The BT Tower, London

When I arrived at Charing Cross on Saturday morning, I had an hour to kill before the meet up at Ping Pong.  I decided to walk from Charing Cross station to Goodge Street and walked past Trafalgar Square (where they were setting up for the Chinese New Year celebrations) and up Tottenham Court Road.

You might wonder why I have no photos of that portion of the walk.  Well, in 1993, I stayed with my uncle for three months in his flat on the corner of Old Compton Street and Tottenham Court Road.  I can tell you now, there was no better place to be at 20 years old than in the dead centre of London and it was an amazing time.  So I wasn’t taking photos when I walked up Tottenham Court Road; I was watching the ghosts of the past and observing the places where the Marquee Club and the London Astoria used to be.  Thank goodness The Borderline is open in Manette Street otherwise I might have gotten very sad indeed!

So back to the subject of this post! I walked down Manette Street and past Soho Square, across Oxford Street and into Rathbone Place.  I came to a fork in the road and had to carefully select the right road to take… I had to choose the one that would give me the best view of the BT Tower. 

I love towers and buildings.  I can’t really explain why because I had a fascination with tower blocks long before I worked in property management and construction.  It was the first time I recall seeing the BT Tower and to me, it is just beautiful.

Mo from Fresh Eyes on London mentioned the other day that they had recently removed the satellites from the BT Tower, so maybe that is why it is looking so pretty?  You can check out Mo’s 2008 photo of the BT Tower with the satellites still installed.

So what do you think? Striking, eye catching and impressive?  Or just an eye sore?

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Meeting Up at Ping Pong Dim Sum

Yesterday afternoon, I met up with a lovely group of expats and bloggers at the Ping Pong Dim Sum restaurant in Goodge Street.  There were just eight of us including Greg and Mela from Sifting Through... Expat Edition, Lindsay and Jen from She Went Away, Oneika from Oneika the Traveller, Melissa from Wanderlust - Witness to Britness and Candace from Candace Rose Rardon.

Ping Pong very kindly invited us for a complimentary meal and beverage and we had a great time.  We all decided to order the Ping Pong Collection Set Meal which is very reasonably priced at £9.95 per person.

We started off with a baked roast pork puff which was deliciously sweet.  We also had a selection of fried dim sum including a crispy duck spring roll, Vietnamese rice paper prawn roll and a mixed vegetable spring roll.  I loved the crispy duck and prawn rolls!

I ordered a Strawberry and Vanilla Iced Tea to go with my meal.  It was really good but I was enjoying it far to much to take the time to photograph it!  It was a strawberry purée, vanilla sugar and jasmine iced tea served with tasty Asian basil seeds.  The basil seeds were crunchy which is not something I would usually enjoy but I did on this occasion.

Our second course consisted of a selection of steamed dim sum served with a delicious parcel of vegetable sticky rice.  The steamed dim sum are my favourites and the very reason I like dim sum so much.  From left to right above, we had a chicken & cashew nut dumpling , chicken shu mai,  chive dumpling (with King Prawn), spicy vegetable dumpling and har gau (King Prawn dumpling).  The were all really, really good!

I haven’t had a set meal at Ping Pong before but I definitely think it is the way to go in the future.  I liked everything that I ate but I also got to sample items that I never would have ordered before (specifically because I need to be very, very careful when eating sea food!)

To finish off a lovely meal, I had a Flowering Jasmine and Lily Tea.  This is honestly the most fun I have ever had with a beverage before!  You are presented with a glass of piping hot water and a tea bud is dropped into the glass before you.  The bud then sinks and unfurls to present a beautiful flower at the bottom of the glass.  Al that and it tastes good too!

We really had a lot of fun and I would like to thank Ping Pong for inviting us along!  We do try to meet up at least once a month so if you are an expat or a blogger and would like to join us, please get in touch! We hope to go bowling in February and are planning on going to Canterbury in March.

Ping Pong Dim Sum (Goodge Street branch)
48 Newman Street
London W1T 1QQ

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A Day at the Natural History Museum

 

 

 

 

Stephen and I spent a day at the Natural History Museum on Tuesday with my friend Bonny and her son Matthew.  We haven’t seen each other in months so I decided to leave my camera at home and focus on being sociable instead.  Thankfully, I still managed to snap a couple of photos using the trusty Instagram app on my iPhone. 

Check out my interview at London Living!  I was asked five questions as part of their London Grilling series. 

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