Busy in London!

Today I am back in Milano after almost a week in London. I was there for a mix of both personal and work reasons. After a day off here in Italy on Thursday 17th March for the 150th Celebrations of Italy unifying into one country, I flew across to London on Friday morning. I went for the weekend to join in the celebrations for a good friend of mine who was having her Baby Shower on the Saturday. It was a great afternoon, that we celebrated in a pub just off Tower Bridge road, with about 30 of us attending. The weather on Saturday was also lovely, really sunny and warm; a real treat for London! On the Sunday those of us who had flown over from Milan went for lunch in Fulham, and then I had dinner with long-time friends of mine at their place, and the food was delish!

I then was working from our London office until Thursday, and also running around London and also Leeds to visit clients. All the client meetings went really well, always a good feeling and positive overall. On Monday night I went and finally saw the film "The Black Swan", and I was really impressed with the film overall especially with Natalie Portman who I thought was brilliant. I completely understood why she received so many awards this year especially the Oscar. I saw the film in one of the cinema's in Leicester Square and had dinner at one of the restaurants in Chinatown just next door.

On Tuesday night after being in Leeds most of the day I went with colleagues to the "St Pancras Grand" restaurant which is on the upper level of St Pancras station. We started with a champagne cocktail at the Champagne bar just next to the restaurant; a great start to our meal! One of my colleagues had booked the restaurant through the website Top Table, so we had a fixed menu of two courses and a glass of champagne for £17 per person. The restaurant has been fitted out really nicely, and the food too is good, I wouldn't say the best food I've ever had in my life, but I had a salmon main and it was very nice. On Wednesday between a day full of meetings my colleague and I tried a restaurant that we had tried to go to another time but it had been full and this time we managed to get a table. The restaurant is called "Yalla Yalla" and they say that the food they serve is Beirut street food. The restaurant is found on Greens Court, and is the corner of Eastcastle street, basically one street back from Oxford street. I really want to recommend this restaurant as the food is just lovely, really flavoursome, and well priced. We ordered a few of their mezze plates and finished with a fresh mint tea. I left thinking that I really wanted to go back again. Their website is: http://www.yalla-yalla.co.uk/. As if I hadn't eaten enough I then met some friends for dinner at a restaurant called "Maximini" which is found on Sussex Place, W2 and it's closest tube stations are either Lancaster Gate or Paddington. This restaurant serves Asian cuisine, and it's always good quality and fresh. In fact the restaurant is part owned by Jimmy Choo. It's become a bit of a local for me in London because I meet a group of friends there almost every time I'm in London, as its easy to access for some that need to catch trains into Paddington. We always have a good night there.

So you may be wondering if I actually did any work whilst in London...but I promise you I did, in between eating great food! Living in Milan means that at a certain point I really miss eating various international cuisine, especially good Asian food like Thai or Vietnamese. There is a Chinatown in Milan, so its possible to eat Chinese, and also there is Asian supermarkets where you can buy Asian food as well. I haven't seen any Vietnamese restaurants here in Milan, although they may exist and there are a couple of Thai restaurants however they tend to be quite expensive. Hence why when I am visiting London I tend to eat food that I can't get in Italy.

The trip was good, and as I mentioned all went well on the work side of things, however I was really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again when I got back to Milano!

Hope that you are having a great weekend. Tonight I am going to a friends house as he is having a party to celebrate his birthday, with a theme of Cowboys & Indians! So this morning I went to buy a few of us cowboy hats, as we have been told that if we are not dressed as per the theme that we can't enter! It should be a fun night!