Beast's birthday celebration

[pensnest]

We went out to lunch today as a slightly late celebration of Beast's birthday. To Benedict's, a restaurant we'd heard of a couple of years ago but not got round to until today.

We decided to go for the six-course taster menu, plus matched wines. In the event, we also had the cheese, of which more anon.

We had a couple of 'snacks', a little cheese-biscuit-sandwich and a cheesy puff, all very cheesey and good, then some very nice sourdough bread with (apparently) caramelised butter, couldn't really tell. First official course was game broth, with a tiny barley croquette in the middle. It was very tasty indeed, though the wine paired with it didn't do a lot for me: it had noticeable sherry overtones and seemed as if it wanted to be a sparkling wine, without having actual bubbles, but it was only ok.

Didn't much care for the wine with the mackerel course, either; the mackerel itself was, well, mackerel, but there was a mint jelly with it that redeemed all.

The venison, with attendant blackberry, liquorice and chocolate sauce, was delish, as were the various shredded greens and the awesome crispy leaf of cavolo nero. And the red wine that went with it was beautiful.

After that, we got a tin chest of cheese each, five pieces of cheese, with crackly thin sheets of starchy stuff to convey them to our mouths. The first was a cheddar with parmesan overtones, Old Winchester, and on our way home we detoured to the cheese stall in the market to buy ourselves more of this. Very tasty indeed. All the cheeses were pretty good.

We then had raspberries with coal custard - cannot for the life of me figure out what the 'coal' was doing there, didn't taste it or see it, but the raspberries were good, the custard was creamy, and the grainy iced raspberry stuff added interesting coolth and texture.

Then a choice of puds, so we had one each and swapped. The seasonal trifle was not bad at all, though it lacked the spongy component that I feel properly belongs in a trifle; the fig leaf cream roll with shreds of pastry and a tasty fig was better. Though the wine with the first pudding was gorgeous, and the wine with the fig dessert merely very nice.

We strolled merrily home feeling very satisfied. For reasons I cannot discern, my Beast insisted on calling at the macaroon shop, where we bought a 'Financier' flavoured and arrayed like a tiny ghost (not sure how ghost flavour works, but if it is convincing I will report back) and a peanut butter brownie. This, I feel, is gilding the lily.

Overall, not the best taster menu I've ever tried (I don't think anything will top the experience at The Fat Duck) but pretty decent, and excellent service, friendly and attentive.

Comments

[dine]

your feast sounds like a lot of fun - I've never tried anything like that, but maybe I should save my pennies and indulge some time.

I got your beautiful card! thank you so much for thinking of me :)

[pensnest]

It's kinda fun doing a taster menu - you don't have to think about what you want to eat, you just get carefully-selected deliciousness delivered to you in tiny portions. It's very pleasant.

:-)

[turlough]

A belated happy birthday to your Beast! Give him a hug from me.

Your meal sounds delicious.

PS Thank you so much for the lovely card! It was such a nice suprise in my mail yesterday.

[pensnest]

I will! :-)

[topaz119]

The cheese course sounds divine.

[pensnest]

It was a jolly good quantity of cheese, and very nice, too. I was a little surprised at the order we were advised to eat it in—strong cheddar and then blue cheese and then lighter, creamier ones, whereas I'd have expected it the other way around. We had port with it, too. Mmmm, port.