jack

For my birthday Liv and I went to alimentum. We weren't sure, but our first thought was closed, and we'd said we'd like to try alimentum again at some point. I'm really glad we did, it was a really nice evening!

I didn't live blog the food, but I did take notes :) I'm sure I didn't look like a restaurant critic (in my frilly red larp shirt) but I guess there's no harm if I did.

Olives and very nice bread.

Amuse bouche, potato and something soup, extremely tasty, different and interesting than usual potato soup.

Caramelised Beetroot, goat's cheese, and lovage (apparently). And granola which wasn't mentioned, but was one of my favourites. The caramelised beetroot was really good! I don't usually like beetroot especially, but this version was really good.

Turnip, apple and maple something. This was good; I liked the combination of everything more than each part which is the point. The sauce was very good, I mopped up all I could.

Roasted cauliflower, and some other things. This was really good -- I've always somewhat liked cauliflower, but thought of it as a fairly neutral food. The roasted version was excellent.

And mushroom risotto turned up to 12. With, um, pasta risotto? And fancy mushrooms? And anyway, if anything it smelled even better than it tasted but it was really good.

And three deserts plus chocolates/sweets. Which were also really good but I didn't have a lot to say about. The gin and tonic sorbet was really good (and I don't like liquid gin and tonic much). The battenberg mirrored the presentation of the beetroot dish earlier (I think?)

Ironically, when I eat a fancier meal, I find myself more strewing crumbs everywhere. I think just because there's more different bits going on.

Lots of the dishes definitely did "these parts are ok, or not something I'm a big fan off, but they did something really good with them". Which I guess is a lot of the point!

I don't think I'd choose an £80 meal over two £40 meals. But I'd rather have two £40 meals and one £80 meal than four £40 meals (or two £80 meals). But then I guess, if the prices were swapped, I might pay £80 for the £40 meal at least sometimes if it was the only way to get it -- I appreciate the variety, and if the £80 meal is more expensive to produce, it's worth paying to get it.

I've really only drank two sorts of apple juice. Juice that comes in cartons like typical orange juice and might be described as standard. And Coton Orchard (Cox's?) apple juice as supplied from Trinity College, which is really wonderful. The question is, does anyone regularly drink nice apple juice and if so which? I am completely ignorant of whether Coton Apple Juice is typical for nice apple juice, or particularly good.

Of course, I still have fond memories of it from Trinity, and like living within five miles of an orchard, so would like to visit out there one day when I'm cycling anyway.