Some Yum Dim Sum

In the interests of word economy on this site, I've decided henceforth to refer to Gus the Wonderdog's parents as S&M. After all, this way I'm giving an accurate representation of both their initials - and there's no risk of confusing them with a supermarket.

So S&M are headed into their literal home stretch, getting ready to head back to Australia after an enjoyable four-year stint here. I know I've really enjoyed hearing their stories about it and I will certainly miss them when they go away. We don't have many days left together, so I was really pleased when they invited me out tonight for dinner in Chinatown and a movie in Leicester Square (in the same theatre where the movie premieres are held).

I have eaten in Chinatown a couple of times since I moved here, but I find it such a confusing place that I've never been to the same place twice - cause I can never find the same place twice! Typically dodgy sense of direction.

Tonight the girls took me to Dumplings Legend, a place that they had been to before, and really liked. The place was doing a roaring trade and while we waited for a table, we got to see inside the dumpling-making kitchen. We could clearly see two very practiced chefs fill and mould a huge variety of little flavour pockets, and ready them for the bamboo steamers. It was quite mesmeric actually. In almost no time we had our seats and I took a look at the menu. Crikey - so much choice! Naturally we deferred to M to select our items.

I think tonight was actually my first authentic dim sum meal since 2005, when Reg and I were in Hong Kong and we went to a floating dim sum restaurant called Jumbos. I remember being totally overwhelmed by that place, but I loved it all the same . Like Jumbos, Dumplings Legend was cheap, cheerful and really tasty. M ordered about 8 little plates and at first I thought that might have been a bit ambitious but I tell you, it was the perfect amount. M made some great choices too and the meal was just delicious. I was particularly intrigued by the soup dumplings, where the soup was actually inside the dumpling! S kindly demonstrated the art of eating them and I did my best not to slop anything down the front of any of us - hooray, success!

After my gluttonous experience, I was really relieved when we took our slow walk back to the cinemas in Leicester Square. We called into Stanford's Map Shop en route and I somehow managed to avoid buying anything, though the NY subway map shower curtain was very tempting...

Having very much enjoyed "The King's Speech" when I saw it in Chicago, I was really hoping that S&M would like it too. The Odeon in Leicester Square is one of those cinemas where you have to choose your seats beforehand, and we were fortunate that the three seats we picked were far enough down the back and away from other people that we felt like we had some space to ourselves. I actually found the movie to be more enjoyable the second time around, and I'm totally back on the Colin Firth Admiration Wagon again. After our Dumplings Legend experience, Mr Firth was definitely our 9th tasty dish of the evening!