Dim Sum

I never fail to be impressed by the beauty of the Docklands area of East London. Thirty years ago it was mostly industrial slums. Since then it’s been redeveloped into a major new business district with some stunning architecture along with hundreds of new riverside flats and leisure facilities. Walking through Docklands today makes me think of how it must have been to walk through Ancient Rome, when the Coliseum and all the great monuments of the Empire were newly built and pristine.

Today we happened to be walking through all the grandeur to get to the Royal China restaurant, on Canary Riverside. This was the venue of today’s brunch. To celebrate the Chinese New Year, Ping had organised a Chinese Dim Sum meal. Dim Sum is the Chinese equivalent of Spanish Tapas or Turkish Mezes: A variety of small dishes for you to mix and match into a meal. It was rather a stylish restaurant, with lots of colourful, stylised decoration over (presumably fake) black lacquer. The food was quite tasty, but nothing exceptional.

Ping can be quite sweet sometimes. He was handing round a book published by some literary society which is serialising the diaries of a friend of his and in which he is mentioned on occasion. Apparently the book is held on file in the British Library, so he is feeling as if he has been entered into the history of the nation – even though he thinks the portrayal of him in the diaries is unflattering. We each had a read of the relevant paragraphs and had to agree that it actually summed him up quite well. I’m not sure he was impressed.

After dinner Brett and I went with Jeremy F to take a river bus back towards the West End. I don’t think I’ve ever taken a river bus before; only the big tourist things with running commentaries. I was very pleasantly surprised by a large, comfortable, clean and fast boat. It’s really not a bad way to see the riverside sights, especially if you already know (or don’t care about!) the historical trivia along the way.

Spent the evening on the sofa with Brett catching up on our TV. The O.C., Desperate Housewives and then the final half of The Return Of The King (which strangely doesn’t seem nearly as long when you watch it in two halves.)

On a course this coming week, so I have to be up early tomorrow to get into the City for 9am. Ugh! That means commuting on the Tube at rush hour.