Happy anniversary to me and Red!

Self-congratulatory, perhaps, but what the heck, eh?

It's 11 years today since we tied the proverbial knot, and we're dining in style, eating at not one but two posh restaurants, greedy pigs that we are.

Why?

Well, because we'd initially tried to book in at our favourite local restaurant for dinner: Read's at Faversham. They were fully booked for both lunch and dinner, so we opted for dinner elsewhere. Then we had a short-notice call to say a cancellation for lunch meant a table was now available if we wanted it. By then we'd already booked dinner and didn't really want to cancel.

Lunch was gorgeous, by the way. I had the terrine of confit chicken followed by beef on a potato rosti and spinach in a red-wine sauce. De-fucking-licious. Red had a salad to start and a main course of chicken wrapped in Parma ham, served on a bed of spinach and with a creamy mushroom sauce and a Mr Whippy-style swirl of mashed potato.

Oh, so heavenly. But given that we are dining out tonight, too, neither of us opted for dessert.

Seconds out, round two... [to be continued]

Birthday dinner

No pictures of my birthday dinner, I'm afraid. It's funny: when we are on holiday abroad, the missus and I almost never feel any shame in whipping out the camera and photographing every course in detail, but here in the UK it just seems so wrong! So we didn't even take the camera out of the house with us. And I'm kind of glad of it, to be honest, because we would have been rather conspicuous.

I knew in advance that the restaurant I/we had chosen was a bit posh. But I thought it was going to be just that: a bit posh. I mean, it's only 7 miles from our house, so how posh could it be, right?

Wrong!

It turns out it was only the second restaurant I've been to in my life where you have to ring a doorbell to gain admission. (The first one, incidentally, was also for my birthday dinner, two years ago, in Rome. Seems I am something of a high-class motherfucker after all, choosing all this fancy shit for my "special day".)

So the door is opened, and we are greeted and allowed in (phew!). Our coats are taken and we're shown to the lounge/bar area and asked what we want to drink. It being a celebration, we chose the Champagne. (To be fair, being Italian-ish, we asked for Prosecco, which is kind of Italian Champagne, but they didn't have it; they informed us that the house Champagne was Pol Roger.) So we has a glass each, and they soon brought us the menus and a little plate of appetizers: olives (yuk), two teeny-weeny cheese on toasts, and a couple of anchovy breadstick things. The cheese on toast was deeelish!

We ordered from the menus next. Red opted for a first course of pumpkin risotto, followed by the steak with (I think) dauphinoise potatoes and parsnips. I chose the first course of Parma ham with caramelized pears, rocket, and Parmesan shavings, followed by the veal escalope with capers and a fried egg on top. (This latter dish should also have anchovies, but I didn't fancy that so had them left off; I also left all the capers.) Side orders of vegetables accompanied the main courses: spinach, roast potatoes, and baby carrots.

But before the first course came, we had another freebie dish, this time a celeriac soup with croutons. The soup was in a teacup, and the croutons were set on a teaspoon on the edge of the saucer! It was really yummy, as was all of the food.

For dessert (cos I just gotta!) I had the clementine cheesecake with a lemon posset (whatever the fuck that is; even the waiter didn't know!) and a citrus sorbet. So kind of like three desserts in one. The cheesecake was DIVINE... the best cheesecake I have ever tasted. So damn light and smooth. Unbelievable!

Man, but this was a posh fucking joint, I tell you. The table of four next to us, which was full of nouveau riche cunts, just kept the Champagne flowing all night. We counted three bottles that they ordered, and at least one of the women didn't seem to be drinking. They were those loud-but-stupid types, y'know. They love for everyone to hear what they're saying, but they don't know what the fuck they are on about.

The one woman had a voice that made you want to strangle her: a real common Kentish accent with a squeaky stupidity added in for good measure. Her partner was a builder from what I could make out. But not like a good, honest, grafting builder; more like one of those builders that owns the business and can sit on his arse all day getting other people to do the manual labour. He sounded more Londony than Kentish, but he was vile, too. He was talking about being at some bloke's house and said, "But, y'know, I don't think he was a poof" at the top of his voice. I'm no prude and that, but I think it's unacceptable to be quite so brazen with your bigoted terminology in a refined environment.

Anyway, that is all by the bye, I suppose, with the exception of Red saying that they kind of spoiled the evening for her. Still, at least we had a good laugh at their expense. And blogged about how fucking vile they were. Ha! Take that, suckers!

It turned out to be the most expensive meal we've ever eaten, and yet we only had three glasses of Champagne between us, in terms of alcoholic beverages. Put it this way, there wasn't much change from £150 between the two of us once the tip was added in. (And we don't do crazy 75 per cent tips, or whatever the new norm is for you guys in the States.)

All in all, though, a very pleasant evening. And it led perfectly into today, which is International Woman's Day. So to all you international women out there (including my very own international woman), have a great eighth of March!