It may be a bit sad but its not often that I’ll go out on a Saturday night. Yes I’ll go out for dinner and maybe drinks but the night normally stops there. Tonight Pauline and I decided to head out dancing after dinner to make a proper night of it. If this happens at all its normally on a school night or Friday night.

Cruising through some dinner options on Top Table I came across Chino Latino which is a modern pan-asian bar/restaurant located in the Riverbank Park Plaza Hotel on Albert Embankment near Vauxhall. I was worried that being a Saturday there wouldn’t be too many people in the restaurant but surprisingly there were a few people about. Probably thanks due to the London Marathon which is being run later today.

The menu at Chino Latino includes sushi, dim sum, tempura and main dishes. I was hoping for something a bit spectacular like we got at Sushi Samba in New York but on that aspect I was a bit disappointed. The menu selections were okay though nothing I’ve seen before. The Latin/Asian combo I was after just wasn’t there – or if it was it wasn’t really spelt out. However, that was the only disappointment of the night. This may seem a bit harsh because in fairness there are some very good dishes on the menu.

At Chino Latino they emphasis the sharing aspect of the meal and though I’m sure we could have gone ahead and ordered individually I suspect, based on some reviews I’ve read, they really don’t like that so Pauline and I chose dishes to share. We weren’t particularly adventurous in our menu selections and didn’t opt for any of the sushi dishes, where I suspect most of the latin influence when into, and I refused to pay 3x the price for dim sum dishes so we went with shredded duck salad with cucumber, chilli, spring onion and hoi sin sauce (basically, crispy duck pancake) and tempura prawn with creamy chilli sauce for our starters. Both were well presented and its obvious great care was taken in preparing the dishes. I particularly liked the Tempura Prawn which was topped with dustings of wasabi which, in combination with the creamy chilli sauce, was very yummy. I could have snacked on that all night!

For our mains we went with a sirloin steak on hot rocks and miniature chicken. I wish I could remember the exact descriptions of our main meals but I can’t! Both were pretty good though Pauline preferred the chicken. For me both dishes were equally tasty. The hot rocks were indeed hot when they arrived though strangely they didn’t really “cook” the beef much further. From what the waiter said I was expecting it to go from medium to well as it sat there but it didn’t. This didn’t matter so much to me as I normally go for medium in steaks anyway though maybe it put Pauline off a bit as she prefers hers more well done.

After the first two courses and along with my cocktail (cocktails were fairly reasonably at £7.50 though champagne once were a few quid more) I was feeling fairly full. The fact my top was quite tight around my ribs also didn’t help. Heh heh. However, Pauline was in the mood for dessert and I’m not one to turn the third course down specially as they had a pistachio crème brulee on there. I’m always a sucker for a flavoured crème brulee. Pauline went for the dark chocolate fondant which she says was very yummy.

All dishes were very good quality which was pleasing considering the price tags attached to the dishes (e.g. mains ranged from £15 – £35.)

Service at Chino Latino was kind of strange. Fairly attentive without being overbearing (I was gratified that they left us alone at the end of the meal and didn’t try to pester us to keep buying drinks or pressure us into leaving) however I didn’t like the way that the waitresses delivered our dishes. On ever occasion they either plonked the dish on the edges of our table without even attempting to move things around to put them in the centre or waited for us to move things around for them. Price-wise I was glad for the 30% off offer from toptable because it would have otherwise made the food quite expensive – with one cocktail each, three courses and service the bill came to just about £40.

After dinner Pauline and I were trying to work out where we could go dancing. I’m the first one to admit I’m not really one for clubbing and I could probably count the number of times I’ve been out dancing in the last nearly 5 years on four hands. Still, I was quite keen for a groove and we ended up at Motion at Embankment. As it was just gone 11 I think when we got there we had to pay a £10 cover charge, which is something unavoidable at that time of night unless you’ve got on to some guest list. Motion is spread over two and a half floors (the half floor is the toilet level and it has a glass wall that looks out on the basement dance floor with a few couches) with the top floor seemingly for the more casual dancers and those looking more for a bar. The basement floor was where the action was at. The music was a bit boring when we got there (typical house stuff) but it did start to get more interesting as we were leaving. Just a shame there weren’t any guys who really caught my interest! Pauline commented that she felt she was too old to be doing this sort of thing and I would have agreed with her if the music had continued on in the same vein (that is, the house stuff.) Next time we must make sure to choose a better venue.

