. New Zealand was doubling for the US in the film, and it makes me want to visit the former even more.

"This Is California, Maybe This Is What Their Dinner Parties Are Like"

Patrick Brice's new film The Overnight is the kind of movie I might not have paid to go to see, but I got a ticket to a free preview screening of the film yesterday morning and decided it was at least worth the trip to Stratford. There are some good lines in the script, but I felt that it didn't quite strike the right comic balance: it wasn't funny enough to be a comedy or serious enough to be a drama.

In some ways, The Overnight reminded me of Roman Polanski's Carnage — two couples are brought together by their children and spend a day in each other's company. Of course, in Carnage, everything goes all Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? pretty quickly, whereas the plot takes a rather different turn in The Overnight, but both feel rather stagey, almost all of the action taking place in a single house. In Carnage, though, the fine acting performances elevated it for me, whereas two of the four central actors in Brice's film — Taylor Schilling and Jason Schwartzman — often irritate me on screen, so perhaps I was predisposed to like it less.

Emily (Schilling) and Alex (Adam Scott) have just moved to Los Angeles from Seattle, and feel that they should start to make some friends. Their young son R.J. (R.J. Hermes) is invited to a birthday party where he meets a boy called Max (Max Moritt). Max's father Kurt (Schwartzman), the self-declared mayor of the neighbourhood, takes a shine to Alex and Emily and invites them over to his house for dinner that evening. They show up clutching R.J. and a bottle of wine, which, as they pass through the gates of the beautiful mansion, is far too cheap.

Inside, they meet Kurt's beautiful French wife Charlotte (Judith Godrèche), and as the four adults and two kids sit down to dinner, they all get on swimmingly. When the children start to grow sleepy, Alex and Emily say that it's time to go home, but Kurt suggests — insists, in fact — that they put the kids to bed upstairs and allow the adults to continue having fun downstairs. And that's when the evening takes a turn for the, er, unusual. Kurt — a rich and mysterious artist / water-filter salesman — brings out his bong, and the two couples begin to get to know each other better. "This is California, maybe this is what their dinner parties are like," Alex murmurs to his wife.

Perhaps better than Emily and Alex would have liked, as they are subjected to a rather questionable DVD of Charlotte's latest 'acting' experience and Kurt reveals his — surely rather niche — artwork. In fact, as well as getting to know the other couple better, Emily and Alex begin to learn things about each other, as secrets are revealed and insecurities and inhibitions are stripped away in a drugged-up, boozed-up haze. "I'm firing on cylinders I didn't even know I had," Alex says when Emily suggest that they make a getaway.

Brice's film is a based on an interesting premise, and it was, in places, quite amusing, although more darkly comic than rom-com. Its 1h20 length was also a blessing — I'm not sure I could have stomached more time in the company of any of them. Godrèche's performance was the most nuanced and her character the most interesting, whereas the others seemed to be playing the same characters they always play: the quirky egotist (Schwartzman), the self-absorbed whiner (Schilling) and the smart and wry but often insecure worrier (Scott). Maybe with stronger performances, The Overnight could have been more likeable, but I found it somewhat lacking in laughs and just the wrong side of uncomfortable.

A Weekend in Wales

When I was younger, we used to go on family holidays to mid-Wales two or three times per year. As teenager, I resented being taken to the middle of nowhere to hike in the rain and wander through sleepy countryside villages, where there weren't enough shops or boys. It was only when we went back for a little family getaway last weekend that I realised I hadn't been in over 15 years. Mid-Wales hasn't changed much, but I have and we had a lovely time.

My brother, sister-in-law and I caught the train from London to Oxford on Friday evening, and my dad then drove us as far as Montgomery, a small, charming Welsh town near the English border, about 20 miles southwest of Shrewsbury. We made good time and with the long, mid-June day, we arrived just before sunset, and just in time for dinner at The Checkers, a chic restaurant with rooms run by a 'Frenchman and two farmer's daughters'. As it was the eve of World Gin Day, we started with a gin and tonic in the lounge, while we waited for our table. They serve several gins, but we decided to try the Brecon Botanicals — when in Wales, and all that — a fresh, citrusy gin.

Our dinner was exceptional. I've never been so excited about a soup before, but the garden pea velouté with bacon, quail's egg and mint (£9) was delicious: simultaneously fresh and creamy. The fillet of beef (£29) I had for my main course was also fantastic: the meat was perfectly rare, tender and juicy, nestled in creamed potato 'bath' and red wine jus. I didn't have room for a pudding, but somehow found a pistachio crème brûlée (£8) in front of me, and somehow made short work of it. The service was immaculate and if you're ever in this part of the world — and even if you aren't — you should really pay them a visit.

There was no room at The Checkers, so we stayed elsewhere and after a hearty breakfast, went to explore Montgomery Castle, a Norman castle dating to the 13th  century. The rain had set in, by then, so we didn't linger for too long, but we did enjoy the views over the town and the valley. From Montgomery, we headed west to the small town of Dolgellau (dol-geth-lee), 40 miles and about an hour's drive. We spent a lot of time in Dolgellau when I was younger and not much has changed. I did find one independent coffee shop, T.H. Roberts on Glyndwr Street, where the macchiato was rather better than I expected. Sadly, the milk bar was no more.

