Good decision
Mar. 3rd, 2020 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liv8 years ago, I married my most wonderful jack, on Leap Day exactly four years after we started dating. So Saturday was our second anniversary. Since our anniversary happens rarely, we felt justified in treating ourselves: we went out for the veggie tasting menu at Midsummer House. Which with two Michelin stars is the fanciest restaurant in Cambridge, and we'd never been.
We could only book the very first sitting of the evening. Which actually worked out well for us, a meal that stretched from 6:30 to about 9:30 was about perfect. Also they have a system of sittings every 15 minutes, which meant that the evening was staggered. Each couple or group got the staff's full attention when they arrived, and the place was never completely packed.
The restaurant itself is an unprepossessing converted domestic house. The decor is nice, but fairly low-key, not particularly memorable. I couldn't really tell you anything about the furniture or the cutlery or the ornaments. The grey walls have some nice canvases by a local artist. They have no background music, which immediately raised the place in my estimation compared to almost anywhere else fancy we've ever eaten.
The service is really friendly, not actually hugely formal as I partly expected. They don't assign a single waiter to a table, just the whole team handled all the guests at once. So nobody was ever left waiting, but there definitely wasn't anyone hovering. Basically the focus was firmly and emphatically on the FOOD.
The tasting menu had eight official courses plus they brought us four bonus things. I liked the food a lot, but there was no one thing that stood out as life-changingly amazing. They were very into truffle, including in some of the sweet courses. The quantity was, well, by the end I was completely stuffed and didn't quite finish the bonus fourth dessert (!) but each course felt like the right amount and it was only because there were a dozen of them that it was verging on too much.
Two amuses-bouche: poached quail eggs served in a nest which emitted smoke somehow. (Actual smoke, not dry ice). And teeny bite-sized mushroom tarts. That started off the meal very well. They followed immediately with a sorbet which I think might have worked better later on as a palate cleanser, but was very delicious, lychee sorbet with grapefruit foam. Then three actual starters, based on Jerusalem artichoke, which I love, the classic combination of goat's cheese and beetroot made interesting by the addition of some fruit, and my favourite dish of the whole evening, a butternut squash ravioli (a single one, I don't know the singular of 'ravioli') with onion sauce, which was very interestingly complemented by sour, crunchy pickled pumpkin.
The one thing that didn't quite work for me was the mix of temperatures. I am generally game for interesting mixes of flavours, sweet and savoury for example, and textures, which this menu did very well. But I am slightly squicked by dishes where ambient temperature food is mixed with unexpected bites of chilled food, or warm food has sudden cold things in. Nothing was piping hot, which I would normally prefer, but I think everything they served worked well warm. Just things like cold vegetables hidden under a warm sauce was a combination I found borderline unpleasant.
The other not quite success was the dish that sat opposite the fish course: a baked stuffed leek. It was tasty, but it was a lot of leek and also I found the vegetable stringy and difficult to eat. After that was another small parcel with root veg, as a bonus course, which was almost too similar to the butternut squash ravioli, but I suppose you could generously look at it as a reprise of the theme.
Opposite the meat course they gave us a celeriac tart, which I was expecting to be a pastry case containing celeriac, but no, the tart was made from a ring of celeriac, sutffed with all kinds of interesting vegetables as well as the somewhat ubiquitous truffle.
The next course was a mystery shot. Mostly sweet, and they asked us to guess the flavours. I guessed spring onion but it was actually chives, but the main ingredient was, of all things, bourbon; we would have sworn it was chocolate, coffee and vanilla. Also cream and egg yolk. Definitely a memorable experience.
Then we had cheeeeeeese. They brought over a giant trolley of exciting cheeses, and we had to choose six small slivers between us. Some seriously amazing red leicester from Sparkenhoe (we made a note of that because we're totally buying some for ourselves), a runny French cheese described accurately as like époisse but slightly less so, some ossau iraty and a couple of interesting goats cheeses.
Desserts were: 1] a chocolate pyramid containing a mixture of white chocolate icecream and guava sorbet, with sesame, chilli and garlic crisps. 2] a seriously amazing concoction of passion fruit and dark chocolate, and 3] just when we thought we'd paced ourselves exactly perfectly and eaten enough food but not too much, two very rich petits fours plus a basket of mini churros with apple sauce. The dark chocolate truffle (in the chocolate sense, no mushroom in this one) with ginger cream was astonishing, but I was really kind of too full to eat it by that point.
We didn't have the appetite for a full wine flight, so we shared a bottle of a very good Sancerre. I don't really have much experience of wines that cost over £50, so I almost always end up going for Loire whites, and the good ones have this amazing property of being 'warm', almost over towards the red side of the spectrum in taste. Also there was English sparkling wine to start the meal, one rosé and one white, and very drinkable; I am not a champagne snob at all, and these were not pretending to be champagne.
I'm slightly scared at spending over £200 each on a meal, which is definitely more expensive than anywhere we've been before. But as a once in several years treat I think it was worth it. I'd never eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant before either.
Anyway, my happiness about being married tojack is still here just like at our first anniversary. The main thing that's got better since then is living together full time since late 2017. We still have our wonderful polycule; they've been part of our lives for more than half our marriage and nearly half our entire relationship. Basically life is good.
Also our anniversary present to each other was a bread machine. So HMU with good bread machine recipes, and particularly recommendations of good flour. We can both eat gluten so normal wheat flour is fine, but I'm never sure what's good for bread machines as opposed to hand made bread.
jack, on Leap Day exactly four years after we started dating. So Saturday was our second anniversary. Since our anniversary happens rarely, we felt justified in treating ourselves: we went out for the veggie tasting menu at Midsummer House. Which with two Michelin stars is the fanciest restaurant in Cambridge, and we'd never been.We could only book the very first sitting of the evening. Which actually worked out well for us, a meal that stretched from 6:30 to about 9:30 was about perfect. Also they have a system of sittings every 15 minutes, which meant that the evening was staggered. Each couple or group got the staff's full attention when they arrived, and the place was never completely packed.