At least I managed to get the last circle line home though it was a close thing as to which would win first – the circle line getting me home or me getting sick from drinking too much. I know I’m allergic to alcohol and I only had one cocktail and two Smirnoff Ice’s tonight but its no fun to not be drinking! As it was the second Smirnoff was enough to tip me over the edge and I had a very difficult time walking home. I’m just thankful I only had to deal with one guy, who was quite nice and rather a gentleman actually, propositioning me on the walk home. I could barely carry on a conversation with him as it was!

It wasn’t that long ago that I went to Golden Dragon and was admiring their new chopsticks but I found myself back there again tonight on my duck date with Sandra, on the recommendation of Laurence for their crispy duck. Both Sandra and I love crispy duck though Sandra more than admits that a lot of this has to do with the yummy hoisin-ish sauce that accompanies it! 😛

I was amused tonight that when they were setting our table they gave Sandra a fork! ha ha!

The crispy duck was quite good at Golden Dragon – crispy and light just the way it should be and though Sandra enjoyed it she still thinks the Crispy Duck crispy duck is the best in the whole of Chinatown. To accompany our duck we also opted for a couple of dishes, both of which I must admit were guilty pleasures – the shredded crispy chilli beef especially! The prawn dish was a sizzling prawn dish served in appetising sauce. Both our dishes made our table very orange!

Next time we have a duck date I”m aiming to add a bit more colour than orange to our table!

Friends Paul and Kelly from work were wed earlier today and aren’t they lucky that the English weather has decided to behave. After two days of unpredictable weather and after yesterday’s giant chuck down I was thinking that it might have been a bit of a wet wedding but in a blessing for them the sun was out and it was just gorgeous. I didn’t go to the wedding but will be attending the reception later. The venue for the reception is quite a bit south and from my place in the West would be quite a hassle to get to and though I didn’t mind the journey getting there I didn’t want to have to rely on the public transport to get home at the end of the night nor was I willing to face an over £50 taxi bill to get home so Sandra offered to put me up for the night. And even better she offered to cook us up a pre-reception meal!

I’ve talked before http://www.thekua.com/sista/?p=1900 how the English wedding is a bit different to those I’ve been to in Australia – mainly that not everyone goes to the wedding ceremony and wedding meal (which generally happens during the day and over a late lunch) but almost everyone is invited to the later reception which is basically a big party going until the hours of early dawn. Here the feature is normally light finger-food plus a bar (sometimes free, sometimes pay as you go.)

At any rate we weren’t sure when and how much we would get fed at the reception tonight so Sandra cooked up a delicious early dinner. She started with some yummy foccacia breads (which were extremely filling on their own actually) and then stuffed pork wrapped in bacon.

Mmm … lovely meal. My only concern was being able to fit into my dress for the reception!

Golden Dragon is one of Pat’s and my go-to place for yum-cha, especially now that our favourite Laureate has shut down (and since been taken over by Mr Wu’s Chinese buffet!) Quality is fairly decent and consistent and service is generally quick and efficient (and sometimes friendly though most of the time its just sufficient without being over the top.) Normally there are lines out the door and once inside on the ground floor you’ll find everyone sprawled out taking over the entire entrance. Its clear that this is one restaurant not being affected to much by the credit crunch. Love their new chopsticks!

I don’t know if I’ve ever blogged before about GBK but I’m sure I’ve eaten there nearly ten times in the last five years. For me it’s the kind of place which is good, no make that great, when I’m there but then for some reason as soon as I’ve walked out of the restaurant I would happily not even consider going there for months if not a whole year. Why I have no idea as I always enjoy the food and the company when I’ve eaten there. The clue to GBK, or Gourmet Burger Kitchen, is in the name – a restaurant specialising in gourmet burgers. Created by three Kiwis they not only do a mean selection of burgers they have the most awesome fries I’ve had in London. Their milkshakes (coming in flavours including lime, banana, oreo) are kick butt too. In addition to the “regular” burgers they also have some special items which currently include buffalo and wild boar. I’ve yet to try out these specialties … maybe next time!

Tonight I had a catch up with Caro and Nate and a good friend of Caro’s Philippe (he is her sister’s boyfriend’s sister’s boyfriend – I think I’ve got that right! who I met him Caro and Nate’s wedding in France last year) at the GBK in South Kensington. Whether its due to the credit crunch or other reasons GBK have had long running offers where you can get 2-4-1 on burgers / salads. Tonight the boys took it literally and opted to get two burgers each!! Let me tell you that the burgers at GBK are not tiny little things and combined with a side order of chips one burger is more than enough to put me on the way to being so full that I literally feel sick after meals at GBK. Hilariously, I don’t know if its because Nate was just getting carried away, he ordered us five orders of chips to share between the four of us! It was quite funny when they brought all the food out – I didn’t think we’d have room on the table for it all!

