Dim Sum Demonstration at Shanghai Blues

Patrick Food, London To Do, Restaurants, UK Life

Shanghai Blues is a bit of a hidden gem located off the ever-bustling High Holborn street near to Covent Garden. It’s a hidden gem because it’s so easy to miss it and when its surrounded by tacky high street chains and a number of pubs on either side. During the week they normally hold some sort of jazz events and their high quality Chinese cuisine (dim sum on weekends) serve to also ensure steady business.

I’d read about their Dim Sum demonstration event from a London bloggers website and was excited to hear them re-run the event in September. They even flew Executive Chef Hong Qiu Feng flown in from Canton to help out with this particular event so no doubt it was going to be good.

The evening started with a welcome glass of champagne and some nibbles including coated peanuts and picked vegetables. The middle of the dining room had been converted into two large demonstration areas, with the ingredients for the dumplings already prepared and waiting for us eager participants to take part. I didn’t realise how simple the dim sum wrapper recipes were (equal parts rice flour + potato flour with some water or coloured juice – spinach or carrot for green or orange).

They also prepared the fillings for us (though we walked away with the recipes in a small kit prepared by them) and the heart of the evening ended up practicing filling the dumpling wrappers using methods particular to each type of dim sum.

We also got our individually labelled baskets that we got to fill with the product of our making so our we’d get to taste and see the finished products.

Considering the entertainment and the great banquet that followed, the cost of the evening was well worth the experience. There’s obviously a skill involved with dim sum making but I didn’t realise how simple some of the ingredients and preparation could be.

First post from the iPad

Patrick Entertainment, General, Software, UK Life, Work Related

This weekend I went away for our UK office away day, our equivalent of an internal conference. It was a fun and exhausting weekend and part of the excitement was the presentation of the internal
iPad competition that my team of three competed in.

The prize was an iPad for each member of the winning team. To enter we had to come up with an idea and have a go at implementing it although the actual implementation wasn’t the heaviest weighting in the overall score including.

Fortunately our team won the iPad competition as well (details of the application will be announced when we release the application) and here I am having a go at trying to post my first blog entry from the device.

Initial impressions are very good although very hard to type as efficiently as you can on a computer with a keyboard to give tactile feedback.

Spot of Lunch with some Celebs

Patrick Entertainment, Food, UK Life

I spent this weekend mainly relaxing and catching up with many old friends including some very old family friends who wanted to eat lunch at The Wolseley. I’ve walked past here numerous times, past the friendly doormen who tip their hat and always on the look out to welcome people into their luxurious restaurant. Located in the heart of Piccadilly and conveniently close to Green Park tube, it’s almost hard to imagine the opulence in an area now mainly overrun with tourists.

Service was impeccable throughout – even from the confusion around our booking where our family friends weren’t expecting me and my sister but the restaurant rearranged us quickly and amicably. Unfortunately this meant we ended up leaving the table next to British comedians, Dawn French and recent, ex-husband, Lenny Henry. Our dining colleagues also pointed out Salman Rushdie, author of the Satanic Verses and I’m sure I recognised a west end actress though I couldn’t put a name to her face.

Unfortunately for us, though respectable for the atmosphere and people, we weren’t allowed to take photos. Really lovely food from the delicious breadsticks to the decadent duck confit and enjoyable service all around.

Henley to Marlow

Patrick Entertainment, Travel, UK Life

One of the great things about England are the temperate climates for trekking around the country. Although trains are notoriously unreliable as a regular commuting vehicle with excuses like leaves on the track and snow preventing trains from running, they do tend to serve a pretty reasonable way of getting around on weekends. This bank holiday weekend, I headed out with a friend to Henley-on-Thames where we proceeded to take something like a 15km walk to Marlow.

The walk was pretty tame although we had plenty of local wildlife (below) often running around the fields we had to trek through.

Not everything was straightforward though with a number of paths not always very well signed unlike the path below.

Although a couple of the pubs we hoped to stop in for lunch weren’t open due to the bank holiday weekend, the blackberry bushes seemed to be in season and we tucked into quite a few along the way.

Arriving at Marlow, we sat down at the michelin-starred pub restaurant, the Hand and Flowers that I remember enjoying a meal at when I worked there some time ago.

Cologne

Patrick Travel

A few weekends ago, I got up the earliest I’ve had to for some time on a Saturday to catch one of the first flights out of Stansted Airport to get to Cologne. The airport buzzes at that time of the morning with lots of people wanting to catch cheap flights out. When flying to Cologne, you end up at Cologne-Bonn airport and it’s easy enough to catch a local S-Bahn train to Cologne only costing a few euros.

The first thing you catch sight of stepping outside of the central station is the Cologne Cathedral one of the largest gothic cathedrals in Europe. With plenty of steps it seems to be a very central place where lots of people hang out.

You can even go up the tower, although you need to be ready to ascend the 500-something winding steps. Given how temperatures reached the early 30 degrees I can attest it’s not the easiest feat. The number of people blocking the path also demonstrates this.

It’s pretty funny to see how all the locals know to have fun with a spontaneous water fight bursting out of the fountain at the base of the cathedral. I even saw a number of poor tourists getting drenched in the process.

Speaking of fountains, at the local Lindt Chocolate museum, they have one of the biggest chocolate fondue fountains I imagine you’ll ever see in the world. They even had a staff constantly dipping wafer sticks and handing them out.

The rest of the museum is pretty interesting, going into a very in depth look at the history of the where chocolate comes from including a production line of chocolate blocks.

Cologne is located next the Rhine and plenty of bridges crossing it to the other side both the more residential and conference zone area of the city. The other side of the city has more of the interesting tourist attractions and plenty of the local establishments serving the local brew, Kölsch served in tiny 200ml cups though constantly replaced.

Cologne also has a ton of museums to visit ranging from an unsurprisingly, underwhelming mustard museum through to the very moving NS Dokumentationszentrum (Nazi Gestapo Museum). The Nazis took over this house during the war and was preserved to serve as a reminder of the actions and events that unrolled.

Breakfast Problems Solved

Patrick Food, General, Travel, UK Life

As a consultant, you move around projects much more than you would if you worked for the same company. Living in London adds another dimension where going out during the week is more than normal and keeping a regular routine fairly difficult. As a result, it’s difficult to be sure that you eat a proper breakfast before heading out and, the end result, is normally doing the continental breakfast when I have my coffee, buying a Pain Aux Raisin, Pain Au Chocolat, or my (wickedly) favourite Croissants Aux Amandes (Almond Croissant).

My mission is to cut down the number of breakfast pastries, yet still have a decent meal thus, the acquisition of the Fresh Traveller.

Looking it up on the net, it was invested by very practical designer, Arjan Brekveld, and I managed to find a store in London stocking them (the very cool Do Shop). I’m hoping this lets me pack my breakfast for consumption when I get to work. My only tip for an enhancement would be to have some way to pack a spoon with it.

Local Animals to Liverpool

Patrick Travel, UK Life

Walking around town, it’s hard not to notice the breed of very strange animals habitating in Liverpool. They had a huge assortment of them down near the wharf, painting in various colours much like the Cows of Chicago (1999).

Without knowing what they were, their head looks slightly fox like with a moon-crescent like tail. The one below is one to be pretty creeped out about.

They seem to be all around the city as well, like this one caught watching from the 7th floor of one of the buildings around town.

Looking them up on the internet, they are all Super Lamb Bananas.