9 nice, and 3 slightly bad things | June and July

Internet, I am a fireball of excitement, even though my should-have-been-winning sweepstake team, Spain, were knocked out of the bloomin football by Russia today say whaaaat? Nonetheless I cannot be got down, as this afternoon I booked my 30th birthday treat with Will, and bloody hell I. cannot. wait.

If any of you have ridden the on and off rollercoaster which is this little blogspot, you might remember two and a half years ago I surprised Will with a trip to New York. I literally met him for lunch with a suitcase I had packed with his clothes, and told him we were getting on a flight to the big apple. It was amazing, and I know he sort of wanted to do a huge surprise for me but then he was being all indecisive and got me to make the final decision and I am so glad he did. Mainly because I love all the control and planning, but also, now I have almost 2 months to just get more and more excited.

As we've been away quite a lot this year (24 hours in Tokyo blog post coming soon, hopefully) we've decided to trade air miles for luxury and are going here - we're staying in a hut which is also a suite with a roll top bath one night, and then the next we're staying in the posh manor where a michelin starred chef will design us an individual menu. Annndd it is 25 minutes from Stratford upon Avon so I am hopeful we can squeeze in some Shakespeare on the way home. I KNOW. Can I even think of 3 bad things for this post, when my mind is so clouded by pure elation and anticipation of all the food, and spa, and chill time? (Spoiler: Yes)

Introducing the Neighbourhood Supper Club

At my birthday barbecue in August, I was chatting to my old school friend Louise and her partner Tom about my new local Italian - Trattoria Raffaele. (New as in I am a relatively new local, Trattoria Raffaele has been around since 2008.)  It is just a teeny tiny 30-40 seater, mains £8-£15 Italian, but for a couple of weeks in 2016 it was Trip Advisor's number 1 restaurant out of all the 18,000 restaurants in London. (At the time of writing this, it is number 110, which still puts it in almost the top 0.5% of London restaurants).

Now I am not saying I would necessarily head there if I had the choice between dining in there and one of London's Michelin star, champagne soaked spots, but sometimes (especially if I just wanted to wear jeans and a jumper) I might, and it is certainly the perfect cosy Friday night dinner. If you're ever in South East London, it is definitely worth booking a table and heading down Sydenham Hill for. Order something from the specials, and smile at the waiters, who if you are lucky will feed you wine whilst you wait for your table to be set.

Tom and Louise were keen to check Trattoria Raffaele out, and spoke highly of a Turkish around the corner from them in Stoke Newington, and so, the Neighbourhood Supper Club was conceived! With all of us living across London, we thought it would be a sweet idea to visit each other's local favourites. There are 11 of us in my school friendship group still living in the London area, plus our partners, so we have plenty of locals to get through, before we are even on the second round. (I think I already have Joanna's in Crystal Palace eyed up for the next time everyone heads south of the river).

4 different and surprising nights out in London which aren't all about prosecco

Last week I went to 3 of my friends birthday parties. (I know! What happened 9 months before the beginning of May in the late 80s ey?) A bottomless prosecco brunch (of course), a night out drinking aperol spritzes and dancing in a bar before throwing up into my jacket as my boyfriend snoozed beside me in an uber (of course), and finally a Time Run (what's that you say, I'll get to it).

Now for an honest confession more shocking than me writing on the internet how I was sick in the back of a taxi: Out of all of them, for some reason I was possibly least excited about the Time Run. The tickets were £30, and that didn't include bottomless prosecco, it was on a Thursday night (though you can go any time) and basically it just wasn't what I was used to. It was out of my comfort zone.

I live in one of the most exciting and enthralling cities in the world (lucky so and so), a city whose name is printed on t-shirts alongside Tokyo, Paris, New York, a city I pay an arm and a leg to live in (less lucky) and yet so often I end up letting my hair down in the way everyone across the UK lets their hair down - going to a pub and drinking prosecco. Now going to a pub and drinking prosecco with friends is always going to be my staple, but I want to be better at branching out once in a while, and getting out of my London rut.

