On Tuesday, Mr M and I had our wedding anniversary lunch at Chez Bruce (www.chezbruce.co.uk), the scene of our (first) wedding reception a year before. For a bargainous £25.50, you can have three michelin starred courses in rarefied surroundings, where they will fold your napkin every time you leave it scrumpled on the table.
While I savoured my starter of lamb's tongue and breast with braised peas, bacon, jersey royals and mint, Mr M won the first course competition with his rare grilled Shetland salmon with oyster and herb vinaigrette, baby leeks, avocado and grapefruit. I fought back with my main - grilled chicken breast with tarragon relish (yum!), gnocci, baby artichoke, fennel and lemon. Mr M's sea bass fillet with soup au piston (a tomatoey, beany, summer vegetable soup flavoured with a garlic and basil cousin of pesto), prawns and basil oil was tasty, but not quite as interesting, although I'll definitely have to try adding pesto to a bean soup/stew.
There was therefore all to play for with dessert - for me, a chocolate tart with salted caramel sauce, clotted cream and honeycomb; for Mr M, a hot chocolate pudding with praline parfait. We both liked what we had chosen best, so I guess it's a draw - although maybe the fact that I choked on my honeycomb gives Mr M's dish a slight edge. One thing I loved about my tart was the lightness. I often order chocolate puddings and then can't finish them, because they're so heavy - this one practically flew down my throat on its own.
Wine recommended by the sommelier was delicious, including a red dessert wine which was a first for me - he advised that the red version goes particularly well with chocolate, and he was absolutely right (even if it did smell like ribena).
After stuffing some morsels from the cheeseboard into my already groaning stomach, we hotfooted it to Heathrow, to catch our plane to Nairobi, then Juba. After a morning at work, straight off the night flight, I peered into our cupboard to see what was left...
Not being the most organised of people, the answer was, sadly, nothing. I therefore had to raid the hibernation kit (which now consists of 3 tins of corned beef and a bag of fufu flour), and lunched on chicken supernoodles. How the mighty have fallen.
For what it's worth, I can recommend cooking the supernoodles in a pan, instead of in a bowl as the instructions state - and also adding the full bag of chilli, so your tastebuds don't fall completely asleep at the table.
The result of this sorry tale is this blog - recording our attempts to push our dining experiences in Juba away from the supernoodle end of the scale, and more towards the michelin star. Any recipes or suggestions for shopping in Juba (or elsewhere in South Sudan) are very welcome and will be incorporated into the blog.
Thursday, 29 April 2010
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