Food, food and more food

When you go to a Chinese banquet there are certain definites:

1) 10 courses -- and not nouvelle cuisine courses either.  These are substantial!

2) Soup at some point, maybe shark fin or bird's nest although these days shark fin is something of an endangered species dish.  Maybe not endangered but the thought of sharks swimming around without a dorsal fin isn't that popular these days.

3) Long life noodles to finish -- a certain kind of veggie noodles that are deep fried and insanely good and which finish off the banquet, just when you most need it!

The event was Viv's mum Anna's 80th birthday party and was held at the China Boulevard restaurant in the newly gentrified Wandsworth, in the midst of new flats by the Thames just next to Wandsworth Bridge and the Ship pub if you want some precise instructions on how to get there. It was really good so going back wouldn't be a hardship!

The guests were from Anna's life and was a nice chance to have Indy, Ali and Anton in the same room at the same time of course along with Viv and I.  Most others were Anna's co-travelers and MJ victims but there were some people from the old Hong Kong days too.  So a nice bunch to catch up with.  Particularly nice was seeing Farida and Pervez after 20 years or so (according to Pervez who droned on and on about this so he's probably right).  Farida was Viv's school friend and had been matron of honour at our wedding and we'd been on holiday with them pre-children too so it was lovely to see them again and reflect how easy it is to lose contact and the time just slips by...

In the days before selfies...

But the food just kept on coming!

The lobster course

And the event just kept on going too for as soon as the food ended, impromptu MJ tables sprung up whilst the rest of us just kept on chatting and partying.  At 9 or 10 pm more food came out for a late night snack before calling it quits.  I annoyingly didn't pick up a copy of the menu but remember a wonderful steamed fish playing quite a part in the late night proceedings.

And to prove we could, on the way back we stopped off at Anna's favourite restaurant in Greenwich for lots and lots of dim sum!

I felt like a roly poly pudding at the end of it all!