Originally, I was planning to blame Monica Hinojosa's marvellous wine for the delay in writing this, but it's been too long now to make that plausible. The truth is, I've been rather busy since Simone's wonderful Kitchen Dinner, in part thanks to the marvellous connections I made that night.

Alongside a smattering of blokes - including me, Andrew Nutter from Balderton and the enigmatic Martin Bloom - the Kitchen Dinner was populated by a mixture of accomplished women at various stages with their businesses.

Legendary workaholic Karen Barber from Bestbefore TV was a familiar face from the tech circuit, and she was on good form, modestly announcing AudioBoo as "something we make that's doing alright at the moment".

But apart from Karen and Andrew, pretty much everyone was new to me. Which was brilliant. I met Anna Sofat, whose investment fund for women, Addidi, is a brilliant way for women to dip their toe into investment without needing extensive experience and without exposing themselves to a huge amount of financial risk.

Sarah McVittie from 82ask titillated me with nuggets of gossip about a certain beleaguered speech-to-text company. Miriam Lahage, whose company, Koodos, I've been a fan of for some time, was fascinating company. And I very much enjoyed the after-dinner conversation with Geke Van Dijk, during which (if I recall correctly) we discussed the merits of Westminster City Council versus the other boroughs in relation to green bike racks affixed to lamp-posts. But that was late in the evening, and the dinner shouldn't be judged by the inevitable tipsy gibberish at the end.

So what did we talk about? Well, to give you a flavour, here are some of the questions that were flying around the table. Some of the discussion points were focussed on the challenges women face in business, but most of them would not have been out of place at any networking dinner:

• Should women-only Angel groups only invest in women-led businesses?
• What would be the best way to recruit 100 women into a private equity club where each needs to commit £20k?
• What should you do if you feel your business partner is not pulling his or her weight?
• My management style is described as "Alan Sugar"-esque (ie, I tend to fire people readily when there are problems). Is that the best way to do things?
• Which processes and procedures from large corporations should be replicated in a start-up environment?
• How do you choose from so many new ventures to engage with? What are your criteria?
• Do you build for growth, or to show a clear path to profitability?
• Any hot tips, or otherwise non-obvious advice, for a company currently seeking funding?
• Which social media tools do you use the most and what benefits do you get from them?
• At what point should you register an offshore company?
• How do you get more people to participate in forums?
• How can we find new ways to keep recruiting participants to research sessions?
• How should we promote and encourage more female entrepreneurs?

If you've ever been to one of Simone's dinners before, you'll know that the attention to detail is marvellous. (The little pile of gold glitter next to the wine glasses was particularly inspired - though most of it apparently ended up on my face, prompting weird looks from the conductor on the train home. Thanks Simone.)

But what was particularly fascinating about this dinner was - if you'll forgive the cliche - both the interesting mix and the high calibre of attendees. I know people always say that about networking events, but in this case it really is true. Although there was a clear bias toward digital, my dining companions were a healthy cocktail of entrepreneurs, investors and gurus. Brilliant material for a discussion that could have gone on long into the night.

I can't wait for the next Kitchen Dinner on November 18 - assuming Simone forgives me for taking so long to write up this one.