Weeknote 59

Design workshop

On Tuesday, I held my first design workshop at work to help generate some ideas from all disciplines across my team. I was surprised by the level of positive feedback and satisfaction from participants, which made for a happy start to the week.

New dining discoveries

The past week was a treat for my taste buds, beginning with the discovery of Little Napoli Pizza Restaurant in Shepherds Bush. Alongside Streatham's Bravi Ragazzi, this is by far one of the best pizza restaurants I've visited yet. I chose the Burratina pizza. It was a quiet night for the restaurant, and we'd a good chat with the friendly owner, who encouraged us to try their delicious Nutella pizza too for afters.

Over this unusually warm October weekend, X and I myself visited Paladar for a delicious selection of Latin American dishes beautifully presented in the tranquil surrounding of their courtyard garden. For starters, we'd the tapioca and cheese croquette dice with guava and balsamic reduction. For mains, we shared a creamy wild mushroom quinoa risotto with crispy plantain, plus Nikkei salmon ceviche. The purple corn churros with coffee dulce de leche sauce were a treat for the eyes as well as taste buds.

Out and about

On Thursday, I joined a friend who'd drawn lucky for a free audience ticket to The Graham Norton Show. After almost three hours queuing outside, we managed to get in and secure some semi-decent seats. The recording lasted about 2-hours with a small hiccup part way through when the performer from Christine and the Queens walked off the show in frustration over his mic not working as expected. We still enjoyed the show overall though, and had a pleasant afternoon break from work.

With another friend, I went out road cycling over the weekend, something I've been struggling to find time for recently. We headed out to nearby Esher to try Giro cycling café, which is certainly up there in terms of good cafés for cyclists. Good food, good coffee and popular with a lot of South West London's cyclists it would seem!