What Restaurant did you eat at last night?

Been eating out a fair bit recently:

La Poule au Pot
http://www.pouleaupot.co.uk/

Very intimate pretty friendly, extremely french (I know its a french restaurant, but it felt more french than when I've been in the country itself) :p
Had the coq au vin, which was very nice, though getting served took quite some time unless you flagged down the waiters (who were just chatting).


San Marco
http://www.sanmarcos.co.uk/

Very nice, pretty much as good as you can get in Coventry. Would definately go again.

Had:
Soup of the day (tomato)
Fish of the day (sea bass)
Their special Zabaglione

The bass and the soup were good, but the zabaglione was simply amazing. Had to work very hard to slow down my eating so I could savour it.

Will add more at some point
 
The Vintage, Leith

Great food. Had a rump steak cooked perfectly with roast potatoes.

They also do a British charcuterie.

Great beers on offer as well. Had some double strength Joker which was good. Just what you need after a hard week at work. Definitely recommended if your in the area but I would book a table.

I was sitting next to the open kitchen and all the food on the pass looked great.

review
 
Went to Galvin at Windows last Friday for lunch. Fantastic view from the 28th floor of the London Hilton hotel on Park Lane.
We both had the lunch set menu; £45 for 3 courses, carafe of wine, bottle of water & coffee. Started with rillette of pigs head, black pudding and foie gras with sourdough toast which was lovely. Main course was ballotine of lambs belly with olive oil mash, veg and gravy, also very nice. Dessert was baked egg custard, rhubarb compote and chocolate mouse. It was nice but there was a lot more chocolate which overpowered the rhubarb and the custard. The wine (Pinot Noir) was ok at best, as to be expected. Service was polite, friendly and unintrusive. Not the best 1 star restaurant I've been too, but it was nice.
 
On Thursday I ate at a lovely place in Rome called Osteria Barberini.

We both had the parma ham and melon starters (8 euros a pop), and they were presented in a lovely manner and delicious!

For my main, I had the cheese and porcini lasagne with black truffle shavings (12 euro). Stodgy, rich, and utterly indulgent, nom nom nom!

My gf had the giant spaghetti with mussels (10 euro). Everything was perfectly cooked, with the pasta al dente and the mussels juicy and tender.

Dessert saw us both opt for the panna cotta, but I went for the chocolate version and she the fruit (5 euro each). Both were perfect ways to end off the night, light, creamy and incredibly tasty.

All this, plus 2 cokes and a large bottle of water came to 65 euro including the tip.

Given that we got stung for 5 euros per coke and 15 euro for a salad in one of the tourist traps (and had awful service), this shows great value for money, and was the best meal of our holiday.

I will get some pics up when they are online.





 
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Got taken to hakkasan in Mayfair.

As a vegetarian, was pleasantly surprised by the selection.
Recommend the menu, and will definitely take the missus once the anniversary draws near.
 
Beef - Kenilworth

http://www.beef-restaurant.co.uk/

My first experience of a proper steakhouse, and by god it was good.

Easily the best stake I've ever had, well up there with the best meals I've had.
I ordered the 8oz prime sirloin (med-rare), and the gf ordered the 8oz prime ribeye (med). The steaks come with dripping cooked chips, and you get a choice of sauces, but we just had a little pepper on the steak and I had a little vinegar on the chips.

Extremely tender, even the fat was tasty (I normally avoid the fat on steaks, but I couldn't leave anything on the plate here). Very nice wine too (A Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon).

Only let down were the puddings, I had Apple and toffee crumble, and the gf had the creme brulee. Both could have probably done with a little more cooking to crispen/caramelise.

If you're in the area, you should go.

Watching the meat juices get soaked up into a particularly crispy chip... nom nom nom


edit: The GF mentioned a while ago that she fancied going to the Hawksmoor, so we might go there sometime in the next month or two. I'll be able to give a better steak comparison then.
 
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A couple of weeks ago I took some friends/colleagues to Dans le Noir in Farringdon. I didn't tell them exactly where we were going until we were on the tube. One of them almost bottled out. "I can't do this, I'm a visual person" said Carlos.

The premise is that you eat in the pitch black. Something about other senses being improved when sight is taken away but really it's just a novelty experience. It's totally pitch black, it couldn't be any darker. Anything light generating (phones, etc) must be left in a locker before you go in so that you don't spoil the experience.

We had drinks in the light then our blind waiter, Gal, led us single file into the dining room and to our seats. He helped us locate cutlery, explained how we should attempt to pour the wine in the dark, etc.

You choose from 4 menus (meat, veg, seafood and chef's surprise) but you don't actually get to find out exactly what you've eaten until the end. We all opted for the chef's surprise menu which it turned out consisted of camel, crocodile and kangaroo as well as a fairly bland scallop starter and something white chocolate based for dessert.

