Gorillas, a lost purse and Korean food....

Well, I had another jam packed weekend, yet again involving lots of eating out! Friday and Saturday's main highlights were friends birthdays at various City and West end venues, and low points were losing my purse (which was made even worse by getting my purse back WITH cards still inside AFTER I cancelled them!). Sunday, the weather was unexpectedly glorious which made my trip to London Zoo all the more enjoyable and I managed to fill 1 1/2 1 gb memory cards with photos (which you can view here). Picking just one photo for my Project 365 was a nightmare and I may still change my mind! After ensuring we'd seen every single gorilla (the main reason for my urge to go there in the first place), monkey, reptile, fish and bug in Regents Park, we headed to Camden Lock for some Pimms and lemonade.

After managing to get through 2 jugs of Pimms and a bottle of Rose between 4 of us, we went to Koba for my favourite... Korean! Koba is tucked away on Rathbone street, behind Oxford Street. The dining room is minimalist in dark wood and low lighting, with huge metal lamps hung low over every table. The staff are friendly and extremely attentive (not to mention very easy on the eye, but then again that may just be my slight Korean obsession I have at the moment!) and the menu is quite extensive and very Korean-virgin-friendly due to the photos of most of the dishes. We started with a range of dishes to share and a couple of mains as well as the Korean BBQ platter. Our starters were Yook Hwai (raw beef with sliced pears and a raw egg), jelly fish and prawns with mustard sauce, Pajun (Korean pancake) and Jabchae (glass noodles with beef). The Yook Hwai was surprisingly nice although the beef seemed to be slightly frozen in places. The jelly fish was delicious if a bit surprising as I wasn't expecting the mustard hit when I ate the first mouthful! For the main dishes we ordered my favourite, Dolsot Bi Bim Bap (raw egg, beef, rice and vegetables served in a hot stone pot with spicy sauce) and the Koba Modeum Gooi (platter of prawns, marinated beef, pork and squid to be cooked on the BBQ at the table). The waiter BBQs the meat and seafood for you at the table so all you have to concentrate on is eating! The meal doesn't sound like a lot of food for 4 people but we were all completely full by the end, which is good as I don't think the bill was cheap! I'd definitely head back there for dinner again though, the food really was very good (and partly because the waiters were so cute... haha).