With a Friday off work, and an urge to explore, a friend and I decided to spend the day in Oxford. We got on a bus from Victoria station, and headed north-west, into the green English countryside. It felt good to leave the grey chaos of London behind, and slow down from our usual walking pace. We wandered through one of the most visited cities in England, though trying to appear as local as possible.
Last night’s dinner was delicious: A fresh fattoush salad, crunchy mini falafels, chargrilled red peppers with toasted almonds, fresh baby spinach swirled into creamy yogurt and spiced with cumin, minty labneh sauce… The list could go on. I indulged in a full Persian Mezze banquet, beautifully served and prepared by the master chef of The Hampstead Kitchen, all while sitting in the middle of London’s newest design store, West Elm.
We can’t seem to get enough of Italy around here recently. It was only a week ago that I spent Saturday getting lost (literally) in the streets alleys of Venice. And, if I could plan my ideal weekend right now, it would be sitting along the edge of the port, sun on my face, ice cream in hand, feet dangling over Canale di Fusina. Not a car or bus in sight. But I guess that’s what daydreaming is for.
The sun shone with full force on the student-filled, red-brick city of Bologna. I didn’t know what to expect from the town, but soon discovered why Bologna boasts no less than three nicknames: la grassa (the “fat”), la dotta (the “learned”), and la rosso (the “red”). While I could have stayed much longer than just a weekend, it turns out that’s all the time I needed to experience this earthy, vibrant city.
When we were little, growing up in Hong Kong, my friends and I would physically buzz for our favorite Thai dish: Pad See Ew (who knew that a dish with the word ‘ew’ in it could be so good!) We never actually called the dish by its official name, preferring instead to baptize our favorite comfort food as “fat noodles”. Since then, I have never tasted a version of Pad Thai that can compete with my childhood, gooey “fat noodles”. But that doesn’t mean I have given up looking. This past weekend we took a roommate outing and walked across the river to the 5 Foot Way Street Food Fair – one of the many events forming part of London’s month-long South East Asian Arts Festival.
I admire people who start their own business – especially when they’re young, still at university, or with limited resources to count on. My admiration has led me to start a series of posts dedicated to entrepreneurs and their new ventures; interviewing friends, family, and interesting people with new ideas, projects and businesses underway. To start off let’s get to the stomach of the matter with a fresh new foodie company which is providing London the best flavored nut butters I have ever tried: Wanderlust Gourmet Nut Butter.