To my disbelief, and their credit, the boys polished off their two burgers and a fair amount of the chips. In fact Nate finished his two burgers so quickly that I think I was still working on my burger just as he was finishing his second! Caro and I could only shake our heads, and rub our stomachs in pain from eating too much, at their antics.

Then, unbelievably, we headed to a gelateria for some ice-cream …. 🙂

My brother gave me three options for lunch today – National Dining Rooms, Baozi Inn and Little Lamb. The first two were on my to do list and the third I’d never heard of. I did at first say I’d like to try Baozi Inn but Pat seemed a bit disappointed that we weren’t going to Little Lamb so I changed my mind. I asked Pat what Little Lamb was all about and he started to say something about Mongolian bowl. In my head all I heard was Mongolian barbecue for some reason so I was surprised to find when we got to Little Lamb that actually Little Lamb was all about the hot pot, or, what I more commonly call it, steamboat.

Steamboat, for the uninitiated, is like a Chinese fondue but instead of the usual cheese or chocolate sauce you have a stock or broth bubbling away in front of you. You then have a selection of ingredients, generally raw, which you cook as you like and eat when its ready.

During the winter, or when packed out (its not a big restaurant with about 8-10 tables seating 4 people at each table), the windows are often steamed up by everyone’s stock pots bubbling away. Today we and only other table were diners so no steaming up of windows. This certainly made for some rubber-necking and we got more than our fair share of interest from the passers-by.

The way it works is that you choose a stock-type, a sauce (if you wish though recommended for adding a different flavour), and any number of plates of your choosing. Alternatively for £20 per person you can have one stock and five plates each. We ended up taking this latter option thanks to the waiter pointing out that our initial selections, chosen because we didn’t think we’d get up to choosing 10 plates, added up to £39! We decided on a three-way pot for our stock to give us three different flavourings: chilli, herbal and some other sort of broth which we couldn’t identify. You can choose to have two stocks or even one if you don’t need too much variety! For our plates we went for: Beef, Pork, Prawn, Crab, Prawn Balls, Beef Balls, Pak Choi, Oyster Mushrooms, Tofu Knots, and noodle. All of this simmered over an induction cook top which was pretty cool as it was literally cool to touch but still heated up the pot.

Eating all of these bits and pieces was certainly an experience with lots of the food ending up on the table rather than in my mouth, especially the crab and the prawn (hint: use hands!). Heh heh. It probably didn’t help that Little Lamb have the the smallest possible plates and bowls I’ve ever seen! When having steamboat you can cook your things one at a time or dump ingredients in all at once or go somewhere in between (which is what we decided to do.) Half the fun is going diving into the stock to find your food though you may end up competing with your fellow diners to find the treasures. If you’re stock starts to drop the staff are more than happy to top up with more hot water so no need to worry that you’re taking too long to get through your meal!

Don’t expect any thing special with Little Lamb service. Admittedly once we got the waiter’s or waitress’ attention they were very friendly and efficient in giving us what we want and the waiter does get a point for recommending that for £1 extra we could choose another three dishes, however, getting their attention was a whole other experience altogether. Both stood behind the counter the whole time with the waitress reading a magazine and I’m sure I caught the waiter actually sleeping on his feet on at least two occasions.

We paid £47.30 which includes 2 meals at £20, £1 each for tea (Little Lamb loses points for not offering tap water – which was a bit ridiculous considering how salty the stock and food was) and service. From an objective perspective this may seem a bit more expensive than you would normally pay for a Chinese meal (we normally average £30-£35 for dim-sum for example) however, considering the quality of the ingredients and how much you get its quite good value.

The Little Lamb was certainly a different experience from the norm and, taking nearly two hours, was twice as long, if not more, as a regular visit to a Chinese restaurant. Strangely for all the food we ate I wasn’t exactly feeling super full at the end of the meal though Pat said he felt suitably stuffed. The food is supposed to be quite healthy and from the view point that there was no deep frying involved it certainly was. However, the overwhelming feeling was one of over saltiness which was a bit worrying. (Did I mention my fingers are so swollen that I can’t take my rings off?!) I can’t say that I’d be running back again to Little Lamb soon but if you’re feeling a little adventurous I’d say drop in!