Posts Tagged ‘restaurant’

This may be the only meal we have inside a restaurant in 2020, but having a voucher to spend before it expires (or all the restaurants go bust), we decided to brave it and have a birthday meal for two at Gaucho. There was a slight mix up and we ended up with a cake with “happy anniversary” written on it, but it still tasted good! :D.

The Star Inn, also known as The Star at Harome is a Michelin-starred restaurant by Andrew Pern, located on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors.

It’s set in a 14th century thatched cottage with an open fire. The ceiling is a bit low: fine for us, but I felt bad for the tall waiter who had to duck every time he moved through the dining room. The atmosphere was intimate, with only a few tables nicely spaced out in each room.

The food was excellent, but not mind-blowing. What I mean by that is that they have executed the dishes very well. They are skillfully crafted and delicious. However, they are not anything you won’t have had before: it’s just gastropub food done to a very high level. No bad thing.

The dishes

I started with The Rockpool: a langoustine bisque containing king scallop, mussels and a selection of other seafood delicacies (maybe a bit of lobster or an oyster, I’m not sure). After that, I moved onto the venison before finishing with the chocolate torte.

Each dish was well thought through in terms of presentation. I think my starter shined more than the main. Elina had the beef consomme to start, followed by the mutton which was packed with taste. There was a mix up with the dessert when she got rice pudding instead of ice cream, but at least there was a birthday candle in it.

The drinks

They had soft drinks, which beat out our last Michelin experience. That said, I think I managed to disappoint the waiter. When I inquired as to what they had, he said they had a lot of things so just name some. I named dandelion and burdock, followed by Iron Bru, both of which came up short. They did have a good selection of juices and fizzy drinks, though. And the alcoholic selection was extensive, of course.

Cost

It’s a reasonably priced place. We spent just under £100 ordering from the à la carte menu. That got us three courses, plus several little bonus courses, and some soft drinks. The tasting menu is a bit more expensive but they also do a very reasonable locals menu which is £25 for three courses.

Tasty, tasty baby.

Cafe Paris is an informal restaurant based in downtown Reykjavik. Why it is named after Paris is unclear. The menu seems fairly Islanic rather than French. Perhaps it reflects the general hustle-and-bustle of the French capital.

The food looks a lot better in real life than it does in photos. Specifically this photo…

Presentation could do with some finesse. However, it gets good marks for taste.

The portions were massive. Elina’s creamy seafood soup felt bottomless. No matter how much she ate there was more seafood hiding at the bottom of the large bowl.

Back in January, James left us, like a traitor, for a research job in South Korea. To commiserate is leaving we went for a meal at Red Chilli. I’ve only just found the photo on my camera.

On Tuesday, we celebrated Galileo Day. The day started with Michael delivering the Galileo Day Lecture on the life and works of the man himself. Unfortunately I ended up missing most of the talk as I had to take some phone calls. Luckily I’m fairly familiar with the subject anyway having contributed to the recently published Galileo Day pack.

Afterwards, we headed down to Red Hot World Buffet for some all you can eat goodness. I ended up setting a new personal record, getting through seven plates, so I’m fairly sure that isn’t something to be proud of lol. I was actually ready to give up after five but then when I found out that Elina was on her sixth, I had to up my game.

Browns played host to this year’s End of Year Ball in Leeds, with them providing us with no less than two private rooms – one for the reception and one for the dinner. As a bonus my fish came as an entire fish too.