London - Chinese New Year celebrations

Monday 19 February 2007
We met Sean and Ngoc (who just flew in from Singapore this morning) at Royal China in Westferry Circus for dinner. I had the waitress stare at me weirdly when I asked whether they had Yee Sang. They didn't even have a special Chinese New Year menu. But the food was good and cheaper than Sunday night even though we had alcohol, lobster and 2 more main courses.

Thursday 22 February 2007
I headed to Alibi Bar with work colleagues for Recruitment Agent's drinks. Ended up staying there are bit longer than usual, but when there are free drinks, you've got to make the most of it!

Saturday 24 February 2007
We had lunch at Awana, a Malaysian Restaurant in Kensington with Tammy & Linus, Fiona (T&L's friends from Manchester), L&F. Although the food was good, we did spend a bit of time comparing how much we would have paid for otak otak or rendang in Singapore/Malaysia compared to London prices. After lunch, Yang and I spent the rest of the afternoon shopping on King's Road.

Fiona arrived from Perth this afternoon so we had a belated reunion dinner with Jason, Ammy and Peter at our place. Fiona had imported the dry ingredients for Yee Sang from Perth so I got my second Yee Sang fix!

Sunday 25 February 2007
We had lunch at Eat and Two Veg, a vegetarian diner, on Marylebone High Street before heading to Selfridges, Lillywhites and Decathalon for ski gear shopping (for Fiona).

Riga - Don't waste your time

Tuesday 13 February 2007
After much effort in convincing our Project Manager to approve our project close dinner at Babylon at The Roof Gardens, we finally got to reap the rewards of our hard work this evening. A three course set dinner, which was nice (nothing fantastic...but can't complain when you are not paying!) and heaps of drinks...the guys were going crazy ordering double Jack Daniels and Coke...so a fellow female colleague and I decided to order a glass of Dom Perignon each (aah...the business expense account!). Close to 12, we headed to a club nearby called Dunes where one of the guys had organised a separate area for us. Free drinks continued with one of the project consultants putting it on his expense account. I ended up getting home around 3am, so you can imagine not many of us made it to work on time the next day!

Wednesday 14 February 2007 - Happy Valentines Day!
Yang and I had a few errands to run around South London and the West End so by the time we were ready to head home for dinner it was quite late, so we decided to eat in town. Unfortunately, being Valentine's Day (a day which I refuse to celebrate due to its totally commercial nature), we couldn't get into our original restaurant of choice, Vasco & Piero's for some hearty Italian food, so we had korean BBQ at Ran instead. Thankfully not a cheesy over-priced Valentine's Day dinner!

Friday 16 February 2007
I had drinks with work colleagues at Waterloo before meeting Yang for dinner at the Amphitheatre Restaurant in the Royal Opera House as we were watching Swan Lake that evening. The ballet was enjoyable (although I did almost fall asleep at times...it was a tiring week at work!). There are several endings to Swan Lake, Yang and I were hoping for the 'Disney' version, i.e. the prince and princess kill the evil Von Rothbart and live happily ever after, but we got the 'princess commits suicide, prince commits suicide and they live happily ever after in heaven' ending...

Saturday 17 February 2007
We flew to Riga this morning for a quick tour of its Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture:

1) St Peter's - where we took the lift up to the top of the spire for its views over Riga...it was so cold, but the views were worth it. Notice that the river was totally frozen over...people were actually walking on the frozen river when we drove across the bridge from the Airport.

2) House of Blackheads - famous for its gothic and Dutch Renaissance facade






3) Great and Small Guild Halls
4) Dome Cathedral - the largest Church in the Baltics
5) Three Brothers - the oldest Stone Residential buildings in the city (unfortunately Yang's lens could only fit two of the three brothers in!)








6) Riga Castle - now used as the Presidential Office
7) Old City Walls and Swedish Gates - the oldest remaining portion of the Old Town fortifications





8) Gun Powder Tower

After our leisurely walk around the Old Town, we headed for dinner at Vincents, apparently the "best" restaurant in Riga based on the number of dignatories and celebrities that have graced its doors, including Prince Charles and Prince Andrew, George W Bush (although if I had known he had been there I would have thought twice about going), Jose Carreras, and Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands. My choice of courses could not have been better (usually Yang always makes the better choices)...especially the speciality of the restaurant...marinated eel with pan fried foie gras...it was absolutely divine and now tops the steak and foie gras from Le Gavroche that I use to rave about...even Yang thought it was okay and he hates foie gras. It was a very unusual choice of cuisine, given it was Chinese New Year's Eve, but this was due to poor planning on my part given I totally forgot about Chinese New Year when I booked this weekend away.

Sunday 18 February 2007
We woke up late (Riga is 2 hours ahead after all) and after breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, which has various exhibits on the atrocities commited against Latvians by Soviet occupation, the Nazi occupation (during WWII) and the Soviet re-occupation, which spans the period from 1940 to 1991. If you think of the cruelty to which the Nazi's inflicted on Jews during WWII, imagine this by the Soviets as well, and then imagine all this for a period of over 50 years.

We then quickly strolled through the central market, mostly a produce market (which was really cheap, a pain-au-chocolat was the equivalent of £0.06) and Stockmanns (a upmarket German Department Store) before walking to the Freedom Monument and back to the hotel to grab our taxi back to the airport.

Given we completed our 2 day itinerary in one hour and the fact that the people there were unpleasant, I would summarise that Riga is a waste of time and that if you were planning to go there, your time and money could be spent better elsewhere.

We got back to London after 6pm and headed straight out again with my brother for Chinese New Year dinner at Kai Mayfair. I chose this restaurant as the chef is Singaporean so I knew they would do Yee Sang the proper way (and then rang to confirm!)...it's surprising that with the number of Chinese restaurants in London, very few restaurants know how to do Yee Sang (most probably because it is more of a Singaporean/Malaysian tradition than Mainland Chinese). The food was much better than anything in Chinatown but at 5 times the price (+ the Yee Sang was £15 per person...very ouch), it damn well should be. As entertainment for that evening, they had a Chinese Astrologer. Most of the stuff she said was pretty generalistic. However, she told me that I had a good upbringing, but later told Sean that he had a hard upbringing...I had half a mind to tell her afterwards that we were from the same family and that she should get a new job!

So, on that note ... GONG XI FA CAI ... hope you all have a very prosperous year of the Pig. According to Yang's mum, it's the Golden Year of the Pig, which only comes every 60 years, so it's a good year to have babies (and apparently the hospitals in China are preparing for an influx of births)...not that this is enough to persuade me!

London - Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Thursday 8 February 2007
The snow started falling at 4am this morning, and our garden was covered in a nice layer of snow. But as we headed to the office, we were just walking in slush (London produces so much heat). When I got to the office, it started snowing again. Fingers crossed that the snow is hitting the alps too...as we are heading skiing again in the next few weeks.

Pics: (1) Our backyard; (2) Snow Storm and the snow capped Imax Theatre from my office

(3) Shakespeare's Globe Theatre; (4) Millenium Bridge

After work on Thursday, Yang and I had dinner at Suzie Wong, an oriental tapas restaurant on Old Compton Street (the gay street in London's Soho) that is part of celebrity chef Ken Hom's group of restaurants. The food was great, especially given it was tapas so we had a good variety in just the right portions, and we were kept entertained by the predominantly gay waiters and the transvestite maitre d'.

After dinner, we watched Mary Poppins at the Prince Edward Theatre. The musical was a bit different from the Julie Andrews movie version, and it had a few songs which were written for the musical, but it was enjoyable. The great thing about London theatres is that productions run here for years, so they actually spend the money to put the best props and sets for the musical into the theatre and this was no exception, especially with the moving 3rd floor nursery.

