Tibits - A Review

National Vegetarian week is upon us (20th - 26th May) and I have been a non meat eater for around 15 years. Not once have I been to a 100% vegetarian restaurant and for my first I thought I'd go to the finest.

I went to a place called Tibits, ideally located just off Regent Street in London. Tibits has been at this location for nearly 5 years, and originated from Switzerland. I don’t associate the Swiss with veggie food, just cheese and chocolate. But then, perhaps that is their idea of veggie food. The owner of the Tibits chain is also the owner of Hiltl, the worlds oldest vegetarian restaurant dating back to 1898. This small chain consists of a ground-breaking concept, where as the focal point is a 'food boat' containing around 40 hot and cold dishes from around the world. Customers can create their own ideal menu from a selection of dishes, and can choose to eat in or take away. The food is then weighed, so the customer is in complete control of how much food they pay for, bringing alive the quote 'you get what you pay for'. At any other 'buffet' type restauant, it is so very easy to over-inuldge and basically eat until you feel sick, as it has already been paid for. I really like the idea of plating up your food then it being weighed, that way you are less inclined to cram as much as you can onto the plate, thus saving you some money, and some room for that desert.

This large restaurant is on two levels, ground and lower ground. There is flock wallpaper and velour seat covers in greens and deep pinks but it's certainly not hippyish or overly 'vegetarian'; it's a calm, chilled environment with a relaxed vibe. There is outdoor seating in a courtyard dubbed ‘the Regent Street Food Quarter’, and several punters were just treating it as a bar. It’s less pretentious than its neighbours and perhaps that’s what draws in the crowds – the place was buzzing on a midweek afternoon. A warm and friendly welcome greeted us as we were explained the concept and taken to our table. Now whenever I eat out, the vegetarian option is always something around mushrooms or eggs, and I dislike both. Luckily for me, Tibits are a tad more imaginative than that. The food looked really fresh, not like it was a Pizza Hut buffet from the day before. The dishes have Asian, Indian and Mediterranean influences and it's all about offering healthy food: "Food that loves you back" is their slogan. The dishes are being monitored all the time and I saw a chef constantly changing and replenishing the options during my visit. He obviously had high standards and was always checking and wiping up any spillages.


If eating vegetarian generally feels more virtuous than enjoyable, you need to pay a visit to this Heddon Street restaurant. The name tibits may not be that enticing but frankly who cares when the rest of the offering is. The food is fresh and the dishes so diverse that you’ll be hard pressed to ever get bored with the selection, the drinks are reasonably priced and the surroundings stylish. Better yet, you’ll never be hurried off your table because someone else has booked it for a later sitting and there’s no service charge to pay. In fact, all things considered, Tibits may well be the perfect credit crunch restaurant.

Youth and Politics... Does it Work?

So, today, the UK's only female, and longest serving Prime Minister (of 11 years) has died after a stroke. Often referred to as 'The Iron Lady' or 'Thatcher the milk snatcher', she made a difference to our country, whether people choose to believe it was for the better or for worse. A lot of people disagreed with much of what she did and she will always remain a controversial figure. But they can disagree but should greatly respect her political achievements and her own personal strength

 Among the millions of text messages, Facebook statuses and Tweets, there are numerous people who don't even know who she is, and more worryingly, most of them come from our own country. Some say she is like Marmite, you either hate her or love her, and scrolling through the Twitter search feed this appears to be true. Everyone will be talking about her, debating about her and as shown on line recently, arguing their opinions about her. Just like when Michael Jackson died, his music sales soared, and the same with Amy Winehouse. Now she has passed, more and more people will want to know about her, and the people who currently don't know anything apart from her name, will want to find out what the fuss is about. Here starts all the news programmes, TV documentaries  and books about her life, looking back at her time in Parliament, and what she has done for our country.

