The Gaucho Grill

I have been saving the Argentinian 'Gaucho' for a special occasion for quite some time, almost since 'Aroundtheworldin80dinners' began. Well just such an occasion arose last week, it was Maxine's birthday. I have sometimes talked of my old pal Serendipity before and once again she paid me an unexpected visit a few weeks ago. At an opening of a photography show, I spotted Maxine, who I had seen at many of these do's before but had never had to courage to say 'hi'. Serendipity waved her magic wand of fate and before you could say 'Chablis', we were chatting away over a few glasses of chilled white wine. Of all the openings in all the world...

I invited Maxine to spend a small part of her celebrations with me over a splendid steak lunch at this well appointed South American eatery. We ate heartly and after several glasses of good wine, well and truely tangoed!

I sincerely hope Maxine had as good an evening as I did and never has Serendipity been so kind....I am reminded of the immortal words of Claude Rains "This could be the start of a beautiful friendship".

Little Samsi

Dear readers, it has come to my attention that things at 'Aroundtheworldin80dinners' Global Headquarters, Beijing have been a little slow of late (thank you, Jenny and Paul) Due to the infringement of other commitments (ie my real job) and the global economic downturn (ie my real job- unlike MPs, I can't claim it on expenses). Despite a heavy round of redundancies in Beijing, we at 'Aroundtheworldin80dinners' Inc. are fully committed to the glorious quest of our great leader and world culinary domination. To this end, I took my good friends, Aureja and Maria, aka the Cornerhouse gals, to the Little Samsi in Withington.

The Little Samsi is one of the only purveyers of Japans' most popular dish, namely, 'kare' or as we know it in the West, curry. It was brought to the land of the Rising Sun by British sailors from India in the 19th century. It tastes much like curry powders of old and my chicken and veg kare was nolstalgic and comforting.

We enjoyed a fine afternoon's lunching and if I bend the rules a little (like MPs, I made them up), a deserved red dot on the map. As the summer approaches, I do hope that we at 'Aroundtheworldin80dinners' Inc. will endeavour to be more speedy in our delivery of complete customer satisfaction.

Blog of the Week

After an X Factor style comptition frenzy, 'Aroundtheworldin80dinners' won the coveted 'Manchester Evening News/The Mancunian Way' Blog of the Week (22nd April-29th April). I want to thank all my staff at 'Aroundtheworldin80dinners' Inc, Global Headquarters, Beijing, for all their hard work in making this possible and I hope this is the first of many 'BLOSCARS' to come.

After a gala dinner at the Baths Chippie in Chorlton, the party carried on long into the night. Readers can catch up with further reports at blogs.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/themancunianway