Gourmet ou Gourmand?

After a couple of beers in the Village after work on Friday I met up with SB on Threadneedle Street at 19:20.

I was twenty minutes late but considering I didn't leave the bar inside the 'gated community' until 18:40, I made it from Earl's Court to Bank via Holborn in pretty good time.

We headed straight into the restaurant and were shown to a nice table for two.  There were four or five tables already occupied but over the course of the meal the place filled up and by the end of the meal it was pretty much full.

The restaurant is on the ground floor of the old London Stock Exchange with the entrance on the passage way between the redesigned LSE building and DTZ's 125 Old Broad Street office.  Handy for lunches when you're in the City eh SB!


Rather than describe the interior, here is a photo from the website:

On the walls there is a poem by Jean de la Fontaine called Le Corbeau et le Renard, the Crow and the Fox.  The crow has a cheese in its beak which the fox wants so the fox flatters the crow who goes to speak, well crow I suppose, and drops the cheese.  SB was quite impressed when I said it's like someone saying that your phone is nice, you letting them have a look at it and then them running off with it!  (Over-)proud iPhone owners beware!

Whenever we go to France we HAVE to bring back some Rillettes de Mans, shredded pork that is made into a paste, similar to pâté.  It was on the menu so it was no surprise when SB chose this for her starter.  I had a sausage salad from the specials board.

For the main we both had a 10oz steak, (gourmand?!?) with SB having a dark chocolate slice and me a rhubarb and custard cup for desert.  Pretty good value for £52 I think :)

We didn't go to Abacus.  Instead we headed back to the Bush and had a pint in The Green.  Not one of the most salubrious boozers in W12 but it serves a decent pint of Kronenbourg and doesn't have twats on the door (or inside) like the 'tarted up boozer' across the road.

Grubs Up!

I'd not been to the City for well over a year and like buses two, in this instance visits, have come at once.

Yesterday morning I was at a client site by Southwark Bridge installing an update to the GIS system they take from us here at CACI Towers and tonight I'm off to the new Brasserire Blanc that is opening up on Threadneedle Street.

SB works for DTZ who have an office on Old Broad Street, next to latest addition to the Raymond Blanc empire, and a couple of weeks ago she received an E-mail giving staff the opportunity to have a sneak peak of the new place and get 50% off the total bill.  RESULT :)

Might see if SB wants to pop into Abacus after the meal to see what the City's most celebrated meat market is up to.  It made for pretty interesting viewing last time I was in there with Gabs and Londra ;)

Failing that I might be able to taunt a few of the eastenders who will surely be heading down to TW8 tomorrow afternoon watch Leyton Orient pit their wits against the Bees.