Or should that be Aussie?
Anyway, I have just got back from a enjoyable evening at Chelsea, here in Astana. Chris, the other Brit has been here for just under a year, and David (see previous posts that I’m too lazy to find and link to right now) has just moved to Astana this week, coming from Moscow, via Almaty. Had a few to drink, and a little to eat, and hopefully meeting up with both of them tomorrow evening. Anyway, had a good night, and too lazy too type out a proper review of the meal this evening, so, to loyal readers, please forgive me this minor transgression. To those that have just happened upon this site, I promise I am normally capable of typing out slightly more coherent posts. If you are really desperate for details on this bar/restaurant, I’d recommend you simply search for Chelsea on this blog.
Dec 15 2007
Two Pommes & An Ozzie
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Sep 07 2007
Walton At Chelsea
Last night we went to the ‘English Pub’ Chelsea, to celebrate Walton’s birthday last Sunday. It was relatively quiet, and not much had really changed in there. The prices are definitely set at foreigners and ex-pats prices, but they do good (cheese) burgers, the service is friendly, and the birthday boy wanted a nice burger, so we were happy to be there.
The starter of bread-crumbed fried cheese was good, though once again all the food arrived at the same time, so it was soon ignored due to the arrival of the…
The garlic bread was tasty enough, once the tomatoes were removed 🙂
Although not in any way a traditional Russian or Kazakh meal, cheeseburger with chips is occasionally nice to bring back the tastes of home 🙂
Ira thought she was ordering a starter with this meat, though it looked more like a generously sized main course dish really…
Her actual main course of ‘Chipped fish’ turned out not to be a translation error (we assumed it would be like the traditional English fare of Fish & Chips), and Irina’s “starter” turned out to be more of a main course sized affair, but I think she liked it. As Walton had work the next day, he stuck to beer, as did Ira, but as my boss is a little more understanding, I had a little vodka.
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Jun 01 2007
Avoiding Bad Puns
Wednesday night, Ira and I met up with a journalist (socially) who is based in London. She found this blog from the posts on our kittens and the fact it mentions Kazakhstan, and as she was over here again for a story (I’ll post more when I know she has had it published) decided to meet up.
We went to the Chelsea pub (yep, that bastion of traditional Kazak cuisine, lmao), and had a nice evening eating, drinking and talking a fair amount. The temptation of seeing Karra and Muska proved irresistible, so we all came back to the flat afterwards. It was really interesting to meet her, and I hope should she come out here again, we’ll meet once more. Oh, and her husband is cordially invited too, so lets just hope she succeeds in her mission to persuade him to visit Kazakhstan.
Oh and the post title? Her name is Elizabeth Mistry, so I had to fight the urge to create a corny title…
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May 14 2007
Went To Chelsea Again
On Saturday night. Unfortunately Walton and Assel had a previous engagement, but Ira and I still had a good time. I ventured beyond my normal potato skins for a started, and had a tomato soup. Over here in Kazakhstan, soup is not soup unless it looks like water, has a few real vegetables in it, and a fair dollop of meat. Unfortunately, my ideal soup is basically creamy flavoured water. Unless it is cream of tomato or cream of chicken, I’m not too interested basically. Anyway, previously, I’d always said no the the idea of having a $12 soup of tomatoes as a starter, but as we were celebrating my first month of income from web sites in a while, I decided to try it out. Combined with a chocolate milk shake and a Baileys.
Then I had something labelled as lasagne. It certainly had meat, tomato paste/sauce, pasta and cheese, but it wasn’t quite arranged the same way. Anyway, it was too big for me to finish, wasn’t what I was expecting, but could have been a lot worse. The fact that it was quite so filling meant I had to skip the anticipated apple pie and ice cream, so I drowned my ‘sorrows’ with a few more vodkas.
Anyway, we’ll hopefully continue our Saturday night out pattern with Walton & Assel next week.
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May 06 2007
Chelsea Hosts Another Meeting
of English language bloggers and their partners…
Ira, myself, Walton and Assel all went to the Chelsea ‘English Pub’ (well they have a few UK football club shirts on the wall, and it is closer to a pub than a bar…) again on Saturday evening. Had a nice time, and the two men decided to limit themselves to sharing a 500ml bottle of vodka, with absolutely no ‘assistance’ from their wiser&better halves 
.
