Trying to Hate Siltanen

I don't get thrown out of bars often. Granted, it may have happened once or twice, but it's not like it's an everyday occurrence. So ever since i almost got thrown out of Siltanen some months ago (a dramatic tale involving a birthday party, a snowstorm and some jaeger bombs) i've held a bitter and thoroughly justified grudge against the place itself, and certain members of the bar staff especially, whose textbook hipsterishness coupled with a  total ambivalence towards customer service have left me dumbstruck on more than one occasion.

However, despite this deep-seated disfavor, i'll confess that on equally as many an occasion i've found myself spending the sunny hours of a summer evening lounging on said restaurant's terrace with a cold drink in hand and a plate of food in front of me. Nevertheless, where the service disappoints, the food has yet to.

This Monday was no exception, when six starving ladies sat down for dinner. Siltanen brought in a new summer menu not too long ago, which features sandwiches, soups, salads and the like – with vegetarians taken into account too. Prices average about a tenner, which won't set you on the road to bankruptcy. Also, portions are a good size, so making a pit stop by the dodgy-looking hot dog cart on your way home won't be necessary.

I decided to go for Ali Baba's Feast, a huge platter of hummus, spicy pita bread, couscous, aubergine dip, taboulleh, falafel and tzatziki. I reckon this platter is big enough to share between two, but such was the magnitude of my hunger that i devoured it all single-handedly. Washed down with a pint of ice cold Crowmoor, it was gooood. Falafels were crisp, the spiciness of the bread was a nice touch and the hummus was delicious. It's worth mentioning, though, that this here Ali Baba comes laced with garlic, to the extent that you can still taste it two days later. In any case, well worth the 12 euros.

And though Anne's Galette sandwich probably featured more meat than bread, i had to take a picture just to document the ambitious presentation. I'm told that in addition to good presentation, the taste was also spot on.

So yeah, Siltanen, as long as you make food this good, i simply can't hate you, no matter how hard i try.

Siltanen, Hämeentie 13 B

Yesterday Was Gorgeous.

And a good day. Because of the small things. Strange dream of Quick Draw McGraw. Huge mug of tea in the morning. Biking to work in the sunshine. 'Mama, i wanna go surfing' blaring on the iPod. A laughter-inducing text message outlining drunken escapades of nights before. 

Lots of little things.  Somewhere in between recording a radio ad and having a power lunch at the Nepalese on the corner, i spotted a bunch of Mayday balloons. Meandering outside someone's window, stuck to the power cord, this flock of superheroes  and my little ponies left over from the previous weekend's mayhem made me smile. 

The sunshine persisted well into the evening, when a gang of hungry women decided to dine at Tori. The restaurant no longer serves alcohol, which, in the eyes of many, is a fairly sad thing. The food, however, is still good enough a reason to pay the place a visit. What's more, the kitchen was happy to satisfy my veggie burger-craving by whipping up a hearty tofu burger, even when it wasn't on the menu. 

At the end of the day, full of food and seriously sleepy, i biked home, still smiling, like some victorious urban cowboy riding into the beautifully pollution-tinted sunset of an urban cityscape. 'Yessir', i thought to myself, as the empty beer cans tumbled by in the dry evening breeze; 'it was a good day, this one'. Now if only yesterday could Quick-Draw-McGraw today's offensively frigid and thoroughly drenched ass.

