Soho boys night out

With one of my pals over for a rare visit from Dubai and the other forcibly removed from his PC for the evening we met in Salans in Old Compton Street for an evening of catch up chat and cheer. As always, the surrounding area was buzzing and the welcome was warm.

Fired up with an assortment of cocktails – me on my usual mojito – the guys on their long island iced tea and some other colourful concoctions and plenty of tap water to keep us hydrated, we had to tear ourselves away from the conversation to order our food. I loved my crab and avocado terrine starter and the guys savoured their scallops. Then I tucked in to crispy salmon (“crisp” being the right word I am told by the non-writer of my colleagues) with pea and fennel risotto. It appears we were all in a fishy mood as one of my chums had the blackened swordfish and the other had sesame tuna steak. Clean plates all round. The waiters were charming – verging on cute, and all with delightful French or Italian accents.

After much banter and laughter, we did coffee and then moved out into the cool Soho air. Walking briskly through the crowds (what happened to the recession?) we made our way to Leicester Square – the Piccadilly side and landed for more coffee and ice cream at Rendevous (it had made such an impression on me last night). The peaches ice cream was a triumph but sadly the mint choc chip was lacking in choc chips and doing a rather good impression of tooth paste.

And so another great evening with friends sampling the delights of London.