A Midsummer night's dream

Midsummer House in Cambridge has been on my list of must visit places for ages and because D and MC are wonderful they took me there for my birthday. It was supposed to be a complete surprise but MC dropped a huge hint so I rather sussed it out beforehand but it was still a fabulous treat and an extremely fine meal. However because my life got somewhat complicated around then I seem to have lost my way in blogging, which I keep promising that one day I will address. Inspired by watching Daniel Clifford not completely excel in the latest Great British Menu I thought I should really start trying to fill some of the gaps in my life from the last few months and a bit of smoke and mirrors from the Cambridge magician seemed the perfect place to start.
After all this time some of the details may be hazy but luckily I have a stack of photos, some fortuitously scribbled notes in my little black book and D’s remarkable memory to fall back on.
So here we are in our finery strolling over the little bridge making our way to the smart little conservatory that adjoins the Midsummer House villa. As we walk over we can see a group on the roof terrace all decked out in their tuxes and we do wonder for a moment if we checked the dress code, but we needn’t have worried on two counts – they’ve got a private room for their little shindig so it’s not mandatory and frankly we don’t look too shabby ourselves anyway!
After perusing the choices on offer we immediately opt for the tasting menu as we’re keen to see Daniel showcase his inimitable talents.
Our first table adornment is a little copper pan of warm cheese scones and some curvaceous bowls of balsamic crisps. Hmmm just-from-the-oven cheese scones, like the warm cheese rolls at Gaucho’s but with two Michelin stars!
Next we have a palate cleanser of Champagne and grapefruit foam in a fancy pink Murano glass dish. This isn’t what I expected with all the swathes of crisp white linen and single black lilies but a lovely surprise!
But clearly I was to be surprised more as the first course of our tasting menu was delivered – on the menu as Cep, Pumpkin and Parmesan this was a delicious Pumpkin velouté with submerged mushrooms and gnocchi. I do so love this tendency for velvety soup tasters, I do adore soup but it is rare that I want to devour an entire bowl. Well certainly as an individual course in a meal anyway, I reserve my soup consuming to a winter warming lunch where I am not saving myself for the delights ahead.
After the Venetian glassware is scraped clean the square plates come out topped with the very elegant Langoustine and King Crab. This is crowned with a little tangle of taste of the sea angel hair pasta; it is a stylish and scrummy seafood starter and is really demonstrating Daniel’s skill.
Next we enjoy the sculptural Duck, Jerusalem Artichoke and Salsify. Ever since I was introduced to salsify by Jeremy Lee I am always pleased to see it on a menu. Our duck is impaled by a wooden skewer so after a little disinterring we get to sample our nugget of duck and smoked duck sliced. Rather duck-tastic I may add!
The glass is back, this time in the form of an etched plate and adorned by an immaculate Sautéed Scallop, Celeriac and Truffle. This plump and beautifully caramelised scallop is topped with matchsticks of apple and has the obligatory and oh so lovely smear of the smoothest of celeriac purées, delicate cubes of fragrant apple jelly and a drizzle of toffee.
To mix things up a bit we have another soup, but in total contrast it is Chicken Consommé, Sweet Corn Snow, Won Ton. I’m not normally a huge fan of Asian broths but this was a subtle little Eastern twist to our feast.
For the fish course we tuck into a meaty tranche of Roast Zander, Red Wine and Nettles. The moist chunks of the whitest flakes of this tasty fish has little sautéed cubes of potato and artful drizzles of a tasty wine sauce to be mopped up with the thankfully non-stinging nettles.
Next our gastronomic tour of Daniel’s mind produces a shot or as the menu explains a Pousse Café. A Pousse Café is a colourfully striped drink normally consumed post coffee as a digestif. This unusual offering has layers of Jack Daniels, maple syrup and egg yolk and chive cream. It is intriguing, thought provoking and rather wonderful.
We are still discussing our first taste of a Pousse Café when a eye catching gold plate is placed before us with a sunshine splash of orange and deep burgundy hues of the Bourbon smoked Pigeon, Iceberg Lettuce, Sweet Potato. The sauce is so rich an unctuous and despite feeling a tad full it is soon polished off.
Our dread that we may exceed our capacity has not dampened our enthusiasm for a couple of shared ceramic dishes of the Artisanal Cheese though we do struggle to finish all the morsels and the sliver of quince jelly we selected.
We are fearing some sort of inability to proceed further but fortunately reading our minds the next course of Vanilla Rhubarb and Apple is the perfect anecdote as it is the lightest snowball sprinkled with a scatter of biscuity crumbs.
We think there is nothing more to astound us but we have underestimated Daniel’s culinary theatre and with no fanfare a trio of perforated dishes are bought to the table entirely shrouded in tendrils of smoke.
As the smoke subsides we can examine our Mango, Passion Fruit and Peppermint Tea Jelly we is refreshing and just the most perfect finale to an extremely special menu.
We linger longer and enjoy our selection from the tea menu accompanied by the flakiest and crunchy sugar dusted Bottereaux which are like the lightest of doughnuts but so much nicer. And of course there are home made chocolates as well, as well as a delicious glass of some honeyed dessert wine.
We leave this delightful cosy little conservatory on the banks of the Cam having enjoyed one of the finest of tasting menus. All the many plaudits gained by Daniel Clifford are definitely deserved; this is a gem of a restaurant, elegantly appointed serving the most fabulous food with fascinating table ware, witty touches and, as we now know, Daniel’s signature smoke! And all in all a truly a magnificent end to my birthday celebrations this week, thank you D and MC and may I add to all the accolades my three very much merited forks.

