Life goes on....

Mum's funeral: April 13th
Off to Isle of Arran following weekend to sprinkle ashes on Goatfell.

With barely anytime to dwell on the past, I had to move on to preparations for A+J's wedding on the 1st April. I was best-man and Kirsty was chief bridesmaid. The wedding was a roaring success, although I was knackered by the end of it from running around organising stuff and sorting problems out behind the scenes, I think it all went smoothly though. The best-mans speech had everyone pissing themselves, which made up for the fact that I felt sick all morning worrying about it.

The thursday night Jab and I went out to Hibiscus restaurant (2 Michelin stars) and got a bit carried away. 12 courses, a £300 bill and 4 hours later we left the restaurant and went back to the guest house we were staying in. Yes that says twelve courses. I've tried to list what I remember below, but as we had the Chef's 'surprise' menu, there's no formal listing of it anywhere. In fact part the way through the evening when we had drunk all the champagne, we had to make a decision as to whether to go for red or white wine, upon asking the waitress what the next course was going to be so we could choose an appropriate wine we were very impressed to hear that she couln't tell us as the chef makes it up as he goes along....!!! By the way, the service was faultless and superb. From little things like the fact that they fold your napkin for you whenever you leave the table (which Jab tested out quite a few times) to the fact that they pour on the sauces at the table whilst explaining in great depth exactly what you are about to eat, where most of the ingredients are from, etc. Any, the food:

1) Nibbles and stuff whilst we chose champagne, can't really remember what exactly was in them, but we had some light pastry things with meat in, and some balls of stuff rolled in fine crumbs.
2) Carrot + Apple Soda Water. Nice.
3) Asparagus Soup with Coconut Milk, Caraway Seeds and Finely sliced raw asparagus. This was like eating a fresh sping field, it was very fresh and cleansing.
4) Raw scallop straight from the shell in a garlic and lemon consomme with black olive. The texture of the raw scallop was beautiful.
5) Red mullet with fennel and three sauces (green, brown and yellow) none of which we can remember. The fish was cooked to perfection and slid out of the skin as soon as you touched it with a fork. The sauces complemented the fish perfectly.
6) Razor clams with chicken livers and an onion veloute. Good textures.
7) Ravioli of onion with cumin and date consomme. Strong flavours, very interesting.
8) Foie Gras ice-cream, emulsion of brioche and balsamic caramal reduction. Signature dish. Sounds minging, tastes utterly amazing. Beatuiful nutty after-taste.
9) Bresse pigeon breast, confit of pigeon leg, caramalized blood orange. I love pigeon so this was always gonna get a thumbs up.
10) Cheese (this is a french-style restaurant so cheese comes before dessert). All served with oat-cakes and apricot bread. 5 cheeses:
a) 4 day old goats cheese rolled in fresh herbs and lemon zest
b) Shropshire Brie
c) Somerset Cheddar
d) Blue Stilton
e) Stinky Bishop <- man this was stinking (like old socks). We ate half of this and nearly passed out with the strength of it, then decided to eat the rest of it anyway...
11) Desserts: there were a few of them, my memory is vague as to teh exact details of some...:
a) Vanilla rice pudding with beetroot
b) strawberries with jelly and a black peppercorn cream
c) something to do with rhubarb...
12) Petit fours, incl. some pistachio things and hand-made chocolates.

For drinks we had:
Laurent Perrier Rose Champagne (we wanted Louis Roederer Rose but they had none left)
Dom. Dominique Premier Cru Chablis Cuvee Millenium
Moscato d'Asti (dessert, glass each)
Churchill's LBV Port (glass each)
Double espresso
Amaretto
Pellegrino sparkling water

Job done.