Anniversary dining, part two

So, unfortunately, the second of our intentionally posh meals turned out not to be as posh as we'd hoped, bourgeois cunts that we are.

As we arrived at the hotel, first impressions were not promising. It looked just a little ... yesteryear, shall we say?

Second impressions neither -- being told by the "hostess" that she hadn't been pre-warned of our arrival. Not that it mattered really because seemingly nobody ever comes here.

The venue was a hotel just a couple of minutes' drive from Canterbury town centre, and were it not for the presence of a large table full of people in town for the 14th Lambeth Conference, there would have been just six diners. The quite loud American and Canadian priests and pals on the big table made me feel far more comfortable and less in need of hushed tones.

I ordered the French onion soup to start, followed by the poached chicken breast in a mushroom, cream, and tarragon sauce and served with boiled vegetables. Red had the same main but prefaced it with a salad of Portobello mushrooms and Brie.

The starters were good, the main not bad, though Red couldn't finish hers. I also opted for the chef's "legendary" double-baked cheesecake. Unfortunately the menu did not mention that after being baked twice the cheesecake would then be smothered with sour cream or crème fraîche or yogurt or something equally sour and vile. I scraped all that crap off and ate as much of the pud as I could. And it was not bad, though I would hesitate to call it legendary.

So, all in all a slightly disappointing but serviceable dinner, but it was always going to be impossible to follow our lunch.

No pix from either meal, I'm afraid, cos we just wanted to chill and enjoy our food. So often, anyway, when we take a camera, we are always so eager to eat that we end up forgetting one course or the other, or indeed try reassembling after the first couple of forkfuls in order to take a snap!

Thanks for the well wishes, y'all. Laters!