What da Tao?

ok...so we had roundtable meetings today with the head M&A partners for our Chicago, London, Frankfurt, and Paris offices to discuss how we work together to market the project I am here for to a pan-european basis. So, it was four partners and me. Anyways, after the workday, we went to this cocktail reception for this London legal firm in order to do some networking. After a couple of hours, a few drinks, and finger food, we were still hungry and decided to hit up the closest nice restaurant we could find. We were by St. Paul's Cathedral and found this weird Italian/Chinese fusion restaurant. It was called Tao something...I forget because it wasn't memorable. We looked at the menu and we couldn't find one dish that combined Italian and Chinese food. It was either an Italian dish or a Chinese dish. For instance, I ordered fish soup appetizer and lamb shank on a bed of risotto...while one of the partners ordered lettuce wrapped basil chicken appetizer and penne with spicy sausage. And we all had proper utensils...AND of course chopsticks as well. It was so weird. It just reminded me of my favorite Italian/Filipino/Chinese/American couple and how they should never ever open up a restaurant like this (hint: the guy in the couple is 34 years old and doesn't mind being called ChaChi).

And one other thing. The foreign language speaking skills of many educated Europeans amaze me. The head partner of our frankfurt office grew up in Germany but was actually born in Turkey to a Turkish mother and a Greek father. So, he is fluent in german, turkish, greek, spanish, french, and of course english. While the paris partner ONLY speaks french, portuguese, spanish, and english. The Chicago partner, London partner, and I all just speak english...how sad.