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Just had a very nice lunch at Pravada, it's a tapas bar, but not exclusively Spanish, many of the dishes were greek in origin.

My friend and I shared a lunchtime 'special', for £7.95 each we had crusty bread, greek salad and dips, (houmous and tzatziki); followed by lamb kebabs and roasted vegetables with melted cheese. They also gave us a complimentary dish of fried potatoes. The service was friendly and efficient, my friend only had an hour for lunch so we were relying on it being fairly quick and it was, our food arrived giving us plenty of time to eat at a leisurely pace.

I hope to go back to Pravada one evening, they do an evening 'special' where for £19.95 each you can order 5 dishes or for £35 you can choose 8. With around 30 different options it might prove hard to narrow it down!

There was nothing particularly wrong with Soustas, it's just not my favourite Greek Cypriot restaurant, I am possibly being a bit harsh in only giving it 3 stars.

Dinner with the girls tonight, 6 of us. We had a meat meze, a selection of many dishes, not all of which were meat but it didn't include any fish, (as opposed to the fish meze, not all of which is fish but which does not include any meat). It was all very nice, especially the butter beans with tomato and garlic. The service was good, the waiters friendly but not pushy.

It was maybe a little dear compared to other restaurants we have eaten in, the bill for 6 of us, for 3 courses (we each had either a licquor coffee, cointreau in my case, or a dessert) plus 4 bottles of wine, came to £175, but, we did have one hell of a lot of food for that.

At the end of the day, it just wasn't Dimitri's Taverna.

Quite the most delicious lunch I have had for a long time, I visited this restaurant fully intending to have sushi, one type of food I haven't yet tried, but..... well I still haven't tried sushi, but the Pork Fillet Teppanyaki was to die for!

Morsels of delicious, tender, pork, cooked on an iron plate and served in a tasty sauce, accompanied by perfectly cooked stir fried vegetables.

My mum had the tuna teppanyaki, and we each thought our dish was the nicest.

The restaurant is beautifully designed, sleek and modern, yet still comfortable. You can sit at a counter and watch your food being prepared in front of you, or at normal tables. It was quiet this lunchtime, but I imagine in the evening there would be a good atmosphere and buzz about the place.

We are both agreed that we want to go back to Yo-ji, and as we went out we noticed they do a buffet every Sunday evening for £19.95 per person, the perfect opportunity to finally try some sushi, without having to miss out on another helping of pork teppanyaki.

Our lunch, a coke and 2 coffees came to £28, a little more than Mum and I would normally pay for lunch when out shopping but worth every penny.

GO. AND. SEE. IT.

Seriously, if you only go to the pictures once this year, make it this film.

I want to go again, Mamma Mia is officially my new favourite film.

Loved it, loved it, loved it.

(The stage show's still better though)

UPDATE: 7th August 2008, it's so good that I went to see it again last night, the first time I've watched a film at the cinema more than once since Grease came out, (I went to that 4 times).

It's my friend Kate's birthday tomorrow so this evening 5 of us went to one of our local pubs for dinner, there was all kinds of food on the menu, I chose cajun spiced red snapper, on a bed of stir fried vegetables, and very nice it was too. There was a good choice of vegetarian dishes for our friend Julie, who gets very fed up with lasagne wherever she goes, tonight she had mushroom stroganoff and said it was very tasty. I hadn't eaten at this pub for several years, but won't leave it so long this time. Our bill for the 5 of us came to £61, that included 3 starters, 5 main courses, 1 dessert and some coffees, plus a round of drinks - bargain!

