Adventures with Kake

On Monday I didn't go to choir because it was a Bank Holiday and the Jubilee Line was closed for engineering works, and I was tired anyway.

On Tuesday I was meant to go out for fun, but I was still tired so I went to bed early and watched House.

On Wednesday I went for dim sum at Joy King Lau with Sarah and Lex, then wandered around taking photos for RGL before meeting people for curry at Gaylord. I tried to pop in to the Crown again on the way home, but it was closed again.

On Thursday I made congee for the first time ever, using the century eggs I bought from See Woo on Wednesday. It was really tasty.

On Friday I made aubergine and prawns in XO sauce, and pork and tofu in black bean sauce. Both were pretty tasty. I think I might have to start ordering XO sauce dishes in restaurants... though they do tend to be a bit expensive, since the sauce itself is expensive.

On Saturday I did some work and then finished knitting a scarf that I was making for my sister.

On Sunday I ventured to Southall with doop, ewan and said sister, to go on a pretty enjoyable food walk. We had lunch at Mirch Masala and did a bit of grocery shopping. When we got home I made pani puri and they were ace.

On Monday I went to sing with the London Forest Choir. It was awesome. I hadn't sung with a choir since college and I'd forgotten how brilliant it is.

On Tuesday I went out for dinner with bob. Apparently we were having some kind of anniversary or something. We attempted to go to the new location of Cafe East, but they were closed due to having run out of food the night before, so instead we went to Banzi. We then pubcrawled home via a couple of local pubs; the China Hall and the Crown. The China Hall, surprisingly for the area, had two handpumps offering real ale — we didn't stay long, though, as it also had sport on the TVs. The Crown had no real ale but also no sport, and there were people singing! As we were leaving, we saw the landlord having a smoke in the beer garden, and he chatted to us for a bit. He and his partner (wife?) took the place over a couple of months ago; I'd not realised it had changed management. Will visit again soon.

On Thursday I had lunch at a Syrian restaurant in Shepherd's Bush, Abu Zaad. It was OK; I think it would have been better if I'd had company so we could have ordered more of a variety of dishes. I've heard a lot of good things about this place, so I'm happy to give it another chance.

On Friday I realised I had run out of work! So I went to Mama Pho for lunch. This is the new Vietnamese place which opened at the old location of Cafe East, which is the old Vietnamese place we tried to visit at its new location on Tuesday. I had bun bo hue (photo), and it was good. When I got home, I fixed a few terrains bugs on the Discworld MUD. Terrains are complicated.

On Saturday I tried to do some singing practice, but I didn't enjoy it much because I was worried about people hearing me and being annoyed by it.

On Sunday I spent the entire day fixing bugs on the Discworld MUD. (We were having a Bugfix Sunday event. I was logged on for 17 hours. Oops.)

Here are some things I did last week. I don't normally lead such a decadent lifestyle; I'd given myself a week off work because I'd been working too hard and I needed one. (Links lead to my writeups and photos elsewhere.)

On Monday, I had lunch at Sedap, a new and pretty good Malaysian restaurant on Old Street. Then I wandered westwards (via a half in the Trader on Whitecross Street) to take some photos and check out some reported closures for RGL, ending up at the Queen's Head and Artichoke near Regent's Park, where I tried (and quite liked) the pork belly skewers (photo) from their tapas menu. Then I walked back along Drummond Street, buying some almond burfi at the Ambala Sweet Centre on the way, to meet some friends at the Bree Louise, where we sampled the milds they had on gravity and ate heretical pies (photo).

On Tuesday, I met a friend for lunch at Inn Noodle in Bayswater, which claims to be the UK's first pork-free Shanghainese restaurant; the dim sum were a little disappointing, though. Then I wandered around the area doing some more RGL research and photography, popping in to the Prince Bonaparte for a sit-down in the middle. Finally I got the Tube over to Hammersmith for dinner with bob at Tosa, a Japanese restaurant on King Street specialising in tasty grilled things on skewers. I took a lot of photos, and made a photoset of them on Flickr.

On Wednesday I went out for dinner with uon to Royal Palace (photo), an unassuming-looking Chinese restaurant near our house which turns out to have a secret Chinese menu with Sichuan and Northern Chinese specialities on it. I don't read Chinese, but the waitress helped me pick out a few dishes. I'll be going back next week to try a few more before I write the RGL review; I think she gave us the "safe" options, which is not a good basis for a review.

On Thursday I went to the bleak industrial wasteland of Park Royal with hoshuteki, and had lunch at Omnia, a small deli-cafe attached to a Middle Eastern bakery and wholesale business on a one-bus road lined with small-scale factories. Then we got the Tube back into town and had some wine and a few bar snacks at Terroirs, a surprisingly decent wine bar just off the Strand. I was very pleased with the boquerones (photo), less so with the duck scratchings (photo).

On Friday, I did my tax return!

On Saturday, I went out for dinner with secretlondon, lozette, and uon to Kyrgyz Kazakh House, a Central Asian restaurant concealed within a hotel on Camberwell Road. The food was OK, but it was the decor that truly amazed us (photo).

On Sunday, I rose from the dead rested.

(Let me know if this post is interesting, and I might do another one next week!)