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May. 1st, 2013 08:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pensnestI'm almost scarily fortunate.
It was our 30th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of Mikado rehearsals, so we celebrated today with lunch at the Auberge du Lac, part of Brocket Hall—took the handy bus from the end of the road to Welwyn Garden City and then taxi on to the restaurant, and indulged ourselves (thoroughly!) with their nine-course taster menu, plus accompanying wine tasting menu (which worked out to... quite a lot of wine! Plus a Kir Royale when we arrived. I'm still a bit squiffy, but it's wearing off.
The bus was an excellent option, not least because it was a gloriously sunny day (athough not particularly warm), the sky was perfectly blue all day long, and with the blossoms in the hedgerows, everything was spectacularly pretty. It was a long, convoluted journey, of course, which we could have done in perhaps half an hour door to door by car, had either of us been willing to forego all that tasty wine, but it cost just £12.50 for both of us, return trip, and was very convenient. We got a taxi from WGC centre to the restaurant (JR had to give directions to the cab driver, but his phone map worked very well) and another one back to the bus station.
The place is very pretty, too. It's set right next to a lake, across which Brocket Hall can be seen, also some outbuildings which are clearly in use as some kind of restaurant or, perhaps, the golfers' club house. There was a heron in the lake when we partook of a welcoming champagne-and-creme-de-cassis on the terrace, and we spent quite a while trying to decide if it was a real bird or a statue. It moved, eventually, and it wasn't there any longer when we went outside for coffee three hours later… The helicopter by the car park had also gone, when we left.
The meal was very good indeed. Service not as immaculate as at The Fat Duck (of course), and food not presented with as much flair, finesse or fun, but nonetheless well presented and jolly good. (Sample menu here is not exactly what we had, but close.) I've reminded myself that I need to order scallops once in a while, on the grounds that the scallop course was excellent. Sweetbread was okay, I wouldn't bother to order it specially; there was a rather interesting cucumber course (where it says celery on the example menu) involving cucumber granita and tiny morsels of cheese; there was excellent duck (instead of pigeon) with a particularly good Spanish wine, and there were two beautiful pudding courses - a rhubarb one with a pink macaroon and pale green icecream, incredibly pretty, and a chocolate mousse with almond ice cream and white sorbet. Nom nom.
Taster menus are fun! It's kinda nice not to have to do much in the way of deciding what to eat, because someone has done all the hard work for you—plus the hard work of deciding what wines to put with it all. I'm not quite sure how much we ended up drinking—best estimate, most of a bottle each, in total. The several tastes of wine were quite generous. The Gewurztraminer we had with the dessert courses was the yummiest, tho' Beast opted in to the cheese course and got a bucket of port to go with it! I helped him drink it. It was very nice port. I am fond of port.
A very agreeable way to spend the day.
It was our 30th wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of Mikado rehearsals, so we celebrated today with lunch at the Auberge du Lac, part of Brocket Hall—took the handy bus from the end of the road to Welwyn Garden City and then taxi on to the restaurant, and indulged ourselves (thoroughly!) with their nine-course taster menu, plus accompanying wine tasting menu (which worked out to... quite a lot of wine! Plus a Kir Royale when we arrived. I'm still a bit squiffy, but it's wearing off.
The bus was an excellent option, not least because it was a gloriously sunny day (athough not particularly warm), the sky was perfectly blue all day long, and with the blossoms in the hedgerows, everything was spectacularly pretty. It was a long, convoluted journey, of course, which we could have done in perhaps half an hour door to door by car, had either of us been willing to forego all that tasty wine, but it cost just £12.50 for both of us, return trip, and was very convenient. We got a taxi from WGC centre to the restaurant (JR had to give directions to the cab driver, but his phone map worked very well) and another one back to the bus station.
The place is very pretty, too. It's set right next to a lake, across which Brocket Hall can be seen, also some outbuildings which are clearly in use as some kind of restaurant or, perhaps, the golfers' club house. There was a heron in the lake when we partook of a welcoming champagne-and-creme-de-cassis on the terrace, and we spent quite a while trying to decide if it was a real bird or a statue. It moved, eventually, and it wasn't there any longer when we went outside for coffee three hours later… The helicopter by the car park had also gone, when we left.
The meal was very good indeed. Service not as immaculate as at The Fat Duck (of course), and food not presented with as much flair, finesse or fun, but nonetheless well presented and jolly good. (Sample menu here is not exactly what we had, but close.) I've reminded myself that I need to order scallops once in a while, on the grounds that the scallop course was excellent. Sweetbread was okay, I wouldn't bother to order it specially; there was a rather interesting cucumber course (where it says celery on the example menu) involving cucumber granita and tiny morsels of cheese; there was excellent duck (instead of pigeon) with a particularly good Spanish wine, and there were two beautiful pudding courses - a rhubarb one with a pink macaroon and pale green icecream, incredibly pretty, and a chocolate mousse with almond ice cream and white sorbet. Nom nom.
Taster menus are fun! It's kinda nice not to have to do much in the way of deciding what to eat, because someone has done all the hard work for you—plus the hard work of deciding what wines to put with it all. I'm not quite sure how much we ended up drinking—best estimate, most of a bottle each, in total. The several tastes of wine were quite generous. The Gewurztraminer we had with the dessert courses was the yummiest, tho' Beast opted in to the cheese course and got a bucket of port to go with it! I helped him drink it. It was very nice port. I am fond of port.
A very agreeable way to spend the day.