This is about the 4th or 5th time that I have been to watch the Jazz Dance Company perform. The company is comprised of final year degree course students from the London Studio Centre, they are young, energetic and their shows are always amazing and inspiring, tonight was no exception. They used some fabulous music, from daft punk to the beatles, via some poetry. Around 25 of us went from the stage school I work at, and everybody was absolutely blown away by the dances we saw. I shall be researching some music tomorrow, and I know our 2 teachers are full of ideas for our next show and next year's festival entries. A really great night, definitely 5 star.

http://www.london-studio-centre.co.uk/jazz_dance_company.html

Another great girly night out, this time there were 10 of us and we descended upon Mescaleros, a Mexican restaurant in the centre of town. It was busy, but the service was great, the staff had everything well under control. Most of us chose fajitas, mine were chicken, some people had steak, some a mixture of both; one person had a chicken enchilada, a couple of people had chilli. The chilli came in either mild or hot varieties. The food was delicious, and relatively inexpensive, I paid about £17 for my meal and a couple of big glasses of very pleasant white wine. The atmosphere was good, some mexican music playing fairly quietly in the background, and a nice buzz of chatter. I'd go there again.

This evening I went to my daughter's school to watch a performance of West Side Story. From the moment the orchestra, (hidden behind a backdrop), started to play I forgot that this was a school production, forgot that the cast were all aged between 14 & 18, forgot that there was not a single professional actor on the stage. This was one of the most polished productions of any play that I have ever seen. The classic story, based of course on Romeo and Juliet, was utterly believable and incredibly emotional. It is hard to pick out highlights from such a consistent performance, but the character of Tony singing 'Maria', the Shark girls belting out 'America' and the Jet boys, (which included my daughter's boyfriend), singing 'Gee Officer Krupke' were all particulary enjoyable. For many of the performers their school drama lessons are the only training they've had, with just a few of them having taken private singing or dancing lessons out of school, but you never would've known, their natural talent shining through. The choreographer is actually one of the school's science teachers, the science faculty's gain surely being the West End's loss.

A great evening, truly a treat. The show is being repeated in September, for one night only, at our local theatre, I will most definitely be buying a ticket.

I had high hopes for this restaurant when my friends and I made the booking, and I wasn't disappointed. For many years Dimitri's Taverna, (where he serves traditional greek cypriot dishes), in Weston-super-Mare has been one of my favourite restaurants and I have been wanting to eat at his Bistro since it opened just over a year ago. The decor of the room is simple, but very tasteful and perfectly lit, not so dark that you can't see what you're eating, but not too bright either. The staff were very friendly and attentive, they were very informative about the menu and the wine list, making several suggestions and insisting that we tried 3 different white wines before making our choice, (we went for a Sicilian wine in the end, I forget the grape variety but it was very very nice).

The menu is European, mainly French and Italian, (we were slightly surprised not to see any specifically greek or cypriot food on the menu), and it took us a while to choose from the delights on offfer, eventually I chose one of the 'specials' for my starter, pan seared scallops, they were delicious, perfectly cooked and served with a tasty salad, the portion size was perfect. For my main course I chose pancakes, stuffed with Mediterranean vegetables, with a creamy, herby sauce, it was sublime. I would have happily eaten any of the dishes my friends chose, the shoulder of lamb looked particularly nice.

This is a restaurant that I will definitely visit again. The staff are passionate about food and the business they are in, and it shows.

The bill for 6 of us came to £164; 5 of us had 2 courses, 1 person just had 1 course (fool), we had 2 bottles of white wine, and 1 bottle of red, and 2 people had liquor coffees. We were very happy to add a substantial tip to that.

Last night I went to the Bristol Hippodrome to watch 'Half a Sixpence', starring Gary Wilmot. My friend Sarah had won the tickets and took myself, her mum and her 10 year old son, Lawrence.