We had quite good food there; the Chelsea has normally had good food, but the potato skins were bigger, and the burger tasted of meat more last night. The apple pie and ice cream has even now replaced the chocolate dessert as my favourite at that place.
Having said all that, the prices appeared to have increased, so it is probably a good thing we don’t go there too often.
Anyway, a summary of the evening, I hope, is that a good time was had by all, so thanks to Ira, Assel and Walton for their company 🙂
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Apr 20 2007
Had A Brilliant Day
It was my 28th birthday today.
We got a TV. Eventually. More details to follow.
Had a great meal with Ira, in-laws & Walton. Went back to the Chelsea ‘pub’. Where we originally met up with Walton last summer.
I had garlic bread as a starter, chips & cheeseburger for main and a chocolate mousse for dessert.
A little vodka and Baileys kept me even happier. Good food, good company.
Hope everyone else is happy with their life right now, or at least on the up.
Thanks to everyone who passed on their congratulations…
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Oct 16 2006
Pretty Good Weekend
We took our kitten home, from the in laws, today. Not yet named her, the proposals are Pippa, Socks and a word I’ve forgotten already (Karra?) that means black in Kazakh. Anyone else think of anything? It needs to be easily pronounced by Russian and English tongues, be feminine, and be shortened easily…
The last one was suggested by KZBlog owner’s wife; we met up at the Chelsea (an ‘English’ ‘pub’) again Saturday night. Had a good time, ate a little, drank a little more, and talked a lot, their prices are definitely higher than the average bar, but the selection of food is good for wimpy westerners like me, and I tend to feel a little freer talking about life over here than I would normally…
FINALLY the PC Hardware was all fitted. For the last 5 months, I’ve been waiting (we’ll get the stock next week, next week, next week, oh we had it, but sold it to someone else etc. etc.) for a Graphics Card upgrade (nVidia 7600GT>7900GT) and a replacement 320 Gig Seagate SATA hard drive; for the last week and a half, Ucon (the PC shop in question) has PROMISED to visit our flat and deliver them (to make up for the delays) . Each day, they didn’t turn up, and each day they didn’t bother to call and let us know they couldn’t make it. Sadly, this isn’t exactly unheard of, in respect of customer service levels, here in Kazakhstan. We gave up in the end, and went back to the original plan, so we took the PC to the shop and dropped the printer off to be repaired. They laughed at the amount of programs I have running (what’s the point in a well specced machine if you don’t fully utilize it’s resources), and the lights I had fitted. Had being the operative word, they took it all out, fitted the hardware, then put it all in a bag for me. Also caught the shop assistant trying to copy some of my games. 1) Don’t do it without asking, it is rude 2) Don’t be stupid, simply copying the directory the game is installed into onto their machine will not likely result in a working application, and oh yeah 3) Copyright theft is bad hmmm. Well offered to copy my installation DVDs (only for Public Domain games, obviously…), and they could have it when we came to pick up the repaired printer. Hoping that is enough motivation to see the printer back soon…
I now have just over 850 Gigabytes of storage space, so shan’t be running out anytime soon. Especially not downloading via dial up access to the internet. Irina’s mum had ADSL installed in the last week, so I’m hoping we’ll either get that or WiMax sorted soon….
Continue reading “Pretty Good Weekend”
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Oct 03 2006
Personal Posts Have Been Slowing Down Recently
Due to ChrisD coming over. A slight increase in my alcohol intake may also account for the lowering of posts per week. Chris came over for a week, and I hope we’ll both be writing more about his visit soon.
We just dropped him off at the airport, and despite the authorities restarting the scheme where you have to declare everything with you, on your exit of the country, he eventually got through all the steps required, and is, hopefully, by now on a plane to Istanbul, then on to Heathrow.
Also meant to say, we all met up with a nice man who runs the KZBlog , and his wife, over at the Chelsea ‘pub’ last Saturday. The company was good, the prices were high, but not heart stopping, and good news for John – they sell Guiness !!
Anyway, more info to come soon…
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