6pm is not too late for a nap is it? I asked that of the wise twitterati and it was with great glee that I was told, no, no 6pm is certainly not too late for a nap.
And lucky that because wow, did I need that nap. My weekend began with a fancy dinner and ended with an indulgent lunch, and in between? There was a lot of gluttony going on and like any good little piggy, I just needed to sleep it off.
On Friday night, I got all dressed up for Panu’s work dinner party. It’s a two yearly event held to you know, let the bosses thank everyone for working their butts off but really, we all just get excited about the free food and booze.
This year the event was held at The Brewery, and after not hurting myself while applying fake eyelashes, I was all ready to party.
shadows: MAC Knight Divine and MAC Carbon
eyelashes: Shu Uemura
We were served a three course meal…
starter: sweet cured ham hock and chicken tian & blini and apple balls;
main: beef wellington with dijon mustard & mushroom wrapped in parma ham;
dessert: rose panna cotta with poached rhubarb & raspberry coulis
… and a seriously unbelievable amount of wine. I mean, how many glasses do you think we need at our table?!
Friday night = win!
Saturday was all about the banoffee pie. The beast deserves its own postcode, or at least its own blog post, so I’ll leave that for another day. But ok fine you twisted my arm. Here’s a sneak peek:
Sunday, The Main Event!
So you all know it’s London Restaurant Festival yada yada because you’ve seen my billions of blog posts about the thing. Yesterday was American Express’ special 10-10-10 event, pairing 10 extraordinary London chefs with 10 of their outer-London counterparts to create special tasting menus for the day.
I was lucky enough to be invited down to Blueprint Cafe to experience a unique tasting menu created by head chef Jeremy Lee, with Michael Smith from The Three Chimneys in the Isle of Sky. Situated along the River Thames, lunch at Blueprint Cafe yesterday could not have been more ideal, with floor to ceiling windows immersing the dining room with light from the perfect blue sky.
The chefs had put together a seven-course tasting menu, and having been seated at 1pm, we did not realise what we were in for, starting with a glass of bubbly…
.. and commencing on an epic meal…
Baked salsify, parmesan chanterelles, girolles and goat’s curd flory ~ say what? The name of this dish read like a foreign language to me. I figured out that salsify was a root vegetable, and that chanterelles were mushrooms, but what we were eating didn’t really matter because these were scrumptious bite sized portions of garlicky goodness!
A native oyster, black pudding ~ I can’t say that I’m a massive fan of black pudding, but given that Michael Smith hails from the Isle of Skye, we figured he’d make some darn good black pudding and (not) surprisingly, the coupling was somehow, some way just perfect.
Mussel & clam broth ~ my favourite course! A hearty mussel and clam broth cooked with celery, leek, onion and herbs. They didn’t skimp on the seafood either
Rump of venison, pickled prunes, damson & sloe ~ a full sized main, which aside from the watercress (eewwww), was delicious, paired with pickled prunes and a sauce of damson and sloe.
Roast potatoes, beetroot, chard & carrot ~ sides! The vegetables were just vegetables but those spuds! CRISPY and then some. I could have had another three serves of that.
Lemon posset, blaeberries ~ “blaeberries” was not in fact a typo of blueberry, but a real fruit! Yes, you learn a new thing every day This little pot of lemon posset with blaeberries was simply… too little.
Hot marmalade pudding, drambuie custard ~ by now we were on the brink of exploding, and I couldn’t down this dessert, mainly because I’m not a fan of orange peel and the pudding was jam packed full of them.
Petit fours ~ fudge. YUM. Orange peel. We know how I feel about those.
Green & Blacks chocolates ~ Green & Blacks are partnering with the London Restaurant Festival and providing chocolates to all participating restaurants, some of whose wrappers include a golden ticket, a fantastical prize for one free meal per month For One Year! Sadly, we didn’t win
So four hours later, we emerged from Blueprint Cafe full, sleepy and immensely satisfied. I rolled home at 6pm last night, totally needing that nap and vowing to never eat again (for the rest of the night anyway) but then Su-yin went and brought me over some fig mochi cupcakes, damn her, which I had to try…
Seriously, gluttony by any other name would feel as sweet.