Hakkasan

As usual Cara gets it right. My genes live on. She has expensive tastes and then offers to pick up the whole tab if she can claim it back on expenses. That’s my girl.

Hakkasan is a fabulous restaurant selling Chinese food. Tucked away in a basement at the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road the opulent interior belies the scruffy surrounds at ground level. The food is equally opulent and as it was lunchtime and we were a party of five, our helpful waitress suggested that we order dim sum. What good advice. The food was fabulous, washed down with a Viognier, Marsanne mix from Australia which was also fabulous and which was also the cheapest on the wine list.

This is not the place to go to if you’re thirsty and don’t have a credit card but if you want to taste very good food in modern, silky, sexy surroundings then this is the place for you. Given that we were with both Jan’s youngest Luke, his girlfriend Lydia and my youngest Cara, who kept us in stitches, this was a truly exceptional and memorable meal. Highly recommended.

We then had four hours to kill before the theatre, so what to do? The kids suggested Tate Modern and as neither Jan or I had yet been we thought that it was a great idea. ‘You’ve got to see the Rothko exhibition’, we were told. Bloody hell, getting lessons in culture from your kids.

You have to admit that the place is impressive and it was packed out with people. So many art lovers and it wasn’t even raining. As I was still in a fairly jolly mood (we get the drift – Ed), I was ready for a dose of culture. We had to pay to get into the Rothko exhibition and the woman behind the cash desk was a bit bemused when I asked her if they offered concessions for blind people. Cara thought it was funny but did threaten to ‘take me back to the home if I didn’t behave myself.’ Jan pushed me along, embarrassed.

Look, I admit that I’m no art critic and I wouldn’t know a Matisse from a Mondrian (actually I might) but this Mark Rothko must be pissing himself laughing at all the people going ooh aah at his stuff. Huge canvasses, filled with gallons of paint, with little or no discernible point, as long as it’s two colour and sort of rectangular. The last time that I was so disappointed was when I went to see a Jackson Pollock exhibition.

Either I’m a total philistine (no comment – Ed) or I have a very good eye for the Emperor’s new clothes.

By the way, I enjoyed the majority of the other galleries, so maybe I could be an art critic after all.