Happy Birthday Mother, hip hip hooray!
So, we like to celebrate our birthdays in this family by having dinner together. This year, the brother, sister in law and myself were trying to decide where the celebration for the matriarch's birthday should be. We thought of a few places and the brother made a reservation at Les Deux Salons. This is the new venture from the folks behind Wild Honey and Arbutus, and much has been written about the decor and service and food, both good and not so.
I thought the place is very well done, it reminds me of a brasserie in Brussels rather than France, I'm not sure how to qualify that, just that it is so. We had a drink at the bar while we waited for the sister in law and the table. A lovely copper topped bar it is - I wonder how hard wearing that would be for counter tops? - and I opted for a negroni, something of a like of mine, and it was delicious. We went over to the table and set to perusing the menu in between conversations.
We picked our meals and had ravioli of rosé veal with goats curd - very tasty, slightly over powered by the sticky sauce - herefordshire snail and bacon pie - surprisingly delicious and tender- warm salt cod brandade, sauté of young squid and parsley cromesqui - a wonderful mix of flavour and texture and the intense green of the parsley - and a winter salad of pears and manchego -the pears were both fresh and cooked and delightfully offset by the salty crunch of the cheese.
The starters all went down well and we were excited for the next course. And we kept the excitement for a while, and a bit longer but after a twenty minute wait with dirty dishes in front of us, we were starting to lose the atmosphere. It wasn't as if we were off in an arctic corner of the dining room, there were runners, waiters and servers all going past at all points and even the maitre d came and stood next to us for a few minutes, but we still had to wait another ten minutes to have our plates cleared - without an apology for a delay...
On to mains, we had slow cooked ox cheeks with parsnip puree and they were deep, sticky, intense and accompanied by the best parsnip puree I've had in a long time (I think it could be to do with the butter to parsnip ratio, 2:1?). There was an Elwy Valley lamb barnsley chop - yummy and scrunchy. Mother had calf's liver and greens, and not being a fan, I didn't taste, but she pronounced it delicious. There was also roast rabbit with winter vegetables and chorizo and this was also very tasty, when bunny is on the menu, it must be eaten.
We did have desserts, the paris brest was delightful and light and reminded one of the stunning patisserie displays. We also shared the rhum baba - a lighter than expected cake, soaked in syrup with some fresh pineapple and then a shot of havana club dark rum poured over the top - thank goodness no one was driving!
All in all, the food was all tasty and well made and presented. The restaurant was very nice and the staff friendly but service was haphazard at best. I'm reminded just how nice Arbutus is and, it seems, more reliable and a better bet. Maybe we'll give them another go though so that this was a one off mistake rather than the norm,
