Tate - rehung, A Wong - re-hungry

You know when you go on holiday to a foreign city and you do so much when you're there - visit galleries and architecturally significant Bauhaus buildings, track down random things you've read about online, make an effort to go and look at an abandoned train station? (Tel Aviv, I'm talking about you!  More on this in a subsequent post...)

And then you come back to your home city and watch a lot of iPlayer, go to your local drinking haunts and never make the most of where you actually live?

I've been making a bit more effort to do stuff in London this year - and when I can combine 'culture' with some awesome food in the environs, all the better.

There've been a lot of glowing reviews in the press about the Tate Britain rehang (hung vs. hanged btw - hanged is purely for murder by the neck - I never knew that.)  I went the other day - and while I can safely say that I know less than nothing about art (or rather I instantly forget any art fact as soon as I've read it) - the rehung main collection was brilliant (well, up until about the 1980s when I think it all goes to shit.)

There were so many paintings that struck me - but for the sake of brevity, check out my three faves:

I am SO putting those two ladies in my next book.

And this:

And this:

Still, there's only so much art a dilettante can take - and so the really good news is that less than 15 minutes walk from the gallery is A Wong, a Chinese restaurant that has been getting rave reviews.  It was so great I took my mum and dad back there the following week for lunch.

They do fantastic dim sum - only at lunch - and a regular menu at dinner.  Highlights of what we ate are as follows:

An epic prawn cracker, that didn't look like any other prawn cracker I've encountered in my many years of hanging out with prawn crackers:

A luscious, delicate, smokey sesame buttered chicken and cucumber salad:

An amazing hot, salty yet mild Yunnan style fried cheese served with Sichuan pepper salt:

(Does your heart sing when you see the phrase 'fried cheese?' Mine does, though perhaps it's the first signs of cardiovascular disease.)

A very sweet yet deeply savoury crisp-on-the-outside, fluffy on the inside barbeque pork bun:

Killer Scottish beef rump fried noodles:

Something I forget the name of, I was so transfixed by its prettiness:

And a magical melting pudding.  I was so high on food happiness that again I forget the exact description - I think it was tobacco smoked banana, nut crumble, chocolate, soy caramel sauce.  Either way - now you see it:

Still there, just about:

Now you don't:

A hot mess - a very very fine hot mess indeed.

The service was excellent too - and the prices were nowhere near as expensive as the food looks. A total find in the backwaters of Victoria - and the perfect reward following a self-improvement session at The Tate...