When I started Loner. Lover. Friend, I wrote a post where I compared London life to having a really expensive gym membership - one with all the add ons - free towels, a steam room, someone who irons your shirts (yes there are some city gyms that do that!) And like having one of those expensive gym memberships, there is no point having it if a) you don't use it at all or b) you do use it but you just go on the treadmill, you bring your own towel, you never get anyone to iron your shirts. My point is, why the flip do I pay so much to live in a city if all I am doing is going to the pub on a Friday night? (Which also is probably more crowded and less pretty than a lot of pubs all over the country. And it routinely costs £5-£6 for a pint.) I need to take my own medicine and start using London's steam rooms and getting it to iron my shirt.

Now that might be going to an amazing restaurant, trotting down to a cat village or going to the theatre. Or it could be a weird combination of all 3 of those things, like in my little list below. (Without the cats actually, sorry for getting yours hopes up there). A lot of these nights out are pretty top secret, and don't let you take pictures, so I am afraid we'll just have to stick with Cate Blanchett's face summing up all my emotions about my time there:


1. Time run 

So worth every penny in that £30, even though they didn't include even a single glass of prosecco with the ticket price. Say whaaat. Without giving too much away, Time Run was this amazing experience where in our little group of 6 (it is for groups of 3-6) we went through different time portals, finding ourselves in rooms full of clues and things to do. Basically like Crystal Maze but maybe better, and less pressured without all the mula to win. I am now looking for my next Time Run-esq thing to do, and am tempted by this one - Clue Quest, which looks pretty similar. Maybe I will just become a clue fanatic and travel the world doing all the different quests, and be in the guinness book of records for my quick clue solving times. Maybe not, but definitely am planning on taking Will and my family to one soon.

2. The Gingerline

Gingerline is sort of the original "pop up restaurant in a secret location" which is now what approx. 47% of London restaurants now are. When I headed down there for their Chamber of Flavours, it was weird and wonderful on a whole new level. It is the sort of night that is so bizarre it is tricky to talk about without sounding like you are making it up. At work the next day, colleague: how are you today Vicky, did you get up to anything last night? me: I went to this place nearby with a couple of my friends, where after getting in a coffin and being pushed through a flap, we ate our starter in a treehouse and picked it from the trees, drank cocktails in an adult sized ball pit, had dessert on a flight simulator with a drag queen air hostess, before taking a huge slide back into the bar area for some drinks. What did you do?

3. The Lost Lectures

Enchanting talks in enchanting places. I've been to a couple of Lost Lecture talks now, which are all about taking learning out of musty old lecture theatres, putting them somewhere fun, and getting a few interesting people who are experts in everything from jelly to global inequality to take it in turn to talk for 20 mins. A ticket to them makes a great present for people who like to learn (like Dads) and you come away having laughed, got all emotional and having learnt some really cool stuff. One thing that really sticks with me is learning about a parasite which may affect what the infected are afraid of. For example when mice have it, it makes them weirdly attracted to cat urine, rather than afraid of it (cos cat pee = cat nearby, not so good for mice) and they end up getting eaten, and then passing that parasite on to the cat. Weirder still, 40-50% of humans in the world are infected.


4. Immersive theatre

The first time I went to an immersive theatre experience, it was at Battersea Arts Centre, and my friend Lucy and I went to support our friend Liz, who was volunteering for the event. I got in a wardrobe, knocked on the back as I had been instructed, and then crawled through an opening into a tunnel lined with clothes before coming out the other end where there was a woman in her underwear who insisted that I dress her, and then she accessorised me. Later I got kidnapped in the back of a van, and some youths rapped at me. It was nice. And again, great water cooler conversation. That was a few years ago, and ever since Liz, Lucy and I find ourselves keeping an eye out for theatre we get to play a part in, as it is just so weird and funny. We've been to a great one by the National Theatre, and I am keen to go Punch Drunk which I've heard really good things about, and are meant to be the bees knees of immersive theatre.


PS. A crazy cool thing to do in London that is partly about all the booze. 

Copyrights: Cate Blanchett via pinterest

Carter's Steam Fair - When not to wear your favourite Hawaiian mini dress

The other weekend I headed to Carter's Steam Fair. Now I love even the roughest around the edges of fairs - when I was a teenager, the night the fair came to my local town was one of the best ones of the year: candy floss and rides that turned you upside down, followed by sleepovers and smirnoff ices and karaoke at my friend's nearby house. But Carter's Steam Fair is not like the typical fairgrounds that have toured England since the 1980s, it is like one out of Carousel or The Notebook, though with no Ryan Gosling to clamber up the Ferris Wheel and ask you out. *emoji of the man with the gritted teeth here*.