And on a school night...!

Tonight I am on a flying visit to Cambridge, I have been lured over with the promise of oh joy of joys, a kitchen gadget party and arriving in D’s vibrant kitchen some enticing lemony, garlicky, chicken-y aromas are making me doubly delighted to be here. D has consulted the rather classic May delicious for inspiration, which has already helped me out this month, and from the article entitled spring chicken (which unsurprisingly, is chock-full of ‘chook’ delights) has picked the winner for this evening - Garlic roast chicken on potatoes with rosemary and pancetta.

Tying on her chicken garnished apron she has simmered the sliced potatoes, anointed the chicken in a garlic and lemon paste, doused it all with white wine and whipped up this admirable feast.

How this got past the chicken-hating fat and carb dodging GT is a mystery but I am so glad it did, it was a fabulous treatment for a frankly enormous beast - MC was buying for a village perhaps and selected a chicken crossed with an elephant!

And all this on a school night, D with your plump glistening bronzed bird you are spoiling us. And for another shocker, GT asked if he could have more chicken skin! A convert perhaps?

Update: I must make a public apology for daring to insinuate that G-my body is my temple-T would have indulged in the murky world of chicken skin. Whilst turning my plate to its good side for its photograph I hadn’t paid enough attention to the fact that his portion had already been denuded of the offending crispy and ever so fatty chicken jacket before deigning to appear in front of him. How could I have such cast such a slanderous aspersion that he may have joined the dark side, I feel suitably chastised!

The return of the Moo!

D and I are planning Sunday lunch today, LLcT (now renamed GT) is on some carb-free, steamed fish and salad only regime. Entirely self-inflicted I must add, I’m not even sure that a size 0 model has a smaller BMI than GT, but each to their own! So we ask GT what would tickle his fancy today and he requested Beef Wellington! We did have to check that he understood the concept of the Wellington part and how puff pastry wasn’t normally considered to be carb free but he was happy that we proceeded. Methinks that a certain orange-y one has had a little too much steamed fish!

We decide to base our meat monster on Gordon Ramsay’s version from Sunday Dinners, enveloping the plump beef fillet and mushroom duxelle with Parma ham before the pastry jacket. Though I had to make a small adjustment, the skinnier end of the fillet was spread with finely sliced and sautéed leeks as E(D) doesn’t do mushrooms. And also she likes her beef a lot more cooked than the rest of us so the thinner end should just be perfect!