Between Dolgellau and the coast, the Afon Mawddach river broadens into an estuary — the small seaside towns of Barmouth and Fairbourne sit on opposing sides of its mouth. Barmouth has a lovely railway bridge, which offers moody, misty views over the town, the estuary and the surrounding mountains, such as Cadair Idris. We took a few photos and went into town to get some lunch.

There isn't a lot to do in Barmouth: a past-its-best fairground, a few fish-and-chip shops (one called Arousal Café...), some second-half bookshops and a particularly excellent homeware store on the high street called Pieces for Places (pictured below), which has a great selection of furniture, kitchenware and accessories. After lunch, we went to Shell Island, a large camping site on the beach in Llanbedr, a few miles north of Barmouth. Again, it is a little past its best, but you can't deny the beauty of the beaches and the views across the bay to Harlech. While we were there, there seemed to have been an jellfishocalypse — dozens of large jellyfish were washed up and dried out on the shore.

After checking into our B&B, the lovely Farchynys Farm, just outside the village of Bontddu (bon-thee), about halfway between Barmouth and Dolgellau, we went for a late dinner at Bwyty Mawddach, a restaurant just outside Llanelltyd, which has stunning floor-to-ceiling windows that offer panoramic views across the Cadair Idris mountain range. The sun had come out and although I've seen Cadair many times, I didn't recognise the view in he glorious sunshine. I felt like I had arrived in Yosemite. Dinner at Bwyty Mawddach was rather good.

We started with another Brecon Botanicals G&T on the outdoor patio, before heading inside for dinner. We all ordered the homemade tagliatelle with pork ragu (£8) to start, and my brother and I both followed with a steak and chips (£21). Our steaks were rather more on the well side than medium, but were still tasty, and the head waiter took one of them off the bill, without prompting. My pine-accented, custardy, toffee-apply pudding (£7.50) was very nice too. The views and the setting at Bwyty Mawddach are wonderful, but the food was good too and it's a lovely venue for a special meal.

In the morning, the sun was out again and so we went for a walk along the estuary, taking some photos in the gorgeous morning light and working up an appetite for the excellent full-English breakfast at Farchynys Farm. Various tame blue tits and woodpeckers came to eat their own breakfast while we filled up on ours.

Afterwards, we drove to Fairbourne to take some pictures of Barmouth Bridge from the other side, and then began the long, slow journey back to London. You can travel by train all the way from London Euston to Barmouth, with a change at Birmingham, but it takes about half a day and isn't cheap, and you will probably need a car at the other end anyway, so it's better to drive. There is plenty of hiking in the area, various other outdoor activities, great beaches and plenty of country pubs. Of course, it does rain a lot, but it's such a beautiful part of the world that you probably won't mind it too much.

A Slice of Life: Pizza Union King's Cross Review

Although the choice of lunch spots near King's Cross has increased exponentially since I started working in the area five years ago, there are still a few voids, particularly when it comes to casual pizza joints. Caravan in Granary Square does excellent pizza but is often busy at lunchtimes, and whenever I find a pizza spot at the KERB street food market that I like, they seem to end up moving on to more permanent home.

My #KingsCrossPizzaProblems are, however, no more thanks to the arrival of Pizza Union on Pentonville Road. I hadn't heard of Pizza Union, but on my bus home each day, I would see their restaurant slowly coming together and thought it looked like a fun place. When I looked then up, I read about the high-speed, low-cost, super-tasty Roman-style pizzas they served and I couldn't wait until they opened. After a busy week at work, I suggested a little lunchtime outing on Friday, and unsurprisingly, everyone liked the idea. We got there just after 12.30 and the place was heaving — not bad given that they've only been open for a few days. I knew that the turnaround would be fast, though, so I wasn't worried about having to wait for a table.

Once inside, you order at the counter. Everything is very reasonably priced, starting at just £3.95 for a margherita and working up to the princely sum of £6.50 for the carne (with beef, chicken, pepperoni and onions). I was tempted by the tropicali, but I usually stick to the margherita when I try out a new pizza place — if the ingredients are good, you don't need a lot of toppings, so it's often the best way to test the quality of the pizza. Wine, beer and prosecco are on offer, but as we had to go back to work, we stuck to the San Pellegrino soft drinks. If you want something to nibble on while you wait for your pizza, there are cups of olives (£1.80) and chilli corn (£1.80) at the till.

After ordering, you are given a buzzer and can go and find a table. The King's Cross branch is pretty big and I really liked the décor. Most of the tables are long, sharing-style benches with gorgeous, colourful tiling. Oversized pendant lamps and LED lettering add to the funky vibe. The pizzas are cooked in a huge, monochrome pizza oven and only take a couple of minutes each to cook. It was, as I mentioned, very busy when we were there, but we still only had to wait ten minutes or so.

The pizza was really good: a very thin, crispy base and very flavoursome cheese and tomato toppings. The base was so thin, in fact, that it was a little tricky to eat with my hands, but nothing a little folding couldn't solve. As we left, we saw the gelati in the freezer by the door, with flavours including peanut butter and salted caramel, which were hard to ignore. If you're craving more dough, Pizza Union also serve pudding 'pizzas', or rather a warm dough ring with toppings such as Nutella and mascarpone (£2.95).

The staff were all busy but friendly, and if you're looking for a place for a superveloce but tasty bite to eat near King's Cross station, Pizza Union is it. As you can tell, we weren't the only ones having a good time!

Pizza Union. 246–250 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9JY (Tube: King's Cross). Website. Twitter.