Oxford can feel small sometimes – this was one of those weeks.
Our friends (they’re Chinese and French) got married at the Hackney Town Hall on Thursday. Snaking across London through heavy traffic, we drank in the sights, sounds and technicolour of London’s East End.
We passed by Brick Lane, where I had my first curry. Growing up in a Jewish household with no ties to India (did you know that Jewish communities have been on the subcontinent for centuries?), turmeric, cumin and coriander were not familiar tastes. A world of spice opened up to me here on this street of endless curry houses bookended by legendary Jewish bagel shops. East London was so spectacularly diverse: I felt much more at home here than I did in my own corner of London’s North West.
At the weekend, I headed to Covent Garden for a day and night of feasting and conversations with the Oxford Cultural Collective, which recently launched the Carluccio Changemakers Programme, a new initiative designed to support scholarship winners in the food and hospitality industry.
In 2019 I won the Yan-Kit So Award, OCC’s biennial bursary for food writers on Asia. As a Carluccio Changemaker, I am now part of a growing community of OCC scholars working together to support the next generation of food professionals.
Hospitality can be a lonely old world, especially out here in the sticks Oxford. At a time of deep division, our industry has a natural and important role to play in bringing people together, and I’m so excited to join this new group of food and hospitality experts working towards such a pressing common goal (shame I have just this one photo of the day, especially as the goddess Andi Oliver was in the room).
Back in Oxford and all the talk is about the new congestion charge. At Taste Tibet we understand why our council is so hot on issues relating to traffic and flow, but we’re a small city that somehow feels even tinier now.
Just to reassure visitors from out of town, there will be no need to pay the £5 fee if you want to come and dine at our restaurant. As long as you approach Taste Tibet from the Oxford Ring Road and enter via the Littlemore Roundabout, everything is business as usual.
So come by! Here are our opening hours this week:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm (dinner only)
Saturday: 12-3 / 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3 / 5-9pm
This week’s menu is up on the website – check it. Drop by for dine in, take away or a wide range of freezer food.
If you haven’t been by in for a few weeks we have excellent freezer stocks of some of our recent specials. We’re running a buy on get one half price deal on a wide range of these delicious dishes this week. Subscribe to our weekly Substack to make sure you’re bagging all our weekly offers.
Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!
Julie and Yeshi
Opening hours this week:
Weds – Fri: 5-9.30pm
Saturday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9.30pm
Sunday: 12-3pm 🥢 5-9pm
☏ 01865 499318
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