Beef Wellington
Gordon Ramsay and from the F Word – serves 2

400g Beef fillet
400g Flat mushrooms
4 slices Parma ham
English mustard for brushing meat
200g puff pastry
2 Egg yolks

Approx 8 Charlotte/New potatoes
1 Clove garlic, crushed
1 Sprig thyme
2 large baby gem lettuce
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
Mustard vinaigrette, optional

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200c.
2. Heat some oil in a large pan and quickly fry the seasoned beef all over until it's brown. Remove and allow to cool. The point of this is simply to sear the beef and seal all those juices in, you don't want to cook the meat at this stage. Allow to cool and brush generously with the mustard.
3. Roughly chop the mushrooms and blend in a food processor to form a puree. Scrape the mixture into a hot, dry pan and allow the water to evaporate. When sufficiently dry (the mixture should be sticking together easily), set aside and cool.
4. Roll out a generous length of cling film, lay out the four slices of Parma ham, each one slightly overlapping the last. With a pallet knife spread the mushroom mixture evenly over the ham.
5. Place the beef fillet in the middle and keeping a tight hold of the cling film from the outside edge, neatly roll the Parma ham and mushrooms over the beef into a tight barrel shape. Twist the ends to secure the clingfilm. Refrigerate for 10 -15 minutes, this allows the Wellington to set and helps keep the shape.
6. Roll out the pastry quite thinly to a size which will cover your beef. Unwrap the meat from the cling film.
7. Egg wash the edge of the pastry and place the beef in the middle. Roll up the pastry, cut any excess off the ends and fold neatly to the 'underside'. Turnover and egg wash over the top.
8. Chill again to let the pastry cool, approximately 5 minutes. Egg wash again before baking at 200c for 35 - 40 minutes. Rest 8 -10 minutes before slicing.
9. Par boil the potatoes in salted water. Quarter them and leave the skin on. Sauté in olive oil and butter with the garlic and thyme, until browned and cooked through. Season. Remove the thyme and garlic before serving.
10. Separate the outside leaves of the baby gem (leaving the smaller inner ones for salads) and very quickly sauté them in a pan of olive oil with a little salt and pepper - just enough to wilt them.
11. Serve hearty slices of the Wellington alongside the sautéed potatoes and wilted baby gems. A classic mustard vinaigrette makes a great dressing.
    

As ever I tweaked the recipe a little, for example I don’t want to assemble, disassemble and wash a food processor to make the mushroom puree so I cut the mushroom much finer instead. Gordon’s recipe demands various stages of chilling, resting and anointing, but as long as you’ve left yourself enough time this seemed a very good idea so all the necessary resting and chilling was adhered to. The wrapping tightly in clingfilm is not something I would normally do but it does make for a wonderfully neat parcel so it is worth the effort.

The first time I made a Beef Wellington here several years ago I tried to decorate the top with pastry cows but my free-form cut cows just looked strangely alien so I abandoned these horned blobs in favour of D’s suggestion of the letters M, O and O. This one fed everyone and the extra additions of the fluffy one and extravagantly eyebrowed J.

So for my second pastry clad hunk of beef here I guessed really the only answer is to crown it with the letters MOO2. I don’t have that large letter cutters but they are easy enough to cut by hand and thoroughly glaze to ensure a golden glow after baking.

The new Moo seemed to go down very well, with the plates licked clean;. We accompanied the fat juicy slices with some sautéed potatoes and creamy frozen peas with shredded floppy lettuce which wilted seductively into the creamy juices. And it must have hit the spot as the possibility of there being a MOO3 was discussed.

Mozzarella in carrozza

We’d spotted the idea whilst flicking through a stack of our old favourites – Olive, Delicious and Waitrose Food Illustrated and when I mentioned to D that I didn’t think I’d ever had eggy bread she thought we really should address this. I suspect this particular version first came to my attention when Nigella extolled the virtues of these soggy and pulpy mozzarella in a carriage (a bread one, I assume) on Nigella Bites when it first hit our screens. She recommended using ‘white plastic bread’ as the texture does rather lend itself to squelching the two halves together in the eggy, milky mixture. Be prepared to get a little messy!

