Dinner - Heston Blumenthal 18th of June 2013

I have now been married for 2 years - time flies! My lovely husband surprised me with a dinner reservation at Dinner - Heston Blumenthal at Mandarin Oriental in London! Yay!
We arrived bang on time for our booking at 7:45pm so did not have time for a drink in the bar - which by the way looked so cosy and nice.

We were seated close to the windows looking out over Hyde park. The restaurant was pretty busy with a mix of people: families, business men, hotel guests, foodies and the odd celeb (well, my husband spotted a german footballer..)

Service was very friendly and not overly formal (which can be the case in some restaurants) but then again, the dresscode for Dinner is "Comfortable" so it is a bit more laid back then some other establishments.

So, we started with a glass of rose champagne - mind boggling price of £21 per glass.. oh well, you only have a wedding anniversary once a year so why not.

I then had a new dish on the menu which was a "Cold cucumber soup with a lobster salad" it was gorgeous. The lobster salad is on the plate when served and the cold cucumber soup is then poured on the plate at the table. The soup tasted of more cucumber than an actual cucumber - if that makes sense?

For my main i had the "Powdered Duck Breast" with smoked confit fennel and umbles.. the most tender duck i have had i think.. so you might wonder what umbles are? Well, not for the faint hearted.. it is kidneys and heart etc of the animal so in this case - the duck's.
I am not a huge fan of offal but since this was Heston's food i did eat them and you know what - tasted fine :-)

Dessert - well, i was drawn to the "Quaking Pudding" which was described like this "pear, perry, caramel & lime" and it was very nice. A bit like a very light pannacotta with lots of cinnamon and the most amazing poached pears i have ever eaten in a broth (very light) that tasted of caramel and pear.

My husbands dessert was too pretty (and very tasty too) - it was a "Strawberry tarte" with a strawberry sorbet. Just take a look at this!

We really enjoyed our dinner @ Dinner.. and guess what? i am going back again on Monday with work.. so more dishes to be reviewed very soon!

Little Social - 6th of June 2013

Looks like i can't stay away from Jason Atherton's restaurants :-) This time i had a dinner date with my friend Iolanda at "Little Social" which is the little sister to "Pollen Street Social" which is across the road.
Little Social is a cosy, intimate and quite dark restaurant and i really liked the ambiance. It is not cheap but the food was very good and i would go back again.
My one complaint was that the music was pretty loud and later in the evening when the restaurant filled up it got pretty noisy with people talking and the music..so not that great if you are there to have a good old catch up!

So, what about the food? Well, like i said, pretty good! I started with "Crab, tomato and radish salad, miso tomato dressing, marinated beetroot"

The dish was very pretty to look at and tasted light and fresh.

My main was "Lamb shank with spring vegetables". You can't really make a lamb shank look pretty and delicate but here it was off the bone and on top of a medley of vegetables and a lamb jus poured over. The meat was rich, sticky and full of flavour.

I was very naughty with my dessert and went for an ultra decadent and rich chocolate pud! "Hot chocolate moelleux, sea salt and almond ice-cream"
Warm and gooey chocolate with the cold ice cream... very naughty but nice. Iolanda had a really good dessert too. "Brown sugar tart, crème fraiche sorbet, black sesame crumble" I really liked the sesame crumble - so clever!

 

Lovely food in cosy surroundings - just a shame about the noise level.. but that is me being picky! :-)

 

Pollen Street Social - 1st of June 2013

I have been to Pollen Street Social before with my hubby for dinner - this time it was for lunch with my girlfriends.

They have a really well priced set lunch menu - 2 courses for £26 or 3 courses for £29.50 with a choice of 3 options for each course. You also get some included extras: little nibbles to start (green olives, cod brandade, pork scratchings and apple sauce), bread, pre dessert and petit fours.

Pollen Street Social Lunch menu

We were seated close to the bar area which was quite busy and good for some good old fashioned people watching!

I started off with the "Grilled mackerel, "Waldorf salad", peanut powder, English radish"

It was nice but i felt that the description was slightly mis leading since the mackerel was more soused than grilled - i also did not taste the peanut powder.
Saying that - it was a light and tasty starter.

Starter

My main was the "Roasted Atlantic Cod, Catalan paella, Asparagus, Pepper and chorizo puree"

The paella was the star of the show here.. it was served in a side dish so you added it to your plate yourself. It was amazing, rich in flavour and with lots of prawns and perfectly spiced - i could have eaten more! The Cod was perfectly cooked and i really enjoyed the dish.

 

 

Desserts were the star(s) of the show though.. 2 of us went for the Tiramisu and 2 of us for the Eton Mess. I loved the Tiramisu which was almost like a vanilla pannacotta, with chocolate ice cream, chewy cookie crumbs, chocolate chards and a side of thick hot chocolate served in an espresso cup with a hint of coffee. Lovely. The Eton Mess looked absolutely spectacular and it was apparently very good too!

We then had some mint tea and got some petit fours and macarons. The petit fours were interesting -Milk chocolates with a balsamic caramel, yoghurt coated freeze dried raspberries, dark chocolate with a raspberry mousse inside. The macarons nobody really liked - they were too sugary and the filling was just pure buttercream with not much flavour.. they were supposedly, chocolate, green tea and .. hmm.. can't remember!!!

We did however also get some "hot from the oven" Raspberry Financiers.. they were amazing.. and eaten before a photo could be taken!

It was 4 of us for lunch - 3 courses each and with one bottle of wine between us (how sensible!), 2 bottles of water, 3 mint teas, service charge etc it came to £50 per person which i think is pretty good value.