I first discovered it on one of my biggest blog crushes - Take Courage. To see Carter's Steam Fair in all it's glory, head here to read Cat's piece Strangers on a Train and look at her absolutely beautiful photograph's of Carter's Steam Fair.

My experience was not quite as instagram worthy as Cat's, it was more skirts flying up across my face on the banana boat, blinding me whilst revealing my knickers to everyone on the right half of the ride, whilst I was powerless to stop it as letting go meant falling off... so less of a kodak moment, but crying with fear on the Ghost Train and laughter at the Banana Boat pant incident- well Carter's certainly was fun.

Basically the lesson is, if you are going to take gorgeous atmospheric photographs of the fair, then dressing in a fabulous vintage mini dress which was originally purchased in a Hawaiian gift shop in the 50s makes sense. If however you are going to go on the Banana boat, wear trousers.

It's doing a little tour round London (next stop Stoke Newington) this summer, and then tours throughout the UK - you can have a look where they are next by visiting their website here.

Photo by Bessie Jewels

PS. Peckish for Korean food in Bethnal Green?

A quick review of Letters Live

Yesterday evening I went with my sister to the opening night of the five night stint of Letter's Live - a production where acclaimed and celebrated actors read aloud to an audience beautiful and important letters written by both super famous people and very ordinary people and in one case, a fictional person. 

It was held at the Freemason's Hall in Covent Garden (a beautiful building built in the 18th century, and historically a meeting place for the Freemasons - is it only me who can't help but envisage the Simpson's Stonecutters as soon as Freemasons are mentioned? anyhoo...) it's a building I've always wanted to go in, and was almost - but not quite - as beautiful as the letters themselves.

Letters Live, which has previously popped up at Hay Literary Festival, at the Edinburgh Fringe and the Southbank Centre to name just a few, describes itself as "a celebration of the enduring power of literary correspondance" and I guess that describes it just right.

The event certainly pulled in the big names this time, with Benedict Cumberbatch reading every night, alongside plenty of other amazing thinkers and performers - Russell Brand, Caitlin Moran, Richard Holloway, Juliet Stevenson and Louise Brealey to name a few. Tom Odell provided a few musical interludes, songs about letters ending on Fats Waller, "I am going to sit down and write myself a letter" which suited Tom's folksy slow rockish spin so perfectly.

There were rofl-icious letters, like the letter to (and reply from) Barbara Bush by Marge Simpson, Nick's Cave letter to MTV asking for his nomination for best male artist to be withdrawn (no thank you - he's not competitive), and the memo from South Park movie creators to the agency which rated the age certificate suitable for the film. "Although it is not animated yet, we put a new storyboard in for clarification in the scene with Saddam Hussein's penis. The intent is you never see Saadam's real penis, he is in fact using a dildo both times"...

And then there were letters that actually made me well up and cry a little, and I got so invested in these other people's relationships, even though they had only been read for 5 minutes and I hadn't even heard of the penman or the recipient before yesterday. So many beautiful letters from men and women so desperately in love with someone who had left them - by dying, by falling out of love, by just being a bit crap. 

In someways I sort of felt like I was intruding in some private space of the people who had written them, they were never meant for my eyes and ears after all. But mainly it was everything to see all that love and all that humour in all these letters, to sit and wonder about the writers and to remember how similar and connected we are as humans, regardless of where we are from, the troubles we are facing or which century we are living in.

I wonder if in 100 years time, people will read my drunken love texts to Will and think they are a beautiful and real expression of love?! Looking at the last drunk text I sent Will (future text readers would have to sort their way through quite a lot of "I'll be 15 mins" and "did you remember to get the chicken out to defrost?" if they decided to look for my love texts) it reads "I love you! Now where are you and my creme egg mcflurry?" Maybe not the stuff of theatre... 

I panic bought tickets to Live Letters, not even know who I could spiel into going, thought about selling them and I am just so glad I did go, and I said yes, made me realise I really should do it more often!

And by the end of the night I felt like quite the cultural biatch. Or should I say cumberbitch....

It is pretty tricky to get tickets to Letters Live in Freemason's Hall now, but you can try here, or otherwise keep your eye out for the next lot here.

And finally a couple of videos to help you procrastinate! Fats Waller and Homer Simpson:

Like the sounds of Letters Live - how about Hay Festival?