The restaurant itself is an unprepossessing converted domestic house. The decor is nice, but fairly low-key, not particularly memorable. I couldn't really tell you anything about the furniture or the cutlery or the ornaments. The grey walls have some nice canvases by a local artist. They have no background music, which immediately raised the place in my estimation compared to almost anywhere else fancy we've ever eaten.
The service is really friendly, not actually hugely formal as I partly expected. They don't assign a single waiter to a table, just the whole team handled all the guests at once. So nobody was ever left waiting, but there definitely wasn't anyone hovering. Basically the focus was firmly and emphatically on the FOOD.
The tasting menu had eight official courses plus they brought us four bonus things. I liked the food a lot, but there was no one thing that stood out as life-changingly amazing. They were very into truffle, including in some of the sweet courses. The quantity was, well, by the end I was completely stuffed and didn't quite finish the bonus fourth dessert (!) but each course felt like the right amount and it was only because there were a dozen of them that it was verging on too much.
Two amuses-bouche: poached quail eggs served in a nest which emitted smoke somehow. (Actual smoke, not dry ice). And teeny bite-sized mushroom tarts. That started off the meal very well. They followed immediately with a sorbet which I think might have worked better later on as a palate cleanser, but was very delicious, lychee sorbet with grapefruit foam. Then three actual starters, based on Jerusalem artichoke, which I love, the classic combination of goat's cheese and beetroot made interesting by the addition of some fruit, and my favourite dish of the whole evening, a butternut squash ravioli (a single one, I don't know the singular of 'ravioli') with onion sauce, which was very interestingly complemented by sour, crunchy pickled pumpkin.
The one thing that didn't quite work for me was the mix of temperatures. I am generally game for interesting mixes of flavours, sweet and savoury for example, and textures, which this menu did very well. But I am slightly squicked by dishes where ambient temperature food is mixed with unexpected bites of chilled food, or warm food has sudden cold things in. Nothing was piping hot, which I would normally prefer, but I think everything they served worked well warm. Just things like cold vegetables hidden under a warm sauce was a combination I found borderline unpleasant.
The other not quite success was the dish that sat opposite the fish course: a baked stuffed leek. It was tasty, but it was a lot of leek and also I found the vegetable stringy and difficult to eat. After that was another small parcel with root veg, as a bonus course, which was almost too similar to the butternut squash ravioli, but I suppose you could generously look at it as a reprise of the theme.
Opposite the meat course they gave us a celeriac tart, which I was expecting to be a pastry case containing celeriac, but no, the tart was made from a ring of celeriac, sutffed with all kinds of interesting vegetables as well as the somewhat ubiquitous truffle.
The next course was a mystery shot. Mostly sweet, and they asked us to guess the flavours. I guessed spring onion but it was actually chives, but the main ingredient was, of all things, bourbon; we would have sworn it was chocolate, coffee and vanilla. Also cream and egg yolk. Definitely a memorable experience.
Then we had cheeeeeeese. They brought over a giant trolley of exciting cheeses, and we had to choose six small slivers between us. Some seriously amazing red leicester from Sparkenhoe (we made a note of that because we're totally buying some for ourselves), a runny French cheese described accurately as like époisse but slightly less so, some ossau iraty and a couple of interesting goats cheeses.
Desserts were: 1] a chocolate pyramid containing a mixture of white chocolate icecream and guava sorbet, with sesame, chilli and garlic crisps. 2] a seriously amazing concoction of passion fruit and dark chocolate, and 3] just when we thought we'd paced ourselves exactly perfectly and eaten enough food but not too much, two very rich petits fours plus a basket of mini churros with apple sauce. The dark chocolate truffle (in the chocolate sense, no mushroom in this one) with ginger cream was astonishing, but I was really kind of too full to eat it by that point.
We didn't have the appetite for a full wine flight, so we shared a bottle of a very good Sancerre. I don't really have much experience of wines that cost over £50, so I almost always end up going for Loire whites, and the good ones have this amazing property of being 'warm', almost over towards the red side of the spectrum in taste. Also there was English sparkling wine to start the meal, one rosé and one white, and very drinkable; I am not a champagne snob at all, and these were not pretending to be champagne.
I'm slightly scared at spending over £200 each on a meal, which is definitely more expensive than anywhere we've been before. But as a once in several years treat I think it was worth it. I'd never eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant before either.
Anyway, my happiness about being married to
jack is still here just like at our first anniversary. The main thing that's got better since then is living together full time since late 2017. We still have our wonderful polycule; they've been part of our lives for more than half our marriage and nearly half our entire relationship. Basically life is good.Also our anniversary present to each other was a bread machine. So HMU with good bread machine recipes, and particularly recommendations of good flour. We can both eat gluten so normal wheat flour is fine, but I'm never sure what's good for bread machines as opposed to hand made bread.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-03 08:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-03 09:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-03 09:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-03 09:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-03 11:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-03 11:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-04 01:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-04 01:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-04 07:59 am (UTC)I have found that bread machines differ, and it's often better to use the recipes that came with the machine for a bit. But I'm also someone who will just randomly tinker with recipes once I've established that they work.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-04 08:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-04 09:54 am (UTC)For breadmaker recipes, I recommend Clive's cheesybread: http://gerald-duck.dreamwidth.org/299518.html
(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-04 03:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-05 09:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2020-03-06 01:02 pm (UTC)