Oh dear ...

Nothing posted for over a year? I have to rectify this. But I have to say I haven't really been eating out anywhere posh recently either.  I must also rectify that!   Watch out for a review of A Room in Leith coming up in a week or two.

In the meantime I would also recommend La Garrigue where we recently had a very lovely, and typically French country kitchen / slow food experience.

Restaurant Review: 21212

I've been wanting to go to 21212 for some months now, and earlier this year it gained it's Michelin star. The concept of a restaurant which offers only a choice of 2 starters, mains and desserts, with 1 soup and cheese in between is, I admit, slightly scary for a somewhat fussy eater like myself. However I had looked at sample menus before, and almost every dish appealed to me.

Atmosphere

The dining room is small and intimate. It reminded me of a 21st century Witchery in style - plush and opulent but at the same time light, modern and airy. Not at all oppressive.

Wine List

The wine list is not particularly extensive, but very well chosen. To start we had 2 glasses of Henriot NV, followed by a bottle of Dry River Syrah 2004 (one of our favourite NZ syrahs, and not that easy to get in the UK).

Food

With a limited choice it's not surprising that we both ate the same meal from start to finish. Each dish had about 10 to 15 ingredients, most of which I have forgotten. Even the bread (saffron with spice) was complex.

To start we had a new zealand lamb curry. This, we agreed, was delicious. Each of the many flavours was perfectly and delicately balanced. The lentil dahl was delicious. Easily the best curry I've eaten and an excellent start to the meal.

Then came the soup. This was a celeriac cream (or froth) with puréed vegetables. Again delicious, but more of an amuse bouche in size rather than a soup.

For the main we chose duck - smoked and breast, with a custard tart and, bizarrely, a spicy sausage. Overall the dish was nice, but a bit disjointed as the flavours didn't all mesh with each other. The sausage in particular seemed at odds with the rest of the dish.

Cheese next: a lovely blue cheese which went particularly well with the sweet biscuits; a soft, brie-like cheese from champagne; a couple of harder cheeses. The array of biscuits that came with the platter was fantastic and ranged from sweet wafer like ones through to thick oatmeal. What surprised me most about this course was the size of it - unlike the soup this was a big serving.

Finally the sweet. But before that a small palate cleansing porridge milk - delicious. We spurned the lemon curd and instead selected apple crumble. Both desserts came in glasses. A tokaji and a sweet shiraz accompanied this course. The crumble was delicious - a layered glass of creamy heaven.

Overall Rating

We retired upstairs for coffee in the drawing room afterwards - a relaxing way to end a great meal. If I had to be picky I would say that the main course didn't live up to the other 4 courses, and the balance of the meal was slightly skewed by the size of the soup and the cheese. Overall though - fantastic restaurant, great service, especially from the sommelier, great atmosphere, and fab company! I'll definitely be going again.

Restaurant Reviews: Italian Lunches & Prosecco

What better way to spend Sunday than to go out for lunch, drink some Prosecco and watch some rugby? Well, Scotland could actually win for a change, but apart from that ...

So a couple of quick reviews! Last week we were at Centotre on George Street, and today back to our old favourite VinCaffé

Centotre

We hadn't eaten at Centrotre since it opened many years ago, but we wanted to treat friends for lunch and thought this would be a good choice before heading off to a pub to watch the rugby.

Drinks first: Prosecco Col del Sas Extra Dry @ £26 per bottle: still too sweet for my taste, but good at lunchtime. Our good intentions vanished quickly as we drank 2 bottles ...

And now the starters: Mozzarella was ordered and came without the promised tomatoes (which were definitely on our menu but do not appear online ...). With no argument, tomatoes were added. The Bresaola was very nice, as was the Bruschetta.

For mains most of us selected the veal. This was good, but we had to ask for lemon, without which the dish would have been bland. Once again the service was great though, and lemon slices were brought from the bar. The sirloin was also good.

Eager to get a seat somewhere for the rugby, we skipped dessert.

Conclusions: the meal was OK, but I was very disappointed not to be offered fresh parmesan - I can't remember the last time that happened in an Italian restaurant. And lemon with the veal would have been nice.

As a quick aside, we ended up in Hudsons bar, which was not only an excellent place to watch the rugby (read: we got a seat and it wasn't that busy!), but they also had a fantastically dry prosecco at £17 a bottle. Unfortunately I can't remember the name, but if you are in the area ...

VinCaffé

We go to VinCaffé for lunch at least once a year, usually at Christmas. We also try and avoid the conveyor belt feel and bland menus often associated with Valentines day meals. So a table was booked, and it was confirmed that nothing at all special was happening at lunchtime - just the usual menu. Perfect!

For starters we had deep fried cauliflower and peppers, and fishcakes, washed down with a glass of Ferrari Prosecco. Both were excellent!

My main course, accompanied with a glass of La Poja Allegrini, was Pasta with pork Lucanica sausage, tomato, mushrooms and cream - seriously good pasta, and complemented perfectly by the wine. My hubby elected to try Quails with polenta and roasted butternut squash, with a glass of Gaja 1999. Incredible wine, and apparently the food wasn't bad either!

Only 1 dessert: a delicious lemon and ricotta cheesecake.

Once again, VinCaffé does not let us down. The food was excellent, compared to the food at Centotre which didn't quite hit the same standards.

And as for the rugby ... it's just a shame the Italians couldn't finish the day off perfectly (we'll not talk about yesterdays result ...)