Twilight in the Sky Garden (Snapshots)

I bloomin love being up high buildings - feels so much more poignant and sophisticated having a gin and tonic 30 floors up instead of 1.

One of my best friends just came back from 6 months in Tokyo, and I was hearing from her and my other friend (her boyfriend) about this swish bar 41 floors up where from 5-9pm (twilight) you can enjoy unlimited drinks and canapes for £20. And this £20 doesn't just cover mimosas and bellinis, oh no, you can drink anything - from champagne to expensive whiskeys to cocktails. It is definitely on my bucket list now! (Is it a bad sign if you put an all you can drink bar on your bucket list? Never mind)

Anyhoo, for Will's birthday we watched the sunset at the top of 20 Fenchurch Street (more commonly known as the Walkie Talkie) in the Sky Garden, the UK's highest public gardens. You can book a ticket up the Sky Garden for free, but just a warning, unless you have far more self control than me - which to be fair you may well do - you are going to spend quite a bit more than £20 on drinks and canapes, and they will not be unlimited.

I did see some much more sensible people sitting in the garden reading a book, but to be honest when you're up there with the breathtaking views, and the gorgeous sunsets and the err fully stacked bars, it is very tricky not to order a drink or 2. In the cheapest bar on the concourse, it will cost you £11.50 (+service) for a cocktail, £7 (+service for a glass of house wine or prosecco) and like £16 (+ service) for say a branded double spirit on the rocks.

But pff the prices, check out the pictures (from light to dark):

Birthday boy was actually looking out that pensive, he isn't even posing intentionally here!

Don't even mind paying £11.50 for my cocktail if it comes with a flower!

So there you go! Overwhelmed you and me with photos now, sorry. FYI if you need more evidence of how nice it is up the Sky Garden all these photos were taken by me (with very poor photo taking abilities) with either my Samsung Galaxy 3 or my boyfriend's iPhone 6. Twilight at the Sky Garden just looks this damn good! Book a free visit to the Sky Garden here

Like stuff up high buildings? Check out my post "A silent disco with a view and 39 thoughts you'll have up there"

Walking and Wandering and Wondering on My Own at the V&A Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty exhibition

Aaaarg gosh and golly, this is like my third attempt at this blog post because I keep on waffeling more the f-on than per usual, and like quoting Shakespeare and it is all getting out of hand, so I am going to attempt this in more of a list form, but bear with me, because it is tricky to do a list like review of a gallery exhibition. That is probs why the Guardian doesn't do that...

So, like some sort of lady who lunches which I am not, I had a cheeky day off on Friday, just to hang out with myself. And this day unlike last time I had a casual Friday off I actually wasn't dying of a hangover thanks to a Thursday night at Hip Hop Karaoke (as flipping amazing as it sounds, but you do actually have to be good at rapping - they don't have the words up and they don't have Drunk in Love). No this day I got up to see the partial solar eclipse and everything (but didn't too many clouds in London).

If you've read the short epic novels which are my about page or my first post, then you know this blog is about doing nice things in London and in life with your lover, with your friends but also on your own. I wanted to be better at "me time", and not just end up watching Teen Mom 2 for 5 hours whilst eating Heinz Tomato soup if I had a day to myself. I've got away from that a little bit on Loner. Lover. Friend, my last "loner" posts have been about ways to get yourself out of a slump day, a musing about what Valentine's day is, different ways to wear Christmas jumpers...I am not going to stop doing those posts, because I like writing them, but I wanted to get back to what my initial thoughts for this blog were.

The V&A seemed a good place to start, on my first V&A membership card, and in the pack it has a copy of Rob Ryan's lasered design:

Hours that I spent walking and wandering and wondering on my own to look and think and think and look feeling apart yet feeling a part of all that I saw as the past and the present slowly became one

I actually have been a member of the V&A for almost 3 years now. I know get me and my cultural self. As I've mentioned before on Loner. Lover. Friend, I think one of the most fabulous things about London is pretty much all of our wonderful museums and galleries are free, but there are some perks of V&A membership: 10% off in the gift shop, a cute little membership card to put in your wallet, feeling like a high and mighty cool as cultural so and so, oh and of course all the free, no booking needed entry to all of their wonderful exhibitions, and the ability to go to members events, like lovely evening talks with wine receptions and really interesting people from the world of fashion and art sharing what they know.