i heart in April

1. High Violet. Fuck me, the anticipation has been hellish, but the rewards worthy. If you didn't get a chance to listen to this on the New York Times website, be sure to buy the album on May 10th. For those of you who did listen, coercing you into CD purchases is hardly necessary. 
2.  The Gashlycrumb Tinies. I keep going back to these kiddos and the sinister ways in which they meet their ends. This enchants me, big time.
3. Vegemesta food served at Bar Loose from April 29th onwards! My favorite bar + my favorite fast food joint joining forces = fuck yeah. 
4. Terrace season. There's nothing quite like drinking outside in the sunshine. It's at the very heart and core of Finnish summer, i argue.
5. Jaqcues Cousteau hats. I've obviously missed the hipster wave on this one, but i like the hats almost as much as i was infatuated with the man himself in my pre-pubescent years. 
6. Melissa auf der Maur. Not only was interviewing her mighty cool, but she was also really charming (and i think i might now have a small crush on her).
7. I Walk the Line and No Shame at Nosturi. One of the most rockin' gigs i've been to this month. 
8. Tattoo Mystique by Angelique Houtkamp. Got this book at the Kaapelitehdas gift shop. Full of gorgeous photos, illustrations and tattoo flash. I'd love to order one of her prints, put it on my wall and admire it for a good while each day.
9. Onerva - Kaupungin naiset at Ateneum. Checking this out was the perfect pastime for a rainy weekday. The exhibition features clothes, maps, books, photography and the like from turn-of-the-century Helsinki. I especially liked how, among said paraphernalia, it featured all her gentlemen admirers as well. This was not a short list, either.
   
10. Festival lineups. Ah, it's looking good, kids. With the likes of The XX, Florence + the Machine, The Drums, Biffy Clyro, Against Me!, LCD Soundsystem and whatnot hitting stages throughout the country, there's a good deal of hot stuff to look forward to this summer.

Hiatus and Springtime.

Well shucks, it's been a while, hasn't it? Female Author (both blog and writer) have been occupied with a number of pressing matters which have seriously hindered all sorts of writing activity recently. The most time-consuming of these has been work, which has been nothing short of breakneck hectic for the past weeks. Another hindering, not to mention grievous factor, was the bitter end my macbook came to some weeks ago. This end, direly lacking in the shock and drama department, was a simple refusal to turn on one day. All my beloved computer would give me was a foreboding whirr and the occasional faint beeping sound.

The first thing the mac fixer-upper man said to me, as i ran to a service shop in a state of panic was, 'i'm sure you've got all of this backed up, right?'. Rhetorical question fail. 'Yessiree, every last bit of it; actually, my horoscope warned me i should anticipate all kinds of technological breakdowns and bitter ends to long-term relationships, so just last night i made sure i got every last friggin' document, picture and piece of porn (just kidding) transferred to my external hard drive. Phew, what foresight and smarts i possess.' Or not.

So some weeks later, a considerably emptier macbook was returned to me. Functioning, but void of everything it had previously housed. Which, in this day and age, i'm not shy to admit, was most of my life. Be that as it may, while i'm sad to have lost a lot of cool stuff (a shiteload of poems and stories), as well as some really humdrum stuff (like letters concerning electricity bills to my janitor in Paris), there's something quite liberating about starting afresh, even if it means having to download all apps again and building up a whole new, intricately organized bookmark library. It's the exhilaration of a new start and the seemingly endless possibilities offered by a blank slate.

And via this finely crafted tangent, i can digress from my excuses for lack of blogging to the actual subject i wanted to write about.

Which is spring (see how that hardly cliched, new start/spring tangent worked beautifully?). After what feels like seventeen months of winter, three months of darkness and rain, and a good helping of hail on sunny days, i feel like we might be getting somewhere with the whole spring thing. Which makes me happy. Somewhere in my psyche a primal urge awakes, encouraging all kinds of errant and eccentric behavior, no doubt brought about by the sudden increase in sunlight and the masses of people coming out from a dark, booze-laden mental state of winter. Rather than running around naked looking for a mate and some sticks to make a nest with, i've embraced this urge and swapped boots for all stars, winter coats for leather jackets, and trams for my rickety bike. i've braved the cold, not to mention the prolific mountains of dog shit, by opening the picnic season for this summer a week or so ago on a windy evening in Koffari. I plan on taking this a step further in a week's time by throwing myself headfirst into the lairy, reckless madness that is Vappu in Helsinki.

So here's to blank slates, fresh starts, new awakenings and all other spring-associated cliches that we love to hate, yet find ourselves embracing wholeheartedly the minute we first venture out on to the terrace, pint in hand, to sit in the sunshine and take in the promise of summer. Hell, i'll drink to that.