profiles

Lisa Tse, one of the restaurant's owners, is already a self confessed "Facebook, Myspace and blogger addict", so it’s no surprise that after a client introduced her to tweeting (the process of posting mini messages on the site), she soon became an avid fan.

Lisa soon started investigating a way of using the short messages beyond simply telling her followers (site users get updates about or 'follow' fellow users that interest them) what she was up to – a process that will culminate in her delivering her regular cookery class via tweets.

"I love to twitter about food and about running Sweet Mandarin's restaurant and cookery school, so thought it would be a great experiment to host a cookery class with a Twitter element - in honour of all the wonderful Twitterers I've met online and in person.

"Our philosophy is to teach you how to cook simple, healthy Chinese cuisine. We teach schools, colleges and the public, so why not teach on Twitter - 140 characters at a time?"

So on Saturday 28 February, Lisa will be teaching any online cook that fancies joining in how to cook a dim sum three way (spring rolls, prawn toast and won tons), the 'perfect egg-fried rice', and a crunchy mix stir fry in their own kitchen.

Sweet Mandarin's prawn toast

Of course, such recipes require a fair few ingredients, which will mean Lisa posting the ingredients list on the restaurant’s blog beforehand and, of course, tweeting it too – but that’s the easy part.

What will be more difficult will be actually delivering instructions in such a short form while also trying to show her the people who are attending the cooking school in person – but she’s pretty confident about it, saying that she’ll simply "tweet whilst firing up the wok, so I think it will be ok. Fingers crossed."

The cookery course isn’t the only way the restaurant has embraced the new technology, as they also take bookings through the site and use it to get in touch with clients. Lisa says it’s an obvious tool for such things, as it’s a quick and easy way of connecting with their customers.

"Twitter is a great way to forge links with your local community and make good friends. I can get the message out about our offers and share amazing events with them, like Mother's Day.

"There is nothing quite as exciting as meeting a real life Twitterer after days of twittering."

And that, for Lisa, is the beauty of the site – she might be using it in new and inventive ways, but her joy from it isn’t about business, but simply comes from "the people and the hilarious twitters that go on".

Sweet Mandarin’s Twitter cookery class takes place online at 10am on Saturday 28 February. To join in, go to the Sweet Mandarin page on the site: