This weekend was a mixture of catching up with some old friends and trying out some new events all involving wonderful food and drink at the same time. Rather than starting off at the Friday pub, I met Gerrod and Kristy at Sitaaray, a Bollywood themed restaurant where we had a Indian banquet involving many little bites that certainly filled us up very well. The inclement weather saw us consider checking out something a bit local to Covent Garden. Unfortunately two of my more favourite places were a no-goer – Freud being literally crammed body to body in its downstairs habitat, and the other, Bunker apparently there no more. Instead we ended up at the bar downstairs from Navajo Joe where the balance between being too crowded and atmosphere was just right.

Saturday kicked off catching up with my sister for dim sum, this time wanting to try the hard-to-find mooli rolls at Shanghai Blues. Being a bit more of an upscale restaurant, it was definitely on the much more expensive side of dim sum and though everything looked very pretty, some of the dishes disappointed with small char xiu bao and average tasting dumplings. Service was excellent for a Chinese restaurant, although you certainly pay for it. The evening saw a few of us head out to Dalston, heading “Towards a Fluid State”. Thanks to our bus trip, I also know now where Mangal Ockabasi is.

Sunday saw me off to an early start to the Taste of Christmas to dare the crowded floors of Excel London where we saw Heston Blumenthal and grabbed a bite of lunch to eat. We also walked around the stalls tasting some interesting ingredients