Journalists have been said to be 'searching online' for people who have said 'Who is Thatcher', just so they can write a story about the 'ignorant youth of today'. For years now people under 20 have been labelled as lazy jobless yobs who are just out to cause trouble. Evidence from the London Riots in 2011 seem to agree, but this is not necessarily true. Today, there are more people than ever involved in politics. Ok so there are a lot of people who don't know who Margaret Thatcher is, but there are people who don't know who Lord Nelson is, or George Washington. Even some older people still don't know who these people are. This is purely down to education, in most schools, history is taught around an hour a week, until you choose to study it  in year 9 for a GCSE subject, which is only about 20 people per year. In these lessons, not a lot is taught about the people of Britain, more so about the major events surrounding the people, such as the world wars. They learn about what happened, but not why and who was involved.

The youth of today seem to be more passionate about politics than politicians themselves. There's an ongoing debate about whether or not younger people should be involved in politics at all. Too often they are labelled as lazy and yobs. Recently, there has been an ever growing 'Youth Parliament', who get together at the House of Commons and debate real issues which range from gay marriage to transport and the environment. Politicians, and journalists seem to assume these days that the youth of today don't care about politics, or the state of the economy, but evidence suggests different. Nearly a quarter of a million youths voted for the 5 topics which were to be debated at the House of Commons  in front of MPs. One youth MP is quoted to have said 'Young people can start to gain a reputation for a positive mark on their community instead of the often false accusation that we are ‘trouble makers’. People often say ‘young people are the future so we must listen to their views’ but young people are ready to make a difference now'. Seems like more than ever young people are wanting to get involved in politics, and have been inspired by the way Margaret Thatcher stood by what she thought was right, unlike the recent Prime Minsters who just seem to be making u-turns every few weeks.

Margaret Thatcher has died, and those 'celebrating' her death should be ashamed. If it wasn't for her, this country would have a much different stance in the world. RIP Margaret Thatcher.

Stories of a Supermarket

Working in a supermarket isn’t just about stacking shelves, nor is it about making items go beep through a till. For the thousands and thousands of people who do so, it is more than that.
A job in a supermarket for many, is just a job. They come in, do their work and leave. For others, it turns into their career and acts as a stepping stone. I honestly believe that most people who end up working in a supermarket are there because they just needed a job. As with every job, you need to have a laugh with your colleagues. For one it makes the day go quicker, but also if you do work in a supermarket, its hard not to have a giggle at many of the weirdos that pass through its doors on a daily basis.

I have been at this supermarket for five years now, and it still amazes me what people want from me, and how people treat retail workers.

Working on the fresh produce department. Fruit and Veg flown from all over the world to this one location. The heart of the store and right at the front too. In this day and age, people expect far too much. They want top quality products, the reddest of tomatoes, the curviest of bananas and the roundest of melons. In England, people like to moan. I mean really moan. I don’t think I’ve ever done more than ten minutes on the shop floor without hearing ‘oh these peppers aren’t big enough ‘ , or ‘these carrots are massive’. Some people actually believe that I’m the one who grew the stuff, one woman said to me ‘these grapes look lovely today, think you picked them at just the right time’ and gave me a pat on the back. Spending around 40 hours a week in the same place for three years, you get to know it. Just like you get to know your home, the streets around it and whose car belongs to which neighbour. So for me, just like many others it can be very frustrating when customers think they know what you sell. For instance, an elderly man comes up to me, very polite at first and asks where the fresh Jerusalem Artichokes are. I say to him in a nothing but a friendly manner that we don’t sell them and offer him the tinned variety. ‘Oh’ he said, ‘I got them here last week’. I politely tell the man that its a line we haven’t ever sold. ‘Oh well you probably don’t know much then do you’ , I say to the man politely that I’ve worked on the department for three years and not once have we sold the product he is looking for. ‘I think you’re wrong’ he says, ‘i definitely bought them here last week’. So at this moment I’m feeling like someone has sky plussed me and has rewound, as I find myself telling the man for the fourth time that it isn’t a line we have sold. He gets louder telling me I dint know my job, this would be the millionth time Ive wanted to smack a customer in the face today but I remain calm and tell him he must of bought them from another supermarket. He yells at me stating he doesn’t shop at other supermarkets, demands that I show him where the product is, and then , like a light bulb has just been switched on says to me ‘ahh I remember I got them from Waitrose, I’ll be off then’ , walks out of the shop without an apology or even a hint of shame.

