Last night a small group of Qypers and London foodie bloggers attended a very exclusive sake, shochu and sushi tasting event that was co-hosted by Akashi-Tai brewery and held at Tsuru, a recently-opened Japanese restaurant in Southwark near the Tate Modern.

Learning, eating, and drinking. Three of my all-time favourite things! All being done at the same time! Brilliant! I was happy as clam, so happy I could almost hear the Sound of Music soundtrack streaming in the distance…either that or I was subconsciously humming it to myself… possible, and scary in retrospect.

Round 1:

The evening began the way the best evenings usually do. With cocktails! We were given the choice of Tokiwa Rhubarb Fizz (shochu, rhubarb puree I believe, simple syrup, soda and mint) and Kappa Saketini (shochu, sake, and a cucumber slice). The rhubarb fizz was lovely; light-bodied and rose-coloured, with a slight tanginess reminiscent of summer afternoons… on a front porch …overlooking a garden perhaps. It’s so drinkable that it’s dangerous. That I didn’t get the recipe is part blessing, part curse.

Completely different yet just as intriguing was the cucumber-flavoured saketini. I only sampled the saketini (twice) because I’m not the biggest fan of cucumbers, so although it was tasty and as refreshing as you’d expect a cucumber cocktail to be I stuck with the fruitier rhubarb concoction. Servings of chilli-sprinkled and edamame were brought out and devoured at what was surely a record-breaking pace. Great way to start the night.

Round 2:

We then took our seats to hear from both co-sponsors of the event about the good things that were to come next. A pairing of Carpaccio of Seabass with not one, but two chilled sakes. The seabass was exquisite!

Fresh, delicate, and just the right temperature to truly appreciate the flavour of the fish (call me crazy but it drives me mad when sushi/sashimi is served too cold!).

This was first paired with Akashi-Tai’s Daiginjo, a cold sake with a light-to-medium flowery start and dry finish. My untrained palette did not pick up on the lemony flavours described by our host Wakana, but once we moved onto the second sake the difference in body and flavour helped to distinguish the first all the more. We were then treated to the award-winning Junmai Daiginjo. This variety’s more pronounced citrus undertones and smoother finish made it a clear favourite of the group. Apparently this second variety is less familiar to the Japanese palette but has been doing very well in exports to the European and North American markets.

Round 3:

Our hosts at Tsuru then served Nasu Dengaku, broiled Japanese eggplant with a sweet miso paste on top, simple and delicious, and well paired with warm Akashi-Tai Honjozo. I realized, however, that I preferred cold sake so I opted for more Junmai Daiginjo.

Round 4:

Genmai aged sake served with free-range chicken yakitori skewers. Akashi-Tai experimented with using brown rice rather than polished white rice for this sake, and when it was originally produced, it was no winner. But that was back in 2002. Fast-forward to 2008 and the years of aging have turned it into something truly innovative and pleasing. The warm honey coloured sake has lingering hints of caramel and cocoa and should be considered comfort food in my book. I can easily imagine pairing it with dessert as an alternative. (Apologies in advance if that breaks any rules of sake drinking!)

Round 5:

Just when I thought we were nearing the end of the tasting we were presented with large sushi platters of hamachi, tuna, shrimp and other assorted pieces.

Our last sake experience of the night with this course was the Honjozo Genshu, a distinctly creamier sake that had a sort of oakiness in aroma and taste that I found to be a perfect finale to the evening.

I had not been exposed to sake on many occasions before last night but thanks to the informative host from Akashi-Tai I’m well on my way to becoming an aficionado. I predict a Qype sake group in the making very soon! Thanks to Sally Bishop for organizing this enjoyable evening, and rolling up her sleeves and making those cocktails too!

If you’re planning to pay Tsuru a visit a great time to go is during their monthly presentations of touring Japanese artists that aim to expose the rich sounds and culture of Japan to the U.K. The next event is coming up on the 25th of June, when DJ Paul Fisher will be on location presenting an eclectic selection of Japan’s “sonic specialties.” The event will also be sponsored by boutique sake brewery, Akashi-Tai, which will offer free sake cocktails from 6.30pm onwards.

On July 6 the London Transport Museum will be hosting a photographic scavenger hunt as part of the London Festival of Architecture 2008…and Qype will be providing the prizes!

The hunt will involve some of those fantastic design features that get overlooked as we rush from one place to another during our daily commute, with teams of photographers rushing around the capital attempting to solve cryptic clues and snap the right things before racing back to Covent Garden to claim their rewards.

There’s still places left but they’re going quick, so if you want get involved sign up via the museum’s Flickr group, and we’ll see on July 6!

If you’ve ever taken a peek inside our toolbox then you’ll know that we have a nifty little gizmo called Blog This that allows any Qype user to send their reviews directly to a blog, a Twitter stream, or a Tumblr account (or even all three at once).

Up until this week, however, if you had a Blogger.com account then certain technical gremlins meant that you couldn’t send your reviews directly to your blog. Thankfully though our crack team of tech monkeys have solved the problem, so if you have a Blogger account you can now happily broadcast your Qype reviews cross the blogosphere just be adding a few bits of information here.

