Tampopo and Mines Advisory Group

There are some things you expect when you walk into a restaurant.

A welcoming smiling face, a guide to your seat maybe, a menu, maybe even at an event a glass of fizz.

There are some things you don’t expect.

Like a replica of a Russian anti personnel mine.

Or a replica blast mine from the former Yugoslavia.

Or these evil little bastards – the Italian Valmara anti personnel mine. Once buried, it’s usually activated via trip wire, when a charge launches the pronged section into the air and it detonates, fire shrapnel out at around knee height in 360 degrees with enough force to send the fragments  up 25 metres away. It doesn’t bear thinking about something with that kind of force exploding near a person, whether adult or child.

Despite the glass of fizz in my hand, these were very sobering thoughts.

I was standing in Tampopo – one of my favourite haunts, home of my comfort food and hangover cure, my late(ish) night post drinking regroup. David Fox and his team were launching a new menu, still plenty of old favourites, but some new taste teasers on there too and, more importantly, their collaboration with the Mines Advisory Group.

Mines are nasty. And I really mean that. Landmines and anti tank mines are meant to destroy and kill. Anti personnel are more insidious than that. They’re meant to maim, to incapacitate. And none of them care whether you’re a good guy or a bad guy, adult or child. They’re there to destroy – flesh, bone, lives.

I can see why Tampopo chose MAG as their charity – particularly given their connections to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, all places where MAG is actively working to help educate and support communities and decontaminate land.

In particularly, one of the dishes on the Tampopo menu, the Pho, includes a discretionary 50p per dish that will be donated directly to MAG.

And it’s delicious too. What better way to donate to such a fantastic cause than via your tummy?

The other menu additions we sampled, sliced chicken, summer rolls, and that delicious salad with dried shrimp that I love so much, were fantastic too, not unexpectedly this is Tampopo after all.

I can’t help but think though….

Anybody fancy Pho?

The food and drink at this event were provided by Tampopo in celebration of their collaboration with MAG and to introduce us to their new menu components.