When I signed up to the V&A it was amazingly good value for money as I got their under 26 membership on direct debit. I paid £29 for myself for a year's worth of exhibitions (and bear in mind Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty is £17.50 per person) and then paid an extra £15 to bring a guest in with me. Now I am old and 26, and no longer qualify for that membership (waaa), it is a bit pricier, but still worth it, if you are going to go to at least 3 ticketed exhibitions a year and bring someone along.

So now for the list. Sorry none of the items on this list have that much connection to each other, they are just thoughts I had when seeing Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty, things I learnt, things I've thought and learnt since, things I already knew which I thought might be worth sharing with y'all.

1. It looks amazing. As you might expect from a V&A ticketed exhibition but still, give that curator a medal. As you move through the rooms it echoes McQueen's collections you are moving through - like the room for his A/W 1997 collection "It's a jungle out there" all tribal influence and coats made from hair and amazing things the exhibition room is like this wonderful (fake) skull lined cage. For his romantic dreamy collections, the V&A framed them against huge gilt mirrors, and to display his S/S 2001 collection VOSS they recreated the glass box, Alexander McQueen showed it in.

2. So from point 1, with me dropping in the names of the collection and wotnot maybe you think I am an Alexander McQueen and general fashion know it all. Not true, I was just doing that to impress ya. I had heard of Alexander McQueen but I mainly associated him with this amazing nautical collection I saw in my Elle magazine when I was 15, and Kate Middleton's wedding dress, as of course his predecessor Sarah Burton designed that. What I didn't realise is that actually Alexander McQueen was super duper weird, like weirder than a normal designer (who lets face it, all seem to bring out designs a bit more bizarre than H&M). Like on display in the exhibition included: a whole top made of mussel shells, a red sequinned dress which would be normal but for the face hood, a dress with massive wooden wings.

3. Although there are a few bits of Alexander McQueen which have made it mainstream. Turns out I probably have him to thank for that lace corset and smart trouser look which I wore to every 17th birthday party in 2004. And all those puffball hems we had a few years back, were courtesy not of Jane Norman but of him. And seeing them all again sort of makes me wish I could still fit into my old puffball dress and that my mum had never thrown that lace corset away. Also, no offence Topshop but his Atlantis collection made it look like he did those lovely mirroring symmetrical print dresses like 8 years before you did...

4. That maybe fashion can be art. As I mooched around in my leggings, trainers and oversized sweatshirt at a fashion exhibit, onlookers might not have thought it, but I am not one of those people who think fashion is silly. I think fashion gives you confidence, shows your creativity and helps you express yourself but I've never seen it as art in the way say, I see Shakespeare as art. Art for me is something that pinpoints the human condition, how men and women feel and identify themselves, and has the same emotional resonance with its audience regardless of their context - their century, their gender, their wealth, their race. I couldn't see how fashion could do that, but McQueen's work wasn't just about trends, it was about showing mortality, showing beauty, showing our relationship with nature. I loved what he said about his not-so-pretty Voss collection: "It was about trying to trap something not conventionally beautiful to show that beauty comes from within".

5. That Alexander McQueen was a pretty special person. Not scared to be different and outrageous, and that showed in his collections and everything he did. He was the son of a cabbie who grew up as Lee in Stratford, and left school with just one O level. In his first job - an apprenticeship at a tailor's in Mayfair - he wrote "you f***ing c**t" in an suit jacket intended for Prince Charles. (Pretty ironic that his label then went on to dress Prince Charles' daughter in law on her wedding day).

Sorry no photos are allowed inside, so I am having to describe things a little, they are obvs better seen in person!

6. A highlight number one: there is this miraculous hologram of Kate Moss dancing in this wispy gown and then becoming like smoke. Not maybe the best showcasing of McQueen's work but amazeballs nonetheless.

7. Highlight or maybe lowpoint (?) number two: a man reaching out and touching a slashed pink ponyskin dress when security weren't looking!! Couldn't believe it! Think he might have been dragged by a girlfriend, and didn't get it...

