A couple of customers who wanted to have a New Year’s Eve  party at the cafe from 10p.m, 31.12. 10 till 4a.m 1.1.11 have had to cancel due to reasons. Meantime we   had turned away a few other interested groups prior to this cancellation because of this hire(which is now cancelled). Hence do contact us if you are interested to hire the cafe on that night for your New Year bash. You should ideally have around 100 persons who can attend and we will allow you to take door money to recover your hire charge and other expenses.

Right now the walls of Take 5 are plastered with a load of art work from Sam Miller, Rob and Matthew, local artists that we love to promote so they  have local spaces to display their work and channel their efforts. Do come in anytime for even a quick  view as its free.

This weekend on friday (12/11/10) there is a party on at Take5 which is open to the public too for £4/person, 10-4a.m . I will post more details as I get them.

Tonight at Take 5 we have 2 big important events one after another. At 7p.m we have about 25 persons arriving for a birthday dinner for Lucy. Lucy is a lovely English lady who has become part of our family, and runs the Light House Project for the NHS. I am going to treat them to punjabee samosas for starters, followed by a main meal of curries, tandoori, nan, salad etc which should be both tasty and filling.

Around 10, we will then get busy with our next event which is a charity fundraiser for M.E sufferers. This is organised by Justin, a guy who has been battling with M.E himself. He has a good line up of DJs who have released their own labels and the main genre will be triphop, breakbeat and dubstep. This is more of a club night with a £5 entry towards the Action for M.E charity.

All this will be followed by the 1st weekend in Bristol when most of the 2010/11 batch of uni students have arrived so we should see some curiousnew faces peeping in!, smelling our curries or hearing some good music as they pass by.

And if you are reading this, drop in too!

I posted the following yesterday for the party last night, but I thought some may be interested in what happened. Well it was such a great success for sure. Sam’s mates did not turn him down and all of them came. They are a real nice bunch of people, friendly, loving, and basically no trouble. I started cooking around 6 so the food would be hot and warm by the time they arrived. My dosa breads had to be cooked by hand one by hand and dosa making is one fiddly art even for an experienced chef and I was getting a little nervous that I would be a little late, but by magic, the tandoori chicken, salad, chutney, vegetable curry, tikka sauce all came together at the same time, thanks to Liam helping me energetically in frying up about 30 poppudums to perfection, and everyone else from the bar popping into the kitchen to help me out such as Ana, Rob, and Rob the 4th, not to forget Ani. I really treasure the invaluable support they all give.

Sam’s friends can drink! and not get drunk! haha. They loved the food, and the backyard, and I forgot how many times Sam thanked me. His girlfriend Steph is one really wonderful lady who is so full of joy, love and kindness like an angel. They all loved the food, ambience, and kept the bar busy as well as had their own music plugged in to our system. I am one happy person today thanks to Sam and now, I am looking forward to this weekend’s parties which I will post about later.

The following is the excerpt from yesterday.
”Tonight is going to be exciting! One of our recent customers, Sam is going to be having a private birthday meal here at Take5, bringing about 25 or more family and friends! I call him Sam pineapple to set him apart from the other Sams i know. Pineapple because I gave him a jar of my own home-made pineapple on the house recently and he really loved it with his girlfriend and mates. Sam’s a very special person. He is a real friendly, genuine guy who is very kind to us and is very jovial, someone that can be loved and trusted.

I literally woke up with the birthday dinner in my mind thinking of what I am going to cook them. I want it to be a surprise so hopefully Sam wont read this, but my plan is to marinade lots of big chicken pieces with many spices and gently roast them into an crispy soft reddish authentic tandoori in the evening. I will collect all the drippings to make that into a separate creamy tandoori sauce with coconut and extra thick double cream. This will go well with special ‘rava (semolina, urud and rice) dosa breads I know Sam hasn’t tasted before, and yellow turmeric pilau rice with onion seeds. During the day, my kwok will be simmering away with a fresh batch of fruit chutney I am making today. I will also make a lovely vegetable curry and salad to go with all of this and some pakoras as starters.

Its going to be a busy day and I will have to try avoiding stressing those around me because I can be bossy and bitchy when I have a million things to do so its all perfect by the time our guests arrive. Dinners involve a lot of work such as getting the bar ready with wine, having candles and flowewrs everywhere etc. Its all fun!

I have personal friends such as Ani(lovely girl who is an architectural student at U.W.E) coming to help me too and the newest member of staff called Rob the 4th who graduated with a first in Asian history from SOAS last year, and just got back from Indonesia after completing a 1 year scholarship in Indonesia learning Indonesian.

Sam’s gf, if you are reading this, sssh dont forget to bring along a birthday cake for him! ”

Matthew a second year UWE arts student, and Samuel an arts graduate have teemed up to bring us an exhibition that is currently being displayed at Take5. Samuel has huge paintings based on the use of natural foraged materials put together in an explosion of colour and shapes. His 3 paintings are LOVERS, THE SMILING SWAMI AND A MANGROVE SWAMP. Matthew’s paintings are based on urban imagery focussing on issues such as loneliness, despair, and urban architecture. This exhibition might merge to become a 3some soon! involving the exciting paintings of yet another highly talented art graduate called Rob. I will keep you posted. The exhibition is free, so feel free to drop in anytime.