Last month at Halal Gems: November 2016

The week before Band of Burgers opened in Brick Lane, we held an exclusive evening for some foodie friends to try the new menu items before they made it to the menu. The results were intriguing – who knew there was so much enthusiasm for potato skins?! Zeeshan at Band of Burgers made us feel very welcome. Here is what happened every time food arrived at our table:

Shockingly we did eat some food before it got cold. Check out Band of Burgers here and please do review it on our restaurant finder app.
Next up in the life of a startup, coverage in The Times. The journalist I spoke to mentioned that Miqdaad Versi from the MCB was always telling him that not enough Muslims were featured in a positive light, but that when he tried calling Muslims he knew, people didn’t want to speak to him. Thankfully the article was quite positive, and we were only five pages away from Donald Trump. Erm… an achievement maybe?

Startup life is full of incredible highs, and this month’s low point for me was a bit of a headspace issue. Thankfully I have an excellent coach, and she gave me a good two hour session of awesomeness. I spent some time being a mountain in the middle of a soup cafe (no, it was not as weird as it sounds), and this resulted in a new perspective on how to deal with things going forward. A bit vague, but just know that I had issues, had coaching, and got through them. If you’re looking for a brilliant coach, please do get in touch.
Low number two was a bit of a health scare. Our Practice Nurse was concerned about my blood sugar being too high. Thankfully it was an inaccurate test and I’m fine, but my goodness it gave me a bit of a scare. Enough to make me give up eating or drinking anything with added sugar in it. As a result I’ve started hanging out at Redemption a lot, eating healthy food instead of junk, and looking after myself a bit more. If you’re looking for a place to ‘spoil yourself without spoiling yourself’, Redemption is the place to go.
Filming for November was Halal Kitchen, where I was a guest and Chef Omar taught me how to make a green curry. I took much longer than I should have to construct the curry, but learned lots about complex flavour combinations. Here we are post-delicious chicken.

We went to Muslim Vogue, where Nafisa at Amaliah gave us a shout out in her presentation.
Our final foodie event for November was Christmas themed! Redemption had a preview of their Christmas menu, and we went along to try their alternative Christmas dinner. Being on a new health kick, I enjoyed having my tastebuds tickled with great food and brilliant company of Halal Girl About Town and Sheenie Sheikh. Incidentally, they are selling my ideal present: healthy lunch for a week for £30. If you’re getting in to the festive gift giving spirit, I’d like lunch for any of the last 4 weeks available please 😉 THANKS!
On the last day of November we visited Birmingham for the Food and Beverage Innovation Conference. Mostly an industry facing conference, we go there to keep ahead of trends and innovation in the foodie world. We learned about the best way to display prices on a menu, describing vegetarian food and its value, and how to avoid added sugar at restaurants. Look out for this information in our magazine and blog in the coming weeks.
Coming up in December, Winter Wonderland, a documentary TV show, and a roundup of the year.