A walk around Irvington – Sambal

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I started my walk here, down by the waterfront because it was here that my wife was meeting a friend for lunch.

According to its website:

Chef Navjot’s romance with South East Asian Cusine was rekindled when he travelled this past year to Thailand , Singapore and Malaysia. Spending weeks, immersed in authentic Asian gastronomy invigorated and excited him and he wanted to share his intriguing culinary experiences with people back home, and not only food but he has an experience background in cocktail making so he is sharing all of it with the world to inspire all. If you want to create a home bar like this you need the essential bar tools to make a great job like the Chef Navjot’s.

Having seen the people of Irvington enjoy a bold and vibrant Indian Cuisine for the past 8 years, he felt confident that they would be an eager participant in his dream to introduce the intricate flavours of South-East Asian cuisine in this dynamic Westchester community. Thus, Sambal was conceived.

From womb to the world, this dream was realised with the help of Sushil Malhotra, Chef Arora’s partner, mentor and guide. The feather in our cap is our collaboration with Chef Lucky Thai. She is an award winning maestro of Asian cooking, previously based in Las Vegas, who is at the helm of our kitchen along with Chef Navjot. Their combined expertise will ensure that we stay true to our roots as an Asian dining experience while continuing to create and innovate.

…

We bring you the freshest organic ingredients, exotic herbs and spices from Thailand and Malaysia. The cooking process combines the high heat of the wok with constant agitation to create flavors and textures that are crisp, sharp yet complex. The fragrant and aromatic cuisine in a sophisticated, elegant ambience helps us assure that you have a memorable dining experience.

This building has not always housed Sambal. Until a couple of years ago it was a good Indian restaurant called Chutney Masala. Luckily that restaurant, which has the same owners as Sambal, moved to a different location on Main Street in Irvington and Sambal took its place on the waterfront.

I’ve eaten at Chutney Masala many times, but never at Sambal so I can’t comment on the food.

Taken with a Minolta XD and Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm f1.7.

Film Camera 2019/3 – Minolta XD – Results

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First let me say that I wasn’t too happy with the film I used: Fujicolor Superia X-TRA400. I’ve used it before and it seems to me that it has a greenish cast, which I don’t find appealing. So why did I use it? The last few film cameras I used with black and white film and I had an urge to use color. The only color film that was readily available was this one.

Otherwise I was pleased with the results. Everything came out well focused and well exposed. In fact I’m struggling to find anything to say. Everything came out so well that it was almost as if the camera wasn’t there.

As mentioned in the earlier post the only problem I encountered was with framing. A few shots weren’t they way I’d wanted them to be. This could, however, be because my memory (and my eyes for that matter) are faulty.

Now I didn’t really try the camera out in difficult light. I was walking around taking pictures on a bright sunny day. In fact it was so bright that I regretted that I was only able to get ISO 400 film. I did’t use much of the camera’s functionality either, preferring to just put it in aperture priority and shoot away

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For more pictures taken with this camera/lens see:

A walk around Irvington – Flotsam
A walk around Irvington – Colorful Kayaks
A walk around Irvington – A winding path in Matthiessen Park
A walk around Irvington – Railway Station
A walk around Irvington – A Stream
A walk around Irvington – A Fire Truck
A walk around Irvington – A couple of war memorials
A walk around Irvington – A Statue
A walk around Irvington – Red Chairs
A walk around Irvington – Town Hall
A walk around Irvington – Through a window
A walk around Irvington – A Hudson view
A walk around Irvington – A pair of dogs
A walk around Irvington – Sambal
All pictures taken with a Minolta XD and Minolta MD Rokkor-X 50mm f1.7.

Film Camera 2019/3 – Minolta XD

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This is the Minolta XD (as it’s known in Japan), also called the XD11 in North America and the XD7 in Europe.

This was given to me a while ago by a friend but I forgot about it and didn’t try it. Then I got to try a Leica R4 for a while. I didn’t really like it that much, but I discovered that the Leica was a result of a collaboration between Leica and Minolta and the the R4 and the XD had a lot in common. This encouraged me to dig out the XD and give it a try.

There’s lots of information on the web relating to this camera – these articles to name but a few:

I liked it much more than I liked the R4. It’s a solid, feature packed camera that did everything that I would want to do. The only problem I encountered was in framing. On a couple of occasions it was off. In future I must remember to not frame too tightly

In it’s day it was Minolta’s top of the line camera and I’m not at all surprised to read that it is considered by many to be Minolta’s all time best manual camera.

Snowy Lake

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Getting towards the end of the roll and I’m eager to get it off to the lab for processing. As often is the case I finish it off with a picture or two from around the house, this one of our garden and the then frozen and snow covered lake.

This was taken just over a month ago and what a difference that month makes!

Taken with an Olympus XA2 and Kodak T-MAX 100.