A lot used to frustrate me on this department. One main pet hate of mine was those small clear bags people use to put their fruit and veg into. I can see the use of them if you’re buying about 10 apples, or a handful of tomatoes. But when I see people reach up , pull out a chunk of bags, rip one off and put inside just one large potato then mutter to themselves, ‘this supermarket needs to go green’ it really does take the biscuit.

Working in the coffee shop. Where most people come to have that milky brew and relax after purchasing their box of cereal and a packet of custard creams. Being in the coffee shop, a small place within the store with about 10 tables, you get to know the regulars. You even hear their life stories as they ask you for a frothy cappochino with skimmed milk and a couple of sugars. Now I’m the sorta person who will just talk without thinking. An elderly man walks up to the counter. Asks me for a tea so I grab a teapot and put some hot water in it. I took his money and I asked if he wanted a pot of milk. For some unknown reason I say to the poor bugger ‘do you want a semi or a whole?’ , obviously meaning semi skimmed or whole milk. Me realising what I had said struggled so so hard to hold back on the laughter. He looks at me with a weird smile and said out of the corner of his mouth ‘ I’ll have a semi please’. Hadn’t laughed that much at work until this man walked away, my colleague was literally on the floor and this poor man, well, he walked off with not just a semi in his cup of tea..

Working in the customer service desk. At the front of the store. Where 99% of angry people tend to wander towards. The other 1% just chatter to themselves as they leave. The main department seeing as every single person who enters the store uses it. Now all supermarkets and most customer serving companies are measured secretly on customer service, this is why nearly 100% of the time, no matter what is said to you and in what tone, you still have to be as polite as you can whilst grinning like you’re on speed. The less than 1% of the time is when it’s allowed to be rude, and say what you feel. This rarely happens, but it does, and only happens when customers are so rude and obnoxious and clearly aren’t measuring you on your service skills, they’re just irate because they were overcharged by a matter of pence, or because they’ll have to go without their favourite packet of biscuits for a few days. People bring back things for refunds, which is understandable. Some you accept, and some you have to refuse, wether it being a branded item with no reciept or they just picked up the wrong flavour of Walkers. But when a gentleman is infront of you, showing you pictures of his dead dog to prove he doesn’t need the dog food anymore, you really can’t refuse can you?

Working in such an inclosed environment, it’s like being inside a pressure cooker about to blow. Relationships tend to happen, flings happen, and apparantly so do a gay man getting a woman pregnant. And yes this was about me. Me and one of my colleagues were quite close, we didn’t have ‘a thing’ or anything like that, we attended a works Christmas prty and after a few days the whole store thought we were together and she was having my baby. Rumours spread like wildfire, and 99% of the time they are untrue. But there is however, that 1% chance that whatever secret you are hiding, whoever you have slept with in the workplace, eventually everybody will find out. I’ve learnt that the hard way.

Retail workers get treated like dirt and get spoken to as if they are utter scum. Sometimes things are out of your control, such as a national bank just halting all transactions due to a securtiy breach, therefore causing utter mayhem for about 10 minutes. Workers in supermarkets get blamed for everything. I got blamed for the Volcanic Ash distruption back in 2010, apparantly it was my fault that a volcano in a different country had erupted causing flights to be cancelled, therefore us unable to get any supplies of fuit or veg in.

So there you have it, if you work in retail, be expected to be blamed for everything, and I mean everything. So pin your ears back, stick on that fake smile and just get on with your day.


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