The Flaming Dragon

It's good to get out of the house occasionally isn't it. What with lectures all done and dusted now, there is very little incentive to actually leave the house so when I received an invite to a 21st birthday gathering I was delighted. Not only would I be leaving the house but I would be having fun at the same time. We went to Valley Centretainment to the Flaming Dragon Chinese restaurant.

It was very nice surprisingly although it is at the higher price range of the buffet style offerings at £9.60 a head (£9 for students). The highlight of the menu was the lemongrass pork which was so nice I had it twice - something I try and avoid at buffets unless there is a limited choice. There were a few odd things about this place though; first off there were no chopsticks which strikes me as very odd in a Chinese restaurant. Secondly, they had Yorkshire puddings on offer - they were deep fried and dripping with grease though so I stayed well away from them. A silly highlight of the night came from my friend who mistook a boiled egg for something very different and went on to moan about how making an omelette with egg, flour and milk. He seemed genuinely surprised when I told him that omelettes contained just egg and that his recipe would have made him batter.

After that, we went on a little bar crawl and stopped at Tequila on West St. I've never been in there before but it was actually quite nice, decent music as well which makes a nice change. It is a cocktail bar and I was having fun so I went mad and ordered a Zombie which seemed to contain half of their spirits collection. I assume they weren't all full measure of the ingredients because it took the guy seconds to make and was only £3. Amongst the ingredients were apricot and cherry brandy as well as fruit juice and some Bacardi rum if I recall correctly. Surprisingly, it was pretty tasty and quite throat warming which was nice on such a cold night.

The other place we stopped wasn't so great although it did have very comfy sofas. A new addition to a nights out entertainment was a man walking round taking photos. Nothing special there you might think except that this guy was then printing, framing and selling them. He was carrying a portable printer with him connected to his camera and it must have weighed a tonne - not least for the printer battery alone. He actually managed to convince two girls to buy one of the photos although it descended into a haggling match after one of the girls refused to pay for her copy. She then asked him what would happen to it if she didn't buy it - to which he replied that it would be binned. She then came back with well I might as well keep it then mightn't I - and he gave it to her for free. I can't see it catching on really, I mean when you are on a night out, you don't want to be lugging round a framed photo for the rest of the evening. It will only get bent and covered in drink and then you'll have wasted your money.

A not so regular addition to the QI team this week in the shape of Liza Tarbuck and it is in times like this that I am amazed at how clever some people really are. The only thing on TV I've seen her in (other than QI) was some rubbish comedy from several years ago called Linda Green (I had to check that from Wikipedia by the way, my memory isn't that good!).

This weeks Gavin and Stacy was by far the best episode so far, I'm not sure why exactly but it just was. Maybe it was because I was half asleep at the time or that there were a few more characters in this episode. Whatever it was I can only hope that things are on the way up and that as the series progresses, it will continue to get better rather than worse.