Who has dinner at 11pm on a Saturday night except carefree twenty something year olds livin’ it large in London, right? How awesomely rebellious did I feel, knocking my inner warm-cocoa-and-cotton-pyjama-loving self to the side in favour of social scenes and bright lights and late nights? Totally. Until around 9pm Saturday night, looking at Josh’s jet-lagged fuelled yawns mirroring my own fatigue and wondering what on earth had possessed me to make a midnight booking for dinner.
Admittedly it was the only available time that Sketch The Gallery had remaining when I made the reservation but I hadn’t really thought it through. We made it though, Josh, Julia and myself, walking through the west end via New Bond Street to the venue at 10pm. We arrived early, our hopes of an early sitting being substituted for cocktails in the East Bar. Sometime close to midnight, being served our starters, I was amazed, at how full the venue was. Who on earth eats dinner at this time?! Well, us, evidently. Mostly in quiet as it took too much exertion to shout above the din of the noise of the interior. I hadn’t recalled it being this noisy the last time. Neither was the interior design quite so poor. I used to marvel at the moving wall projections, the artistic room dividers and clean white spaces. The food was still good, but not outstanding and certainly not marvellous enough to compensate for the other disappointing factors. It’s probably the only time I opted for an early departure over dessert. And then of course there was the debacle about the cloakroom having lost my coat when we tried to retrieve it with the cloakroom tag. Sigh. I shan’t be visiting Sketch again anytime soon.
On the upside, a huge thanks to Julia and Josh for the opportunity of a weekend playing tourist in my own city. Having lived in London for twelve years, I have never made it atop a London Bus Tour until this weekend. Fuelled with a breakfast of heavenly chocolate brownies from Chelsea and warm fudgey lunch courtesy of Ben’s Cookies in Covent Garden, we paraded our cold but enthusiastic selves around the city on Sunday, winding up with dinner at Yauatcha: One of my favourite places for dim sum, I have to say I especially enjoyed the pumpkin duck dumplings this time, although wasn’t so keen on the cold draft that came with it, as we were seated by the front door on the ground level of the restaurant. And that was the only real downside. After a sugar filled day, I gladly slurped up all the savoury I could, and good it was, too.
It’s taken us a while to get Josh to fly across the Atlantic from New York and, we’re very glad that he finally did.