We made some sliced mozzarella sandwiches out of our crustless white bread and dipped each side into a little flour. Then the floury sandwich was flipped over in a shallow dish of beaten egg, milk and black pepper. The whole sandwich was fried in a little oil and butter until tinged with golden brown.

The recipe did suggest perhaps a little leftover Parma ham could be added to the sandwich before anointing in the egg-blushed bath, but the likelihood of there being any leftover meat products in this house was slim and none and today was no exception.

'Today's pudding' at the Cambridge Chop House

As soon as I hear of a new eatery called the Cambridge Chop House that boasts of a ‘pudding of the day’ on the blackboard outside my carnivorous little heart demands a visit. So gathering a little band of like-minded meat eaters we enter the curiously empty place. We descend the stairs and immediately wonder if we are the first diners since the tape scissoring and Champagne cork popping. We have a little nose around the cavernous basement; with the elegant Fornasetti clad wall and the dramatic pictures of cows grazing dreamily against the backdrop of the stunning gothic façade of King’s College.

We may be downstairs but it’s so white, well lit with lamps and overhead spots and full of pale wood and interesting alcoves. For once I don’t have to complain about grainy photographs.

Today’s pudding turns out to be the one I was hoping for - steak & kidney served with mash and greens and D and I decide to share one of the fine beasts.

With a mighty pudding ahead of me I settle for a light Smoked Salmon, Herbs and Lemon for a starter. And the rose-tinged slices go down very well. LLcT and E(D) seem rather taken by their Baked Duck Parcels with Sweet and Sour Cucumber but then they’re not indulging in a proper suet pudding.

And now for the main event, our plump Steak and Kidney Pudding arrives with a flourish on a platter and is then split between our two plates and adorned with some mash and broccoli. Maybe because it was decanted onto the two plates or because of the dense ever so meaty interior but both D and I are craving a bit more gravy. Our waiter fortunately overhears us and produces a little jug of the much needed lubrication.

The mash maybe is not quite as buttery as I would have wanted (well it is my specialist subject!) but is the perfect medium to soak up all the meaty juices. It’s a shame initially we didn’t have enough of those. Apart from this initial slight lack of moisture, the pudding was rather fabulous though - you could definitely describe it as 'packing'! Clearly the Fray Bentos and the extremely bizarre Goblin efforts of my childhood have been completely and spectacularly trounced.

LLcT and E(D) have to run off to cram their heads full of historical facts or to flaunt a paintbrush at college and all D and I have planned is a thoroughly exhausting afternoon of shopping! So to fortify ourselves further we feel that a dessert is in order. Just for a change I go for the Chocolate Tart & Ice Cream, which is a very acceptable finale to our pudding-themed meal.

D opts for the ‘when in Rome option’ of Cambridge Burnt Cream and for those who haven’t been made aware of the age-old dilemma of ‘who did it first?’ the local belief is that Cambridge Burnt Cream was the genesis of the world famous crème brulée. And who am I to argue with those cows staring menacingly at me! Two pudding forks for the Cambridge Chop House.

How does one make a hasselback potato?

We’ve got some delicious lamb for Sunday lunch but D and I had a hankering for some Hasselback potatoes and sat pondering the best way to make them. The knack is of course to thinly cut the peeled potato but not all the way through. The most common method seems to be to insert a metal skewer through the bottom part of the potato and then cut through until your knife hits the skewer. But therein lies the rub, ‘until your knife hits the metal skewer’, D and I feel much too precious about our knives to inflict such treatment on them. After scouring a few recipes we find that another common suggestion is to place the peeled potato into a large spoon and then the sides of the spoon would again prevent you from slicing the potato entirely. Again though, these seems somewhat perilous to the knives. I guess if you have a large bowled wooden spoon to hand, maybe a seventies salad server buried at the back of the kitchen cupboard that might work but we wanted to come up with alternative.

