The idea of the Sunshine Soiree is to mingle with other diners in an informal, relaxing environment and sample Asian cuisine. It was a £10 donation - to cover ingredients, decor, and towards start up costs of the Sunshine Tea Lounge business - and BYOB.
We were shown around the secret location (address private messaged to attendees a couple of days before) and presented with a refreshing ginger & lime mocktail. There were little dish name cards spread out on a table but I didn't note them all down so I may be slightly off with descriptions.
There were around 20 guests and we spread ourselves out in different rooms, some people sitting on a sofa or on provided chairs, and some of us standing. This wasn't an official Yelp event but there were quite a few of us Yelpers there.
First dish up was two bowls of lotus root dip and fried crispbreads. This was one of my favourite dishes of the night, the dip had lots of flavour and the breads were delicious. Next was the lotus root crisps with a lotus root dip, this one a bit more creamy in consistency than the previous ones. The crisps were very thin so these were not really as suited for a dipping style, but also tasted great. Following this were green peppers in a garlic and black bean sauce - this was very tasty and I could have eaten a bowl of this to myself easily. We then had a salad of greens and carrot topped with sesame seeds, and some hoisin chicken wings were also brought out.
Next was firecracker rice with either a vegetable curry or a chicken curry. As the plates that had come out were for sharing with a large group of people I was quite hungry by this point and was looking forward to loading up in carbs. The curry was nice, very mild. I did wonder what happened to the dumplings as I'd seen place cards for different varieties of dumpling - and mentions of them on social media for tonight's event, but none ever materialised.
Lastly, there were desserts of orange and cardamom cakes, and sweet potato mochi in a coconut sauce - the latter being suitable also for vegans. Again, these were all shared and self service, so I felt I had to be considerate with watching portion sizes. It was good to be able to chat with chef & host, Susan, at the end of the night about the food and other Chinese dishes. I have opted to give it a 4 as although I enjoyed the event, the Yelp event a few weeks ago - where there were only 8 people - looked a bit better in that everyone had a seat to themselves for the evening, their own portions of food, and more opportunity for chat about the Sunshine Tea Lounge concept - discussing the mood boards, etc. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for future events; unfortunately I can't make Susan's pop-up in two weeks' time but I hope to make another of her events soon! read more