8. And nothing to do with Alexander McQueen per say, but just a day to myself. A day to sit and drink jasmine tea (and eat macaroni cheese of course) in the most lovely cafe in London (well the loveliest cafe where you can get lunch for less than a tenner). A day to sit and read my book in beautiful surroundings on the first proper day of spring. A day to just not worry about anyone but me and anything I was missing! I think sometimes "me time" can be hard to prioritise because you get massive FOMO about what you could be missing out on whilst you are walking and wandering and wondering on your own - whether thats because your friends are all going down the pub, or because you could just be lounging on the sofa with your boyfriend watching TV and that is pretty lovely as a thing to do too. But getting out by yourself did make me feel a bit more in touch with me again, and I guess if you are worried about the FOMO then taking a day off is a good move, cos what are you missing? Work! Pfff.

Ok none of the exhibition but I went to town on the cafe! Who could resist a cuppa in here?

Classily reading The Goldfinch and photographing it with the sticker still on...I also bought Travelling to Infinity (Jane Hawking's autobiography that the Theory of Everything is based on) if you were wondering! Oh and the Goldfinch is excellent!

Dat ceiling.

You can book and Alexander McQueen exhibition for £17.50 per person here. You can get V&A membership here, but they don't mention direct debits I think (which is cheaper). Pop in and visit the membership desk for that gig.

Read more about why I want to blog about things to do by yourself here, in my first post: Go to a literary festival

"You will attend an important event one day in November." Happy Chinese New Year!

As I waffled on about in my last post "A Valentine's message from Gwyneth and I" I really embrace any reason to celebrate in the soggy, grey early months of the year. Something to put a little spring in my step, even if the season is still a couple of months away.

Although (as you may have guessed from my photo) I have no Chinese heritage, for the past few years living in London, I've headed into Chinatown to celebrate Chinese New Year. London's Chinatown, though not able to compete in size with the Chinatowns stateside, is still such a vibrant and unique part of the city, which comes even more alive for the new year.

On Thursday, the first day of Chinese New Year, 7 pals and I started off with bellinis at the National Portrait Gallery restaurant bar - a restaurant I am now desperadoes to try out because of its amazing views of the west end, from Trafalgar Square to the House of Commons. We then headed on to Tao Tao Ju, one of the 80+ Chinese restaurants in the group of streets behind Leceister Square, and drank Tsing Tao and feasted on prawn toast, spicy ribs, fried seaweed, chicken dumplings, crispy beef, chicken in black bean sauce and more food I don't want to list anymore as I am starting to feel sick and yet impressed at how much I ate. All for the pricely sum of 20 smackeroons.

And the best thing about Chinese is obvs the fortune cookies.

Last year I got the loveliest fortune ever, which I still have stuck with blue tac to my computer at work, in hope that it will come true:

Happiness will be you for the longest time.

This year my friends and I got a few that made me rofl a bit. (But maybe in part because I was full of bellinis and beer).

You will attend an important event one day in November. (Received by my friend Clare, I enjoy how specific the fortune cookie writer has gone with that one).

Whether you choose love or fame, you can handle it. (Received by my friend Steve, who then started his pros and cons list of which one to choose)

If you don't dream too extravagant, they will come true. (A cynical fortune cookie there sent to my colleague Zina.)

And mine (I had 2, piggy).

Dancing is just like walking to music. (Hells yes)

You have a wild imagination. (True dat)

Happy Chinese New Year everyone! If you're in town, this Sunday festivities will fully overtake China town to celebrate the dawn of the year of the sheep. Check out other ways to celebrate here.

I've stopped labelling posts loner, lover or friend in the title, but you can still see everything split out by clicking on the pages or the labels at the bottom, and I am still gonna keep a completely even mix of the 3. (Someone might have noticed I owe you a lover post, as I skipped it, it is on its way). Some more ideas of things to do in London with your pals? Check out "Friend: My favourite London afternoon teas"

Korean food and cocktails with bourbon and prosecco (that taste nice, seriously)

I grew up in a happy and lovely but sleepy suburb, and as a 15 year old it was a pretty exciting thing when my Friday night plan was not to stay at home and watch TV, but to go and split a Margherita (cheese and tomato kind) and tap water with my pals in Pizza Express.

I'd pull on my super unflattering, midrift and hip flab revealing, ultra low slung jeans that we also used to wear, my trusty kitten heels and be really pleased with my £4.74 night out. I'd be picked up by my Dad, home by 10:30pm and had basically zero chance of meeting a boy or anything more thrilling happening than a whole Sloppy Giuseppe to myself, but I looked forward to those nights, and saved my pocket money up for them. (Obvs I realise a whole Sloppy Giuseppe pizza is still one of the most thrilling nights a girl can have, but you get the gist).