The show is based on 'Kipps, the story of a simple soul', written by HG Wells in 1905. Arthur Kipps is an apprentice in a Haberdashers. Before entering his apprenticeship he has given half a sixpence to his childhood sweetheart Ann, keeping the other half himself, telling her that it's a token of their romance. Years later they meet and rekindle that romance; but then Kipps inherits a large sum of money and his life changes direction. He meets Helen Walsingham, falls in love and gets engaged to her. Helen's brother takes it upon himself to act as Kipps' financial adviser, looking after all his money. Ann is broken hearted when she hears of the engagement. Kipps meets Ann again at a ball he attends with his fiance and her family, he falls out with them over their treatment of Ann, calling them bullies. He goes to find Ann and apologises to her. The next scene is their wedding reception. This scene features the most famous song from the show, 'Crash, bang, wallop, what a picture'; this is a really lively number that all the audience knew and we were soon clapping along to the tune. Sometime after the wedding his former fiance, Helen, comes to find Kipps, telling him that her brother has absconded with all his money. Kipps thinks his world has ended but Ann vows to stand by him and tells him that everything will be just fine, she never was happy trying to fit in to his new rich world. Kipps and Ann open a bookshop, and it is a great success. At the end of the show we see them with their 2 children, it's Christmas Eve, a visitor arrives. It is a playwright that Kipps met when he first inherited the money. He gives Kipps a large cheque, royalties from his new play, and reminds him that he bought a quarter share in the production, he tells him that it's a huge success and that Kipps will be rich again. At first Kipps doesn't want to take the money, but in the end he agrees, but tells Ann that they are keeping the shop, he's never going to lose everything again. The finale is a reprise of Crash Bang Wallop.

The original show premiered in the West End in 1963, transferred to Broadway in 1965 and was made into a film in 1967; it was written as a vehicle for Tommy Steele and he starred in both the West End and Broadway shows and also in the film. The version we watched last night is a new production, essentially the same show but far more free flowing in the way the scenery is changed and including 7 new songs, (all the new songs are using the original composer's music, David Heneker).

It was a good show, I enjoyed it. The singing, dancing and acting was faultless, the costuming perfect and the sets were very impressive. However, it wasn't a show that I would particularly want to see again, and it wasn't a show that I would tell my friends 'You've got to go, you must see this'.

I just saw Sarah, she said that Lawrence woke up this morning and his first words were in song... 'half a sixpence, is better than half a penny, is better than half a farthing, is better than none'. I guess he enjoyed it.

Good food, good wine, good company, what more could I ask for?
Just spent a lovely evening with 5 of my bestest friends at this friendly restaurant, the food is Italian, the owners are Spanish and the staff seem to come from all over Europe. It's a well established restaurant and was very busy tonight, with a good mix of customers - families with fairly young children, at least 3 groups like ours of friends out for dinner, large mixed groups celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. There was no music playing, just a wonderful buzz of chatter and laughter. I chose asparagus and parma ham for my starter, and veal with mushrooms, cream and white wine for my main course, both were delicious. We all ate different dishes, everyone enjoyed what they had chosen. The bill, for 2 courses each and 3 litres of wine between us, came to £20 each.

This afternoon I watched Mamma Mia at the Hippodrome Theatre in Bristol.

"Donna, this fiesty single mum, runs a taverna on a Greek island. Her only daughter Sophie is about to get married and Donna's old friends Tanya and Rosie, who she'd sung with during the 1970's in a group called Donna and the Dynamos, have arrived for the celebrations. Sophie wants her father to give her away, but she doesn't know who her father is, and so has invited three ex-loves of Donna's - her three potential dads - to come out for the wedding....."

The show features the music of Abba, and my feet were tapping from beginning to end; in fact by the end the entire audience were on their feet, singing and dancing along with the actors and actresses.

We booked our tickets for this show nearly a year ago, and the wait was well worth it, if I ever get the chance to go again I wouldn't hesitate.

There were 23 people in our party and we had pre-ordered our starters and main courses. Service was prompt and friendly, and the food delicious. We had chosen from a set menu, a choice of 5 starters, 5 main courses, about 10 desserts and then coffee, all for £20.

I had prawns with asparagus, followed by veal escalopes served with spaghetti in a tomato sauce, then the most delicious creme brulee I have ever eaten.

It was a lovely meal and very good value, definitely somewhere I'll go back to