Having a post-Wendy fry up for a second month in a row, definitely makes it a long standing tradition. Even Fonze stuck around for greasy goodness.
Continuing our theme at Buzz of mixing and matching between high-quality restaurants and all you can eat buffets, we followed the previous work social at Red Hot World Buffet with a trip to Piazza by Antony.
They had a reasonably well-stocked bar with a range of good vodkas and knowledgeable staff too. The barmaid suggested I followed my Kettle One up with a Belvedere Intense. Given I drink Belvedere at home, I thought it was worth a shot, and turned out to be an excellent recommendation.
Unfortunately, the rest of the night was rather disappointing. I began to feel really ill after having my starter (I don’t think there was anything wrong with the food as other people had the mussels and everyone else was fine) and ended up barely touching my main and heading home straight after the meal to get some sleep.
Last Sunday, myself, James and Elina headed down to Hope City Church.
Officially I think they come under the label of a “charismatic” church, which means they are hip, young and evangelical. They were founded twenty years ago by a mysterious figure that everyone refers to as Pastor Dave and has now spread to six different cities – one of which is in Africa.
Their new “Megacentre” is located in a former warehouse, which seems to be the trendy place to put a church these days and as we went in, we made or way to the brand new auditorium complete with an iMac controlled technical set-up, full band on stage and video link-up facilities so they can broadcast the news from across the Hope City Church family.
After the service, Joel very kindly sorted us out with tea and coffee (actually, I somewhat threw them when I asked if they had any cold drink) and we hung out in the “Impressions Cafe” on some very comfortable sofas. The biscuits were good but not quite up to the standard of York Rock Church which even had branded cups!
We came away with a welcome pack of goodies which included Hope City Church magazine, which was incredibly glossy and well printed, and featured a story on 20 years of Hope City Church. It was interesting to see that they had tried to start a number of satellite churches over the past two decades, some of which had worked out, others apparently hadn’t. It was interesting to see that they have become a success story – expanding into Frankfurt this November – by sheer force of will and not giving up. It may not be our cause, but it could certainly be good inspiration.
Having not really done much with my Saturday other than try and get some work done, I decided to ask George out on a romantic man-date (which also would have involved Norm, but he hadn’t been paid yet).
We ended up at the recently opened Brooklyn Bar at the bottom of Call Lane, as they had a restaurant upstairs which looked good. The bar was well stocked as well – anywhere which stocks 42 Below and Belvedere gets a big thumbs up in my book.
The steak was very nice, but not amazing. It was reasonably well cooked and good quality meat, but can’t stand up to the amazing flavours of Blackhouse or River Plate. Never the less, I wouldn’t have any hesitation in eating there again.
Last Saturday we hit up Wendy House for a good old fashioned night out. The theme was in disguise to which some people really put the effort in – notably Viv who managed to survive a night in that outfit without slowly cooking herself, which is no mean feat.
I hadn’t blogged about it until now as I was waiting on someone to post some photos. The ones below were posted by Kat, and I have to say how impressed I am that someone managed to get into so many photos taken with her own camera lol.
Sunday finally marked the arrival of George’s long awaited fry up. Given there were five of us in the apartment, we ended up having a bit of a family style breakfast round the table. These are the days kids, these are the days.
On Thursday, I attended two workshops organised by the Community Development Foundation, on fund raising strategies and using the media to promote your charity. They were being held at the Leeds Church Institute so while other people had traveled quite a distance to attend the sessions, I rolled out of my building, crossed the street and entered the venue lol.
The workshops were delivered by a man named Martin who seemed to have loads of experience in the fund raising industry – there didn’t seem to be a topic we could cover that he didn’t have an interesting anecdote about.
I was actually very impressed as to how useful a lot of the information was. I find a lot of workshops you go to, just to be fill with buzz words or tell you things that are just common sense (of course there is always a bit of that – everyone knows you should be well planned), but I found these contained a lot of useful information as well. Well worth attending.
I spent last Saturday at Spice Quarter, catching up with Si and Sarann.
A few things became apparent throughout the evening. Firstly, all you can eat buffets attract an interesting crowd. It is just packed with chavettes wearing what they consider to be high class outfits. I’m still not quite sure why.
Secondly, Si needs to move to the city centre. He is clearly wasting away out is Guiseley, and who cam blame him? There is nothing to do, nothing to see. He clearly needs to move to the city centre and live it up before he is too old. Oh when will we see the return of Crazy Party Si?
Despite his 11pm curfew, he certainly managed to exert his bad influence as both myself and Sarann went home rather drunk having worked our way though a number of jugs of cocktails at Ha Ha until we eventually got kicked out at closing time.
Blackhouse, along with River Plate, fights for the title of best steak restaurant in Leeds. So when we heard that they were doing 50% off food throughout January, there was only one thing to do – book a table and cash in on the offer by ordering two steaks each!
So on Monday myself, Norm, George and James returned to Blackhouse for some more amazing steak. The food didn’t disappoint, nor did the wine, and given the relatively cheap cost, it was a great night.
Last Sunday I went over to Jason and Sarah’s house for Sunday dinner.
It was nice to take a break from working as despite being out for a heavy night the previous evening, I was up and ready to work at 10am and didn’t finish until gone 2am. Dinner was excellent too, the food was delicious, especially their secret recipe for roast potatoes.
Having seen the house a few months ago when they had just bought it and were beginning renovations, it has really come along. It now looks like a real family house, in the suburbs, just round the corner from a school – it seems to me to be only a matter of time before we hear the pitter patter of tiny footsteps from Little Jason.