Friday 9 February 2007
After work, our team headed to a colleague's leaving drinks at the Corney & Barrow in Paternoster Square. I got to take the Waterloo and City Line for the first time, so I have finally travelled on all London Underground Lines now. Slightly light-headed, I met Alli on Bow Lane and we met up with Olivia and the girls at Barcelona Tapas Bar & Restaurant in Wells Court. Warning to all Londoner's...the food is shite...avoid this place at all costs! Maybe try The Providores instead. Yang also came to drinks for a while and then headed to Georgetown, a Malaysian Restaurant at London Bridge for Ammy's birthday dinner. Apparently, this was Yang's second worst meal in London ever...

Saturday 10 February 2007
We met Richard, Linus, Tammy, L&F, Jason (Felix's work colleague), Jason (my cousin) and Peter for dim sum at Lotus. We ordered too much again, which was good for Sean who only woke up just as we were heading home. The boys spent the afternoon calibrating their computer monitors whilst I headed to Liberty for shopping. Yang joined me later and we had dinner at Katana in The International. Yang and I must have been having the worst run of luck with food this weekend as the meal here was nothing to rave about either (he rates it as his third worst meal in London ever).

Sunday 11 February 2007
We had dim sum for lunch again today, this time at Royal China on Baker Street with Cliff, Boon & Yee Von (who had only arrived a few weeks ago from Sydney and were staying with Cliff), Desiree (friend of Boon's from Curtin Uni) and her mother Annette and boyfriend Jason (a weekend of Jasons). It was interesting having lunch with people from totally different professions...interior designer, architect and a orchestral conductor (who is often mistaken for a bus conductor).

After lunch, we headed to Oxford Street for shopping. I picked up a pair of shoes (from Zara so not too much of a dent in the bank account!) and a hat from John Lewis in preparation for Royal Ascot!

Then we headed to Southbank for the London Light Show...which used some of London's most famous landmarks to demonstrate some environmentally friendly and energy efficient lighting. It was pretty disappointing...Yang brought his camera out, but there really wasn't anything worth taking pictures of...

From Southbank, we headed to Covent Garden and tried to catch a glimpse of the celebrities walking on the red carpet for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (commonly known as the 'BAFTAS') 2007 awards. Unfortunately, we were too far away to see anybody...but if you want to see some pictures then check out the BAFTAS website. After our attempt at celebrity chasing (note for next year - you can actually get a pass to be right on the red carpet, but they only start giving the passes out at 7am on the day, which means you need to be there even earlier and then you will be hanging out with career celebrity chasers...not really my ideal Sunday morning), we headed for Linh's Farewell drinks at The LongAcre in Covent Garden followed by dinner at Young Cheng's...the best meal of the weekend (and cheap too!).

London - A weekend of eating

I was back in London for a whole week...how relaxing. So we spent most of our time catching up with friends.

Tuesday 30 January - We had L&F over for Hainanese chicken rice.

Friday 2 February - I had a colleague's leaving drinks at Walkabout Temple...snakebites are surprisingly very drinkable.

Saturday 3 February - Dim sum with Alli & Aaron, L&F at The China Experience. Then shopping for ski gear for Fiona. Afterwards, we met up with Tammy & Linus, L&F for a bit more shopping and then lazy Saturday afternoon drinks at Auberge St Christopher's Place. By the time we had polished off a bottle of wine and about 3 beers each for the boys, it was dinner time and we headed to Abeno Too, a japanese restaurant that serves okonomi-yaki, a pan-fried batter cake usually made of flour, eggs and shredded cabbage. A very interesting experience, and very tasty too.

Sunday 4 February - I headed to the gym, whilst Yang met up with Felix, Tammy & Linus at the National History Museum for the Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year Exhibition (I had 4 free tickets courtesy of Shell). For lunch, Yang and I met up with Jane and Ed at the Ladbroke Arms, a gastropub in Notting Hill. The service was a bit slow, but the food was good.

After putting on 3kgs whilst being in Copenhagen and the Hague for work, I am not sure whether another weekend full of eating was what I needed...oh well...