By Saskia Little Brown

I'm easily confused, I admit - but when I found myself counting the 122 offerings in the newly-opened Bagabon Thai restaurant and takeaway at Bar Lorca (they'll take you from soup to deepfried banana, if you work your way through the menu), I had to wonder whether I was witnessing the foodie equivalent of the clash of civilisations.

A few feet away from where The Husband was weighing the relative merits of a stir-fry over a Thai curry (difficult for him on a Sunday after the night before - or, let's be honest,
difficult when faced with any sort of choice that involves more than item a and item b on any day of the week), paella was being dispensed by the generous bucketful. Were we going to be offered Thai tapas? Or a nouveau noodle Mediterranean/Asian fusion? Chorizo Pad Thai perhaps?

The happily schizophrenic answer is no. Spanish wine, yes - but no messing with a workmanlike Thai menu that covers all the culinary bases we've come to expect from Thai food in the last few years.

Leaving aside the question of whether Stoke Newington actually needs another Thai restaurant. The Bar Lorca/Bagabon offering (a new sort of entente cordiale, perhaps?)
may be worryingly large, but the benchmark dishes we tried were freshly prepared and
excessively large - good value, big-plate stuff that suggested a post-prandial siesta might be on the cards. (Do they do that in Thailand?)

A brief and rather sad Lynn Truss moment in which I was reduced to proof-reading the
menu (premisis? Stella Atrois? Avaliable?) momentarily postponed the question of
selection. With 11 stir fries to choose from, 6 curry variations (Red, Green, Yellow, Massaman, Slow-cooked and special Siam tasty), and 5 different noodle dishes ( Big Tum, Rad Na, Chow Mein, Bagabon and Pad Thai), a pools perm offered the best option: order what you know.

So, as we watched the 73 bendybus of time navigate the Scylla and Charybdis of the corner between Church Street and Stoke Newington High Street (at length - in every sense), we opted for Won Ton and deep-fried spicy prawn and cod fish cake starters (both good, although the fish cakes were - 'ow you say? - pretty chewy?). For mains, I wanted the chicken Pad Thai (noodles, sweet radish, tamarind sauce, bean sprouts, fried egg, chilli and ground peanuts), because I'm worth at least £4.95, while The Husband (rather adventurously, I thought, given the absence of mince and tatties) chose a mild Yellow chicken curry (potatoes, onions, yellow curry sauce, served with cucumber pickles and a side of egg-fried rice), with a bottle of the house white (Dos Cepas) for glugging.
In his aversion to healthy eating, he skilfully avoided what looked like interesting salad side orders - papaya, spicy chicken and the Bagabon house speciality of marinated grilled slices of beef with lemon juice, coriander, spring onions and fresh chilli. Very Californian. Or should that be Thai?

Plentiful, freshly-cooked, keenly priced, if a little bland - nothing wrong with the Bagabon offering, but is it goodbye for ever to tapas, too? That would be sad.

175 Stoke Newington High
Street, 020 7275 8659.

Although legitimate given the season, the prolonged spell of cold weather right at the end of winter came as a surprise, especially when compared with the previous year when Spring was already bursting forth in March.

Some proper winter weather is, in fact, much needed every now and then to curb the rise
of some persistent pests (such as greenflies) that have had a very easy life in the last few years. They have been able to appear, start breeding and consolidate to strong numbers much earlier than normal, causing more damage to the soft emerging vegetation. This in turn means that people tend to turn to pesticides (organic or not) in an attempt to control the infestation, often wiping it out just before birds and their newly fledged young can start to help clearing the problem.

At the same time, the cold weather can clear spaces in the garden where tender or half hardy plants have lived on for some seasons and become established against original
expectations. However sad, these losses are part of the cycle of change continuously
undergone by gardens in spite of their apparent immobility.

In Stoke Newington's tiny outdoor rooms the chance to fill a recently created gap by growing something different should often be cause for excitement rather than consternation, as the space available for gardening runs out fast. However, to make
the most of the opportunity (and reduce the risk of future problems) it would be best
to avoid buying something floriferous on impulse on the first (and often only) traditional
trip to the garden centre, without considering a few points besides the obvious ones concerning general requirements in terms of position and soil.

How big will the plant grow and how will the expected shape fit the gap between other plants? It is an essential question too often forgotten, as well as the plant's tolerance of pruning, should this become necessary. In the shorter term, for how long will the plant perform? With many species bought in Spring, chances are that the show will not be very long, generally only a few weeks. What would it look like after flowering has finished, as the growing season has months to go yet? It is a good idea to pause and consider the options, remembering that generally the smaller the garden the more each plant should
offer, something other than a brief spell of flowers, especially early ones that can be easily spoiled by adverse weather conditions.

Foliage, especially in the case of deciduous shrubs, holds our interest for longer and
should certainly be carefully assessed. Imagine the plant without its temporary display
and consider whether it would still be worth a space in the garden. The impact of flowers can anyway be replaced to great effect by seasonal displays of annuals, even in a pot, so the choice of a specimen for the border should not be based solely on this criteria. Some of the best shrubs will not offer much in the way of flowers but will compensate you with
beautiful leaves throughout the season and fiery colour effects later in the year, as in
the case of Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' (described in last Autumn's edition of this
magazine). Two new varieties of great garden interest have recently appeared: C. c.
'Velvet Cloak' has very dark, almost black foliage and C. c. 'Golden Spirit' with beautiful
yellow oval leaves that change to lime green in Summer. They are well suited in size for the average Stokey garden and need a sunny, open position in any well-drained soil.