When I went to uni in Manchester, and even more so when I moved to London for work, I went out to nice and interesting places to eat all the time, more as a way to avoid having to cook dinner than because I saw it as anything exciting. Instead of looking forward to cocktails and dinner, I started to see it as the norm, and actually if anything sometimes I got more excited by a night where all I had to do was eat soup and cheese and watch the telly.

The lack of contrast between nights in and nights out meant that even when something interesting and memorable hit me bang smack in the face, I didn't really appreciate it.

So when I started Loner. Lover. Friend, part of my reasoning was that I might have more nights in writing this blog, but by writing about things and by having more nights at home, I'd start to appreciate how lucky I am to live in such a vibrant and amazing city. I'd start making reservations again. I'd research places to go, rather than stumbling into the nearest happy hour I'd been to one thousand times before. I'd begin again to think about what outfit to wear to dinner, or at the very least put some extra lippy on in the work toilets before heading out.

Having said all that, sometimes on a very very chilly Monday evening, after a very very long day at work, a girl just needs to go somewhere where it is totally appropriate to wear your ugg boots, have messy hair and just have someone cook for you while you share a bottle of red with one of your best pals.

Enter Hurwendeki, Bethnal Green. Korean Restauarant/ Hair Salon/ Coffee shop in the best way possible.

Photo by Bessie Jewels

My friend Beth has started getting her haircut there - it costs just £14 and they do a lovely job and you don't have to sit in a "salon" that looks like Mr. Toppers. Like, its an actual salon and everything. We wanted to try out the restaurant part, so we headed there on Monday night, armed with a Tesco's half price bottle of red (it's BYOB, amazing, I know).

The first thing that made me realise this was not going to be just a slightly prentious and hipsterish attempt at a Korean restaurant (I mean where other than London's east end would you find a salon-coffee shop-Asian restaurant hybrid) and was potentially something more authentic, was that there were Korean people eating and cooking there.

The new trendy Asian cuisine, now that Thai, Chinese, Indian and even Vietnamese are old news, I have been to a couple of "Koreans" in my time, which have largely focussed on kimchi and the spicy but delicious Korean fried chicken. (Jubo and Japanese Canteen I've found do particularly good ones).

I was surprised to find no KFC (as in Korean Fried Chicken, not the Colonel's) on the menu, but I guess the menu was a more authentic one, ticking off a few of the Korean classics - bimbibap and kimchi - but also had lots of dishes I hadn't seen at the KFC joints: like Jeon - Korean style pancakes, and jiggae - Korean style stews.

Beth and I shared a portion of kimchi and seafood pancakes (as it is almost pancake day) which was squid and kimchi in what tasted like crepe mixture, but it actually really worked. We polished it all off.

For mains, I had samgyeopsal - crispy pork belly (just remembered that name off the top of my head....naaaaaat) with kimchi and doenjang (a soy bean paste) sauce.

Beth had chicken bulgogi - a Korean style barbeque with rice and vegetables. It was all fabulous.

We also added a portion of crispy seaweed - a healthier but not quite as moreish a version as the Chinese one covered in salt and chilli.

The wait staff were so lovely, and best of all it was super cheap. £26 for both of us!

Which meant it was completely ok, to sneak in an £8 cocktail or two in Satan's Whiskers on the way home.

I've never actually been in Satan's Whiskers before, though I've walked past the bar whose window looks a little bit like a display at the Horniman museum which has collided with  hipster pop up bar: a taxidermied badger in the window shaking a cocktail shaker, the skeleton of what I think is a dog, birds and snakes, frozen and stuffed, candles and cocktails.

Inside the dim lighting give it a speakeasy feel, but the 90s hip hop music assures you you are very much in 2015, or at least some year after 1994.

We drank rebel flip's - an adventurous mix of bourbon and prosecco, and it was delicious o' clock.

Costs:

Check out Hurwundeki here, and Satan's Whisker's here.
I've started leaving out whether I've categorised something as Loner, Lover or Friend in the subtitle, as some of them were getting a little lengthy, and I figured the Lonely ones fosho might look a bit weird on bloglovin...

But for another yummy places to eat with a pal, check out Forza Win - Friend: Eat melted cheese with everything at Forza Win(ter)