Friday Night Dinner: London Shell Co.
We walked the last mile to the restaurant on a lovely, warm spring evening. It is situated on the east side of Hampstead Heath, not far from Highgate Cemetery. Nearby are several independent shops.
As the evening was warm and sunny, many people sat outside, but we sat inside, on one side of the little restaurant. On the other side, there was a fish counter with fresh-looking fish and seafood. The back wall had a rack full of bottles of wine to have in or take out. A fridge next to it was for the white and sparkling wines to have in. The atmosphere was very relaxed.
The menu was a blackboard, with numerous tasty-sounding dishes in three different sections: cold plates, hot plates, and sides/desserts. Although nearly all the dishes sounded delicious, we each chose a dressed and undressed oyster to start our meal. But not after we had perused the wines on offer—we selected a Greek Savatiano.
The dressed oyster had a slightly spicy sauce with a nice burn that did not overpower the oyster's flavour. The undressed oyster was fresh and enhanced with a few drops of lemon juice.
After our starters, our mains arrived. My wife had picked a ray wing dressed with salty caper butter, and I had selected the whole plaice with lobster sauce. The lobster sauce alone was to die for—lovely, sweet chunks of lobster meat with a powerful tomato undertone. It went very well with my perfectly cooked fish. The other dishes coming from the kitchen also looked enticing. On the side, we shared some new potatoes.
We don't usually have three courses — two is plenty — but it was a lovely spring evening, and a dessert seemed appropriate. My wife had a slice of a traditional British custard tart topped with a little nutmeg, whereas I had opted for the fresh strawberries served with white chocolate cream. Although white chocolate can be cloying sweet, this wasn't, and therefore a delicious final to our meal whilst sipping an accompanying dessert wine: A nice relaxed meal with fabulous fishy food.
Life Line
Updated an information and a bench
Created 2 benches
Created 4 picnic_tables, a bench, and a fitness_station; Updated a pub and a sport club
Created 2 benches and 2 waste_baskets; Updated 4 benches, a bus_stop, and a cafe; Confirmed a dentist
Created 3 waste_baskets, 2 main entrances, and a bench; Deleted a cycle_barrier, a bench, and a waste_basket
Created an information; Updated a waste_basket and a bench
Updated 2 waste_baskets and a bench
Created 3 benches
Created a waste_basket; Updated 2 benches and a tree
I walked 3.5km in 35m31s
Created a main entrance and a home entrance
Created an entrance
Updated a house building
Created an entrance
I walked 5.8km in 1h15m06s
I've just finished reading "A Cheese-Monger's Tour de France", by Ned Palmer.
Now I want to try many of those! 🧀
I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be speaking at the 23rd edition of #phpday, the international PHP conference in Italy, organised by @grusp.
I’ll be presenting a talk titled: "Better Debugging With Xdebug".
It's in Verona, Italy, on May 14-15th 2026.
You can use my speaker’s discount code "speaker_10OFF" for 10% off at https://www.phpday.it/tickets/?utm_medium=organic&utm_source=linkedin&utm_campaign=post-speaker
I walked 5.5km in 1h11m00s
I walked 1.1km in 9m37s
Merged pull request #1066
PHP 8.6: Changes to opcache optimisations wrt function arguments
I walked 10.5km in 1h49m54s
Fixed building type
Fixed addresses and building type
Updated a bus_stop, a waste_basket, and a bench


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