It’s funny how life works. I’d not flown out of City Airport, ever, until two weeks ago. A handful of days later I was sitting opposite the main terminal eating plump dim sum and watching the British Airways aircraft I’d been on days before take-off above Gallions Point Marina, its blue water rippling beneath a cloudy sky.
My second visit is owing to Yi-Ban, a Chinese restaurant tucked away inside a rowing centre in London’s docklands, a strange place... in an odd part of town. It’s somewhere that feels transitory, otherworldly. For me at least — heading this far east in London is a rarity because why would I come here usually? It’s not a ghost town as such, not any more, but it feels a little like being in some barren part of Midwest America where car parks sit illuminated by dim light and places seem solitary. Figures in these environs shift about almost unseen. But dim sum doesn’t try itself.
