Mews of Mayfair

Mews of Mayfair (http://www.mewsofmayfair.com/) is a lovely little restaurant and I have been here quite a few times with my friend Helen on the toptable 50% off deal..so last Tuesday it was time again!

We met up straight from work for an early dinner and some gossip. The food was lovely as usual!

Helen started with the scallops and jerusalem artichoke puree, beautiful presentation, and i started with warm goats cheese with beetroot and toasted hazelnuts.

For main i had an outstanding dish, pan fried cod with cauliflower florets and greens in a butter sauce (don't want to know about the calories in that!) and Helen had lemon sole with capers and beurre noisette.

We were not going to have dessert.. .but hey, 50% off the a la carte price? Who can resist.. not me :-)

Helen decided to go for the tiramisu that has a proven record of being good and i was swayed by the red berry crumble with clotted cream - Yum!

Highly recommend this restaurant - book it on Toptable whilst the deal is on..very much worth it.

Villandry Restaurant

The sun has finally arrived in England and when the sun is out, sandals replace the old winter boots on the feet.. hence why a pedicure is a must!

I therefore booked in a lunch at the Villandry in Great Portland street (http://www.villandry.com/) for myself and my friend Karin on a 50% off the a la carte menu (yes, Toptable again) followed by 2 pedi appointments at Scin (http://www.scin.uk.com/ ) which happens to be a stonethrow away from the Villandry..

The Villandry in Great Portland street has got a restaurant/cafe/bar/shop.. so plenty of different areas for some food but we were booked in the restaurant which was very nice and elegant. We started of with a very tasty ham hock salad with a gribiche dressing which i had never had before and i had to google the dressing to see what it was.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauce_gribiche

It was very nice and tangy and i might try and make it myself at home. We also decided to have a starter portion of the macaroni cheese with bacon.. YUM.. very tasty and probably very very bad for you. Anyway we shared both starters to distribute the calories evenly :0)

I have to admit that i forgot to take photos of the starters this time...i guess we were a bit hungry!

Moving on to mains.. i had the crab and avocado salad with melba toasts which was lovely and fresh. Karin went for the scallops with creamed corn and bacon.. very delicious indeed. We were too full for desserts so we only had coffee before heading to Scin for a very nice French pedicure each. Bring on the summer!

Stoke Place - Easter Sunday Lunch

I've wanted to go to Stoke Place http://www.stokeplace.co.uk/ for a long time and with Easter i finally had a good excuse :-) Together with friends and their children we made our way to Stoke Place for a pre-booked "Easter egg hunt" followed by lunch. We were very lucky and "our" kids were the only kids booked in for the hunt... so we ended up with a LOT of chocolate. The hotel grounds are beautiful with a large lake that you can walk around. The restaurant had a special Easter menu for £35 pp. You had a choice of starters, mains and desserts followed by coffee and petit fours.

I through the food was beautiful and very well presented. I started off with a starter of Mackerell with aubergine puree and a sort of star anise powder that just melted in the mouth. Very interesting! My main was a beautiful sole with a fennel puree and vegetables.. very light and tasty.

The dessert was a vanilla and rhubard creme brulee with a raspberry sorbet.. gorgeous!

I would definately like to go back again in the summer!

Ladies who lunch..

I had 5 girlfriends over for a long lunch on Easter Friday, no boys allowed. We had a great time with lots of champers, food and a couple of facemasks ..as you do!

I had composed an easy menu where i could prepare a lot so we started off with an asparagus soup with a hint of truffle oil and lightly blanched asparagus tips and a swirl of cream. My friend Karin had kindly baked and brought along some of her famous foccacia - still warm from the oven! We followed that with some simple oven roasted salmon and an "easter salad" the salad consisted of mini mozzarella, mango, rocket, tomatoes, fennel, avocado and red onion topped with a honey vinaigrette and pumpkin seads. I also made a little youghurt/creme fraice sauce with lots of chopped herbs.

My dessert was not as successful. i had made it a day in advance and it was a rich chocolate cake with a chocolat ganache on top that was infused with cardamom and cinnamon, decorated with macadamia nuts. It was a little bit too rich and heavy. Oh well, 2 out of 3 is not too bad! ;-)