In the end we decided that the handles of two wooden spoons could be placed either side the plump peeled potato, would act as a barrier to slicing the potato all the way through but not jeopardise our prized blades. It did work, though a little tricky. The flat bowls prevented the wooden spoons from rolling all the place but they weren’t particularly keen on staying stride the errant potato. Clamping them down would have been useful but not terribly practical, in the end D held the spoons as I weald the knife. Afterwards MC reckons he could construct a suitable wooden contraption that would be the perfect Hasselback potato maker but as handy as it would had been today I guess it’s a rather niche product.

We take our beautifully sliced potatoes and baste them with melted butter, season them and pop them into 180C oven. We bake them for 45 minutes basting them again partway through the cooking process.

The effort is worth it and the resultant potatoes are both crunchy at the rims of the fanned out slices and soft and fluffy on the inside. And they go very well with the garlicky lamb, the lightly gingered carrots and sautéed cabbage.

New Year's Eve great balls of fun!

We didn’t have any grand plan for New Year’s Eve party fare, no spectacular feast, no extravagant table décor so in the end we just decided a few platters of picky bits in the middle of the table and then onto the board games.

I’d promised to make some more of those scrumptious diminutive Beef Wellingtons, Beef Booties if you will so set myself to cut the puff pastry into little squares and cube the beef.

MINI CANAPÉ BEEF WELLINGTONS

Ready rolled puff pastry
Brussels pâté
Beef fillet cut roughly into 2cm cubes
1 lightly beaten egg

I made about 50 with a packet of puff pastry, but I’m not entirely sure how much beef fillet I used but I cut the cubes a little smaller – more like 1cm cubes so each ‘beef bootie’ could be popped into the mouth whole.

- Preheat the oven to 200°c.

- Roll out the puff pastry and cut into 4cm squares. My pastry was pre-rolled but I felt it needed to be a little thinner for these canapés.

- Smear the point of a spoon of pâté in the centre of each square and top with a seasoned beef cube.

- If I’d cut the beef larger as per the recipe I could have folded the pastry over the beef and neatly tuck in the corners like a larger Beef Wellington but on this scale this proved too tricky. Instead I opted to roll each into a beefy ball and line up them all up on a baking sheet.

- Carefully brush each ball with the beaten egg, sprinkle with some handy sesame seeds and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until pleasantly puffed and golden brown.

- Allow to cool slightly, (if permitted by the ravenous diners) and then transfer to a platter (or two) to serve.
As well as the meaty morsels we also whipped up some fluffy potato cakes topped with a dollop of cool crème fraîche and the remaining palest rose tinged salmon. From Waitrose we scored some fat garlicky, cheesy dough balls and an unusual dessert.

Rather fabulously we found these ice cream filled chocolate dessert canapés. Belgium chocolate that splintered delectably in the mouth revealing their icy interiors which certainly didn’t get a chance to melt before they were polished off. And yes that is LLcT's finger again, perhaps if he knew it would be immortalised on the world wide web he wouldn't have bitten his finger nails!

Happy New Year!

A purple dinner

I’ve been left alone to decorate the table whilst D tends to the incredible roasted shoulder of lamb with smashed veg and greens from Jamie Oliver’s wonderful Jamie at Home book. And to celebrate that we’ve supplemented the purple crockery and platter collection I go slightly purple crazy! The purple hued layered runners are supplemented with the sparkly magenta napkins and purple sparkly napkin rings for the girls and purple not so sparkly with silver stars for the boys. D’s new purple satin handbags and shoe Christmas decorations are removed form the tree and transferred to the table, with the purple shiny ex-Mardi Gras beads, mirrored candles and the metal snowflakes strewn randomly (?) in the gaps in between.

Everyone has got customised cutlery for tonight - D her purple set (of course!), LLcT with iron weapons forged in a volcano fire by Thor, MC with his Christmas Global-esque knife and fork, E(D) with dinky little dusty sized (aka baby’s first) cutlery and me with my ever so elegant new today LLB silverware.

I was determined not to waste the remaining lobster and whipped up the tiniest starters of puff pastry cases stuffed to the brim with creamy lobster and remaining seafood goodies. These I topped with puff pastry initials which I did unfortunately singe a tad. But everything was polished off rather sharpish so I don’t think anyone really minded.

