Four signs you’re at lunch with travel bloggers.

No matter how grey the sky, no matter how cold the wind or packed the trains, sometimes London does something right. Even as the temperatures plummeted, this past weekend reminded me of why I fell in love with this city in the first place:

London brings people together.

I’ve written about this before, about the times when a group of friends have gathered and all I can do is marvel at how diverse we are, at how we would never have met but for this city. When I joined seven other expats and bloggers for lunch on Saturday, I felt it again—but also smiled at the ways we all embodied the true essence of what exactly it means to be a travel blogger:

1. You were invited to lunch by the restaurant itself.

When Emm of Emm in London blogged about her love for Ping Pong over a year ago, the restaurant was quick to get in touch. They invited her back for a special event, and when she blogged about it a second time, they sent yet another invitation.

This time, she gets to bring friends…

2. Initial conversations are a flurry of “Where are you from originally?” “How long have you been in London?” and “Where are you going next?”

So many travel blogging events sound like the beginning of a joke: “So a Canadian, American and South African walked into a bar…” In this case, though, we walk into Ping Pong, a chain of eleven restaurants across London specializing in those delicious little dumplings called dim sum.

Together, we are four Americans, three Canadians, and Emm—our lone representative from the Southern Hemisphere. There is Mela and her husband from Austin, Melissa and Oneika from Toronto, and my friend Jen of She Went Away, also Canadian.

Like I said, only in London…

3. No one touches their food until it’s been fully photographed from every angle.

As hungry as we might be, when the food is served, we pull our cameras out first—not our chopsticks. We’d each ordered the Ping Pong collection (non-veg) for £9.95. This includes three spring rolls (crispy duck, Vietnamese rice paper prawn, and mixed veg), a wooden basket of steamed dim sum (chive dumpling, anyone?), and one baked roast pork puff. Not a single parcel of yummy goodness isn’t photogenic.

Even the passionfruit and lime jasmine iced tea is gorgeous, both to look at and sip…

4. You can’t help but talk about travel.

It isn’t for a lack of trying—our conversations range everywhere from knitting to online dating, but they always seem to find their way back to what brought us together in the first place:

Travel.

Hungry for dim sum?

Check out:

Ping Pong
48 Newman Street
London W1T 1QQ

tel: 020 7291 3080

A big thank you to Ping Pong for such a lovely meal and excellent service!