Julie's Boggle

Yesterday, we finally got around to going to the IMAX film, released last year, of Deep Sea 3D. (I’d been keen to see it ever since I read a fascinating DIVE magazine article about the filming of one of the sequences and how they’d almost had a fatality when a diver’s specialised scuba equipment malfunctioned.)

We chose the Science Museum IMAX, because it’s an easy bus ride from home, and met up with our friend Dale, always a willing co-conspirator in these sorts of ventures.

Verdict: A definite thumbs-up!

Literally the next best thing to actually being there as a diver, and sometimes even better than that, because it takes you up close to so many rare and exotic creatures (and sharks!) that would otherwise take a lifetime of diving to track down. (And even then you would also have to be extremely lucky to see doing them all the antics the film-makers managed to capture.)

The 3D-glasses, as we’d experienced on previous 3D IMAX movies, really do their job. In this case bringing clouds of jellyfish, tiny mantis shrimps and coral reefs, among other things, to almost within arm’s reach. Utterly amazing.

[Aside: After a quick check, I see that South African IMAX theatre's are showing a movie with an identical trailer titled just "Deep Sea"... Probably still worth seeing for the great footage.]

When we wandered out of the museum, lunch was calling loudly, and Tom had the brainwave to take us to a great Chinese restaurant he’d visited on a work outing – The Good Earth. Handily, just a short walk away up Brompton Road.

I did have recollections of Tom raving about the “Crispy duck pancakes” he’d had when he’d been here, and that was clearly going to be our dish of choice for today as well.

We shied away from the “full duck” option, which seemed enough to feed a large family, and went for the “half duck” shared between the 3 of us, with rice, mixed veg and some spring rolls to fill in any gaps.

Fortunately Tom had been around before and could explain what was going on when a chef came over to us with a plate bearing what appeared to be a flattened half duck, waved it before us, and then disappeared with it again in the direction of the kitchen. Apparently, that’s the part where they prove to you that there was actually a fully assembled duck involved in your meal — at least to start with.

And sure enough, when he reappeared several minutes later, the same plate was completely covered with shredded duck meat, along with very tasty bits of shredded crispy skin.

Tom then demonstrated the making of a perfect crispy duck pancake: Open the woven basket containing the perfectly-formed layers of steamed Chinese pancakes (think half-size crepes only with a more delicate appearance), lift one onto your plate and arrange some of the duck on top of that. Spoon on some of the delicious hoisin sauce, add some of the crunchy green bits provided, and wrap up. Eat with fingers as chop sticks are way too fiddly. Wow. A definite Yum!

By the time we were finished the duck, we’d gone through two of the pancake baskets and were onto our second dish of hoisin sauce. And perfectly replete after an exceedingly good meal.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 7th, 2007 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Eating out, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.