As usual, let us know if you come across any problems; and if you have other suggestions for any tools, gizmos and fancy stuff we could be providing you with, then you know where to find us.

Just the other week we announced the launch of iQype, the iPhone application which combines our lovely database of cracking reviews with the equally lovely touchscreen awesomeness of Apple’s latest gadgets.

Well it seems it’s not just us who were impressed with iQype’s usefulness, because today we found out that Apple themselves have made us their Staff Pick over on Apple.com, and (even better) the iQype app is already the most popular application in the Travel category!

So, to say thanks to Apple for bringing the love and to all you lovely Qypers who’re using the application on their iPhones and iPod Touches, here’s a little tribute to Apple we created:

Untitled from Qype UK on Vimeo.

We said we’d try and do one every month, and after April’s fantastic knees-up the pressure is on to do it all again.

So this time we’ve booked ourselves a cool little space above the Theodore Bullfrog pub, right next to Charing Cross station that will hopefully be pretty handy for everyone to get to and from. Festivities begin at 7pm and just like last time there’ll be a few free drinks available and a bit of grub to graze on too.

(And, no, we have no idea where the pub’s name comes from, answers on a postcard please.)

We know we’re being very London-centric right now, and we can only offer our apologies to everyone outside the M25. Sufice to say, we are coming your way very soon, and if you know of (or run!) a fantastic venue somewhere that you’d be happy for us to invite a bunch of discerning reviewer types along to then do get in touch.

See you all on the 29th!

We admit it, we’re all in love with the iPhone here in the Qype office.

Its shininess, its touchscreeniness, and its general cleverness has completely won us over. So it’s no surprise that we’d want to build a special iPhone-friendly version of everyone’s favourite review site that takes full advantage of all that shiny touchscreeny cleverness.

So may we present to you iQype, a completely browsable, searchable version of Qype built specifically for the iPhone.

Browse by city then category to find the top rated places in any given area, or find reviews for a specific business by doing a quick search.

Everything’s there: star ratings, full reviews, user profiles… and it’s all built around the native iPhone user interface so there’s no fiddly zooming and scrolling.

Next time you’re on the move have a play around with iQype and then let us know what you think. We’re always working on introducing better, cleverer ways of making Qype more accessible and useful, so any ideas you have are very welcome.

Thank you to everyone who came to the first ever Qype UK party last night at the Coach and Horses in Soho. Judging by the decidedly hungover emails we’ve had today it seems that everyone had a great time.

We personally enjoyed the appearance of the world’s largest Chupa Chup (above), the mini fish and chips, and the fact that Tube blogger Annie Mole fell asleep on the way home and ended up in Hounslow.

We should say a huge thank you to Coach and Horses landlord Alistair and the best barmaids in the whole of London: Jo and Denise.

All the photos from last night can be found on this page and don’t forget to review the Coach and Horses in the next week to stand a chance of winning £50 behind the bar plus a meal for four.

See you all at the next party!

The brilliant Sabrina (aka CaribQueen) is going to be leaving the Qype ranks to return the the USA very soon which means we’ll be a (wo)man down.

To fill the Sabrina-shaped hole in the Qype ranks we’re looking for an awesome administrative Ninja to work three days a week. Someone who can help look after our growing community of Qypers, get our lovely goody boxes sent out on time, keep all our spreadsheets in order, and just generally make sure things run smoothly here at Qype HQ.

The kind of person we’re looking for is going to have a lot of passion for all things online; will want to learn what it’s like working for a growing startup company; will be an enthusiastic and quick learner who isn’t afraid to ask questions and get stuck in; and should NOT (repeat: NOT) have a phobia of Ninjas.

If this sounds like you and you want some more details (like how much we pay) then you can do that either by email (Rob@Qype.com) or by phone: +44 (0) 20 7478 8996.

Are users of some social networks fed up of being ‘bitten’, ‘poked’ and having sheep thrown at them? That’s the question put forward by the Beeb’s tech programme BBC Click this week.

According to the programme a new breed of social networks are closing in on the likes of Facebook and MySpace, offering something more than “just a glorified friend finder”.

The BBC very nicely chose to include Qype in their group of ’socially useful sites’ and yours truly even makes a brief appearance in the programme to explain a little bit about how Qype works.

The feature looks at the rise of practical, people-powered sites as well as asking the usual questions about the possible abuse of user-generated content (owners hyping up their businesses for example), and the future of data portability across different networks.

You can watch the whole programme on this page (or just read the text version if you prefer). The story also made the front age of Digg so there’s a conversation going on on that site too.

As always, let us know what you think in the comments.

Next month Qype.co.uk is breaking out of the interweb and invading the real world.

To say thanks to our dedicated band of UK Qypers we’re inviting you all to one of our favourite London boozers for the night.

There’ll be free drinks, some awesome prizes, dancing until dawn (or at least closing time), and the opportunity to amass enough blackmail material on the Qype team to last the rest of their natural born lives!

And if you’re good we may even let you near the buffet.

THE VENUE: The brilliant Coach and Horses pub just off Charing Cross Road (click the link for all the details).

THE DATE: Thursday April 3.

THE TIME: 7pm until late.

Looking forward to seeing you all there!