Dinner Out

When I (along with Suma and PJ) lived in NY, nice Friday night dinners were an unspoken tradition.  I can think of a whole slew of Friday dinners where we either tried a new place or went to an old favorite (I miss you old Perbacco. Remember Kuma Inn?  The ridiculous night at Al di la? Corton?), ate till we were almost too full, drank enough for it to feel like Friday night, and just enjoyed hanging out.  Some of my favorite New York memories are nice dinners with friends.  PJ actually just reminded me of our dinner at Torrisi this summer - so fun all around.

I've had a few dinners like this lately in London which made me realize how much I missed this.  Outside of Suma and PJ, most of my friends aren't super into going out for dinner, so it isn's a standard activity.  Last week, I went out for 3 fun dinners!  This is on top of a ridiculous dinner we had in Munich the week before.  I went out with S for two of them - the first was a place called L'etranger in South Ken.  It was an asian french fusion place and the food was great.  Unfortunately, this was the night I heard I got promoted, so we ended up having a mix of different drinks (champagne, cocktails, port).  This plus a LOT of food was not a good combination, so I ended up feeling pretty cruddy after.  Not sure if I'm going to go back, but dinner itself was really fun.  Our second dinner was fantastic - we got the tasting menu at L'Autre Pied in Marylebone where every first bite was a wow.  It was a French restaurant and the tasting menu was super wintry and also at a very reasonably price.  I'm sad to report that it looks like S is moving back to the states at the end of January.  I'm trying to convince her to stay long enough to come with us (me, Maria, Sarah, Harini) to Barcelona in February.  The third dinner was with Harini and we checked out an Indian small plates restaurant in Covent Garden called Dishoom.  It was really good - fun stuff to share and they also had pav bhaji, my favorite Indian street food.  From there, we grabbed drinks at a bar called Detroit.  I loved it!  I asked the bartender for something wintry and got something with scotch and gingerbread, but it was delicious and amazingly smooth.  I will definitely go back.

Even though it's the holidays, it was a pretty busy week.  With the prospect of snow all week (and the fact that London doesn't know how to deal with snow), I was worried I wouldn't make it home.  Happily, all went well, and I'm happy to report I'm home in NJ right now, getting ready for Christmas.

Bought all my presents online... I just have to wrap things :)