We've just been to Prague again, me for my fourth time and still loving the place.

Blog entry: Prague holiday where beer is cheaper that a soft drink

The first rule of Txoko Club is not to talk about Txoko Club. That doesn’t really help does it, to spread the word on the fun we had that night.

What is a Txoko?

It comes from a Basque (Northern Spain) region event which is a gathering of people that come together to socialise and to cook together. Traditionally it is male only, hence the reason why you see women with stick on moustaches so they can go under cover.

The Larder House has held a few of these already but this was the first one I was able to make time for, and the fact it was a seafood one sealed the deal in reality.

I've been meaning to write something up about Mr Lee's Noodles for a while and I’ve been putting it off for so long that they’ve only gone and updated all their branding and flavours! So, this blog is about their first release as I haven’t tried their new stuff yet.

Yes, Mr Lee is a real person, Damian Lee to be precise and he and the company are based here in Bournemouth. A business entrepreneur who has started many companies, whose story leads him to Bournemouth. I saw Damian tell his personal story at a local marketing event, Once Upon a Time, at the Shelley Theatre in the summer of 2016.

I've grown up with rice and noodles from birth. Noodles has been a staple part of my diet, when I say diet I mean general eating rather than healthy mindful eating. The noodles I have been used to are the packet ones with a bag of soup base powder full of flavourings and not necessarily MSG either, and a sachet of oil to boot. The Chinese noodle pots are pretty similar as well. My student years were all about instant noodles and a fried egg on top.

I've seen the business appear all over social media (Twitter and Instagram) and I like the way roll. Spring roll? Looks fun. Ho fun? Asian culinary based banter, it's a thing now.

These pots are in the low calorie range and being marketed as healthy, with no nasties. So, how will they stack up on the flavour and filling tests? At first I was a bit apprehensive about writing anything as I’ve seen the people behind it, their messaging and so on but I didn’t want any bias coming across and what if I didn’t like it. What if I prefer the mass produced deep fried instant noodle variant? Some of the other blogs I have seen were a bit too fawning and cheesy let’s say, and Korean Cheesy Noodles is also a thing.

You know what, I’ve just got to put it out their and as they say, your mileage may vary - but that’s OK.

Wednesday 14 June 2017 – I had booked early to go to this event in the refurbished old Print Room that is part of the Echo Building in Bournemouth and seeing as it was the founder of the fashion brand Ted Baker, I was really looking forward to it. I am a bit of a tart when it comes to buying Ted Baker shirts in the sales. I still have unopened packets upon packets much to the annoyance of my other half.

His face is mostly blanked out in his photos, so I've done the same.

On the Ted Baker Instagram account I kept on seeing views from a hotel room overlooking Bournemouth and I didn’t quite get the connection. The room was filled with Ted Baker home furnishings but why from the Hilton in Bournemouth. Turns out the interior was designed by Ray Kelvin, the found of Ted Baker, who is also a majority shareholder of the company that built the hotel.

Following on from that, we found from the evening’s talk that the same company is also being the refurbished building that we were sate in – THIS Workspace. Ray Kelvin has indeed invested time and money into the area that he used to visit as a child.

In a nutshell, he truly is a London geezer rags to riches kind of guy. He ain’t no Karl Lagerfeld, nor would he remotely want to be one and hence the charm of the man all night. A straight-talking grafter who knows his craft, but also knows his figures meaning he runs a tight operation that is not over stretched with the corporate vanity of too wide a range of shops.