The main event of the evening was the juicy Mr. Knibbs’ lamb, which is slashed, anointed with oil and then slow roasted for four hours on a bed of large sprigs of rosemary and unpeeled garlic cloves. The stunning woolly beast is served with gently sautéed cabbage and potatoes, Swedes and carrots all smashed together. The popular piquant sauce is capers, chicken stock, a large bunch of mint and red vinegar. Jamie is right, the shredded lamb is incredible and melt-in-the mouth and the vegetables aren't too bad either.

A purple-tastic meal indeed!

Steak sandwich at John Lewis

Robert Sayle in Cambridge has been languishing in the ‘wrong’ part of town for too long and we’ve been looking forward to the huge refit and then returning to the city centre. It is back, sadly no longer a Robert but the more common John Lewis, but it certainly it big and sparkly! We escape the raging hordes in the haberdashery department but we did have to venture forth to the rest of the shop and it’s clear that we’re not the only ones who have missed this shop. We make the dreadful mistake of trying some clothes on in the ladies changing room and nearly fainted from the tropical heat. I think we may have spotted the fatal flaw in their new design!

After our steamy exertions we rewarded ourselves with a visit to the new and ever so popular restaurant, just nipping in before the rope was draped across the entrance. We were escorted to a lovely little curvy banquette, ideal to stash our shopping booty and survey the sophisticated 70's look - the dark wood tables, the rather fabulous chandelier and the strange Sony blue lights around it. I think that particular shade of blue attracts the males of the species for example, the lights on the PS2 or the same colour emitting from underneath one of those boy-racer souped up (some say pimped) cars.

Turning away from the incongruous lights we consulted the menu and plumped for a pair of sandwiches, salt beef for D and a juicy steak in slightly over-toasted sandwich. All washed down with a nice glass of full-bodied red, not a bad way to wrap a day of hectic sale shopping. But they really need to sort out those changing rooms!

2nd annual Cambridge seafood festival

I read once that it was important to have your own personal traditional events. Not just the ones that many share like Christmas and New Year but an occasion that was more unique. The article suggested an annual meal to celebrate the birth of a favourite icon or hero or to recreate some seminal moment in your family life. It went on to advocate that this would be a festivity that would hopefully cherished by your children and they would go onto commemorate also.

Last year D and I went on some sort of trolley dash in Marks & Spencer’s and ended with rather a lot of fishy delights and when undecided what to conjure up for tonight’s meal opted to repeat the idea. It seems a tad ostentatious to call it a “seafood festival” as really this should conjure up more hunter-gatherer antics than placing a few well chosen items into a shopping basket. But sometimes I think judicious shopping is almost as talented as good cooking! Well that’s my excuse anyway!

We weren’t quite as indulgent as last year, this time we went for a lobster Rockefeller, crab pâté, more Coquilles St Jacques, marinated salmon on skewers, the palest smoked salmon on blinis topped with roe and M&S’s new offering the queen scallops, chorizo on potato rounds and toasted sour dough bread. And even the table décor was a little more under-the-sea coloured with the new turquoise linen!

I do think this is worthy of an annual celebration. Lobster tail anyone?

The second Christmas

After a tortuous journey from Manchester to Cambridge due to our wonderful British holiday rail arrangements I have finally arrived – possibly with the world’s heaviest suitcase. At least I didn’t have to decamp into a coach or some other dreadful mode of transport but instead had to take a more convoluted route than the already slightly diverted route I'd planned. However, fortunately D and MC were happy to pick me up from Kettering instead. A place I don’t know the whereabouts of, but was convinced was immortalised in the “John Kettering is a weatherman” song until D pointed out I was thinking about John Kettley!

D had prepared for my arrival with a hearty Jamie fish pie. And as I don’t really get the point of prawns, D has had marked the crustacean-free portion with a chive ‘J’. I know I’m very much in the minority here; the world seems to get terribly excited about prawns but I can really take them or leave them. So I feel it is considerate to leave them to those who would truly appreciate them more.

