thekua.com@rest

On Tuesday, my team and I finished our second and final phase of my current project, so what better way to celebrate with the customer than by visiting the Absolut Ice Bar? The inside ice bar looks like a very trendy freezer maintaining a cool -5 degrees Celsius and loaded with various furniture and sculptures all made of ice. The drink concoctions are created out of Absolut vodka and more colourful liqueurs and dispensed to you in large glasses also made of ice. Thankfully it’s easy to stay in the cold for the limited session of 40 minutes since you’re given a warm furry poncho-like coat equipped with a gloves and a warm hood.

The outside bar is as trendy as the actual ice bar, equipped with modern decor and funkily lit tables. Their drinks menu offers a limited selection of beers but makes up for it with its extensive range of spirits, martini and cocktail mixtures all at equally trendy London prices. We had a fantastic night out on the town and though it’s not an every weekend experience, I think the Ice Bar has a lot going for it.

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Every so often, one of our offices around the world hold an internal conference, that in the UK’s case is called thee Away Day. Just like many other conferences, you get a whole heap of people together and you find out some interesting things. Since our office is so large and we had quite a number of visitors, you also end up doing a bit of networking.

Sessions I attended included Marco Abis’ sessions on “Back to People”, Erik Dorenburg and Nick Drew’s presentation on “Software Visualisation”, Angela Martin’s “Customers are from Mars, Developers are from Venus”, my own presentation about “Lean at Large: The Value Stream Map”, and then a brief session with Martin Fowler on a summary from a small gathering he had on DSLs.

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Someone asked me a while back to do a comparative review of Wagamama’s to the one back in Brisbane, so here goes. Wag’s is a bit of an institution over here in London with 23 locations in Central London, many more in Greater London and numerous stores opening overseas. The concept is simple – modernised, fast and efficient Japanese food you eat at benches you may share with other people. Attendants beam your orders wirelessly to the kitchen, scribbling down numbers on some paper placemats and food comes out as soon as it’s cooked, so you may get your main meal before your side dish.

There are subtle differences to the ones over here compared to my memories of the one at The Emporium in Brisbane. I think the dishes on offer do not greatly differ, but I think prices are comparatively more reasonable here in London – I think you’ll pay about the same price for a meal at many other places. Queues here at some of the more central ones are bound to be long if you go anytime after 7. Surprisingly many of them are very close to each other, so if the Covent Garden one is busy (which it usually is), then it’s very close to go the Bloomsbury one.

Living in the UK also gives you access to the member’s site that offers your even more promotions such as a free side or two for one meals at selected branches. Better yet, when a new store opens, you can even win tickets to some of their pre-opening sessions where they give away whole sets of meals all for nothing but your time. My sister’s attended two openings since moving here.

I think the concept of Wagamama’s is great, and the number of times I have been the food quality is always consistently high, though service will always depend on who is serving you.

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