It's fair to say people are a lot less inhibited in the dark. Dinner conversations were loud and risque and there was a lot of fun with the wine, feeding eachother, etc. A friend of mine who has been before has a story about swapping clothes with a female companion during the meal and about a christmas pudding being launched across the room. We weren't that wild.

The food wasn't worth the price (over £200 for 4 of us) but the experience certainly was and I'd go again with different people.
 
Not quite a restaurant, but it was eating out....
Spent last weekend at the Isle of Wight festival and was surrounded by the usual fast food wagons. I found one called the Texas Smoker which was selling ribs, pulled pork, pulled brisket, and chicken. The sign said it was smoked for 18 hours (they had the bug smoker behind the counter) and it all look rather delicious. I decided that this needed further investigation so went for pulled pork and brisket. It was good, very good. Lovely strong beefy flavour from the brisket, and the pork was nice and tender. The BBQ sauce was ok but not as good as my homemade version. Overall, it wasn't up their with a decent BBQ restaurant but considerably better than the usual burger & chips/fish & chips that you usually get at festivals and fairs.
 
Saturday dinner was BRILLIANT!

http://www.lythehill.co.uk/restaurant.asp

Canapes: Goats cheese tarlet, fried risotto ball, sunblush tomato chutney with garlic breads


Chateaubriand with pickled onion tart, chunky chips, mixed salad and fried mushrooms.


Panna cotta with mulberry gel, berry sorbet and honeycomb pieces


Chocolate cake with a salted caramel layer and tonka bean ice-cream


Amazing atmosphere, great service, and brilliant food, highly recommended!
 
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Went to Chez Bruce yesterday. First time I've been, although I've visited the Glasshouse a few times, whereas the girlfriend and Parents have been before and the folks have been to La Trompette - so we had a decent idea of what to expect.

Normally I'm very happy with rich food, but given it was the night after the girlfriend's 30th birthday, I'd had about 4 hours sleep, was still drunk and my stomach had emptied itself more than once, I decided to go for the most bland stuff I could find. Not the best way to prepare for an afternoon of good nosh...

Started off with some champagne, of which the name has escaped me, but I'm sure the old man can supply the title. A bottle of Rasteau and some white (as above). The drink was excellent to be honest. The champagne picked me right up and I went diving into a starter of Courgette and ricotta fritters with roast butternut squash, pine nut purée, lemon and sage. This was so light and refreshing, possible one of the most pleasant starters I've had in a long time.

The main was roast middle white of pork with seasonal veg. This is only ok, unfortunately, as there were certain part of the meat that were a little tough despite it being cooked very well.

Finally, desert of White chocolate mousse with passion fruit ice cream and pistachio macaroons was awesome. Again, very light but flavourful and elegant.

I'd like to complete the trio with a trip to La Trompette soon, and although I really enjoyed Chez Bruce, I think The Glasshouse is my preferred destination of the three.

As I'm running out of money, and my waistband has certainly increased over the past 12 months sat at home, I think I've only got one nice meal out left in me before 2014. Now to figure out where to go...
 
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Sorry chaps, not seen this thread before (usually more suited to the "now eating" (yes...)) thead but felt I could leave without mentioning that..

This thead is Patrick Bateman.
 
I've eaten at a number of great restaurants over the last couple of months, but the most recent was yesterday at Jason Atherton's Social Eating House, Soho. We started with some cocktails upstairs in the bar, The Blind Pig. A great cocktail menu with some interesting concoctions, worth a visit just for these.

We were there for lunch so went with the set menu, 3 courses for £23 - superb value for money.
Starters: Slow poached hens egg, Coq au Vin, smoked bacon and onion soup
This was fantastic; perfectly cooked egg, lovely Coq au Vin, and the soup was superb.

Main: Stout braised beef Feather blade, chestnut mushrooms, shallots, smoked creamed potatoes
It was a nice piece of beef, falling apart nicely, and the smoked creamed potatoes were lovely too.

Dessert: Burnt butter Treacle Tart, lemon, whipped clotted cream
The tart was very nice. Good pastry, the lemon zest added a subtle sharp citrus hit and the clotted cream rounded it all off.

As I mentioned above, £23 for 3 courses is a bargain. The downside of the meal was that it was lunch time, so full of suits on business lunches. A few were quite loud, and it wasn't until they had left that we were able to really enjoy the restaurant. As a result, service was also a little slow which was disappointing.


Off to Gauthier in Soho in a couple of weeks which I'm really looking forward to.
 
It's roughly 100 pages! Full contents and everything. I'm about to run in to take a training session but I'll put proper posts up when I get a chance with pics etc.
It was really nice. Saying that, for the 2 of us the bill was 415quid, so you know!
 
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