We had a starter of our old favourite M&S's Coquilles St Jacques and mini toad in the holes. There was a certain eagerness to eat this meal as the remaining Christmas presents were to be handed out, divested of their shiny wrappings and oohed and aahed over as soon as the meal was cleared away. Happy second Christmas!

Sunday purple Sunday

D has been lusting after this purple crockery from M&S for a while, on her first sighting she texted me immediately and declared her deep love for it. Purple would be way too daring for me but is very D. When we visited M&S today they had kindly discounted it so D got her wish and stocked up on the plates and matching purple iridescent chargers. It seems however that MC doesn’t share her love on the new crockery and I guess we’ll have to pile it high with delicious things to convince him that they’re a good thing.

Whilst in M&S we grab a packet of their currently advertised canapés, the mini steak sandwiches and also the much loved tiny coquilles Saint Jacques. We wanted to try the chorizo, scallop and potato nibbles but there has been a run on them so we can’t try them out.

Thus we fill the new amethyst coloured floral plates with tasty food to beguile MC and enjoy another tasty Sunday lunch.

22 reasons to visit Restaurant 22

Restaurant 22 is a bit of a Cambridge legend, a converted Victorian house in the centre of Cambridge that can feed twenty six in the main room and a further twelve upstairs in a private room. As it is compact and bijou it can be quite a challenge to get a table especially if not booked far enough in advance. I’ve only eaten here once before, every time I visit and we think we should go I am thwarted by not thinking far enough ahead. Fortunately we planned this belated celebration of LLcT’s birthday a little while ago so we managed to secure one of the much-covetable bookings. The menu is available online on their website so decisions are generally made before arrival and the various merits of the choices can be debated and appetites whetted way before sitting down at one of their linen clad tables.

My only real memory from my last visit many years ago was fine bread, being sat next to a tall bookcase crammed with intriguing cookbooks should conversation fail (which I don’t believe happened), some tasty food but I cannot recall what and some full-bodied red wine which is why I think it might all be a little hazy about the latter.

This time I hope to have a clearer memory though photographs do help with that. We are bought some little nibbles which more than half the table think are a little two tomato based (I am in good company here!) but the mousse-y canapés are tasty.

My starter, in fact most of our starter were Seared Scallop, Braised Pig Trotter and Black Pudding. And as ever the crowd pleaser, scallop and black pudding is becoming so de rigour but I rather like the extra little porky twist and the ever so smooth purée. One of the feature of a Restaurant 22 menu is the optional fish course, a treat if one hasn’t laid too heavily into the Guinness bread, but today’s fish dish was Prawn and Chilli Tortellini With Roast Butternut Squash Purée and not being an enormous fan of prawn I passed in favour of more bread.

Then we had a palate cleansing Mixed leaf Salad with a zingy Parmesan wafer before our main courses.

I’d picked Roast Partridge With Puy Lentils, Rosti Potato, Garlic And Thyme when we first pondered the menu many weeks ago, it has all that wintry heartiness that I am rather partial to. In fact when I glance at set menus I am always drawn to the autumn, winter phases and not so to the summer. In the summer everyone wants to feed us heirloom tomatoes, melon, gazpacho and smoked trout and I just can’t get as excited about that.

D and I had both decided that Hot Chocolate Fondant With Orange Sorbet was compulsory, the warning about it taking an extra 10 minutes to cook would hardly deter us as being great believers of good things coming to those who wait.

LLcT and E(D) opted instead for Sticky Toffee Pudding With Walnut Ice-Cream and

MC of course choose the Selection Of British Farmhouse Cheeses With Homemade Chutney. Our chocolate fondant with the fabulous juxtaposition of the zingy sorbet was just perfect and everyone seemed to enjoy their choices also.

We finished off my some yummy truffles and jellies. It was a wonderful meal, maybe all the more enjoyable for me as I had seemingly waited so long to return again. I’m sure if I lived locally I would attempt to visit every month. An easy three forks for Restaurant 22, I am already checking out the future menus for my next visit.