Lunch at Silver Apples on Orchard Street.

Lunch at Silver Apples on Burton Road in West Didsbury., originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

We popped out for a quick local lunch with a photographer friend who had delivered to beautiful prints which we'd bought at his latest exhibition.

This was our first visit to Silver Apples and it was very nice indeed. It's lovely and eclectic inside with all sorts of retro posters, photos and books all over the place. There's a mix of furniture with sofas and an upright piano as well. There isn't a menu as such rather a range of blackboards dotted around with lists of sandwiches, salads, pies, hot chocolates and milkshakes.

I had the bagel which you see in the photograph which was healthily stuffed with smoked salmon and cream cheese with a little salad. It was very nice but could have done with a bit of a dose of lemon juice. I couldn't be bothered to ask for some, so my fault really.

The boys had Pieminster pies, one chicken and one minty lamb with a good dollop of mash and mushy peas. We didn't have time for pudding, but there's a very tempting display of home made cakes which may result in a return visit.

Silver Apples on Orchard Street.
Burton Road (corner of Orchard Street)
West Didsbury
Manchester
M20 2LW
Tel: 0161 445 3130

Chinese Feast.

Tea Anyone

By Fffflowers

I love this Treasury from Fffflowers who's based just up the road from me in Wirral, there are some great items here;  I'm particularly fond of the clothes brush, it's such a lovely old fashioned piece.

We've had another epic meal today, which, thank goodness, I wasn't cooking.  There were 30 of us, all Peter's family plus my parents, for a massive Chinese feast at Glamorous a huge Hong Kong style restaurant in Manchester, all neon, fiber optics and gold.  They have dim sum trolleys circulating and a seemingly never ending range of little steamed and fried morsels.  We were there for hours and finished up with a little light shopping the Wing Yip supermarket below (choi sum, pandan leaves, jasmine tea, chillies for the freezer and sweet chilli sauce).  Then all back to ours for tea and my Christmas day chocolate and chestnut terrine which has almost gone now.  Now we're in front of the telly and I have a stiff g&t in my hand.

Lunch at The Knustford Wine Bar

The Knutsford Wine Bar is one of those local, small town restaurants which seems to have been there forever but never seems to change, which in this case is a good thing. I've been eating there on and off for fifteen years, less in recent times, but it's always been a good bet for a good meal and nice atmosphere. The building was a Century Chapel in the 14th and then a Parish Church, and is full of atmosphere with a lovely big open fire. The ambient temperature is always a bit odd in there as you can get the most awful drafts if you sit just on the edge of the balcony on the ground floor or you can be baked by the fire, but in my experience, if you take a range of clothing. We were sitting sort of behind the door, sort of near the fire and sort of in the vicious updraft area near the end of the balcony, so it was hot/cold/hot/cold.....

Anyway, we were to meet four friends who we don't see nearly enough of for a catch up on the last six months' goings one and they chose the venue.

Our oven and hob had packed up on the Tuesday before and I was very fed up of eating out and eating cold bought stuff from the supermarkets, so I was really looking forward to some good hot food and plenty of crisp green veg.

Here's what I had.

King Prawn Cocktail with crayfish, avocado, sweet peppers and lemon £7.95

This certainly looked the part with the two nicely sized prawns which tasted of pretty much nothing and had the texture of defrosted seafood, you know, that sort of soft slightly spongy mouth feel. The avocado guacamole thing was tasty if messy and the sweet peppers were okay, if nothing special. There was tons of chilled and crisp iceberg lettuce but all the dressing had dribbled down to the bottom of the glass so there was a vague essence of Marie-rose sauce throughout, but a puddle of it below. With some careful salad tossing, I was able to distribute it a bit better. Marie-rose sauce really should be thick and have a bit of cling. Some nice soft but crusty French bread to dip would have been good. But despite my complaints (here, not there), I did enjoy it.

 
Gressingham duck breast with braised lentils, creamed haricot beans, baby onions and orange gremolata - £15.50

This was much more successful. I did ask for the duck to be pink and it wasn't but it was very tender and tasty, so I restrained myself from sending it back. I was too hungry to fuss. The creamed beans were delicious and really creamy, I'm assuming that there was cream added to them and it made a nice change from potato. I always love Puy style lentils and these were good, rich and meaty and the carrots and onions were nice but not particularly exciting. A very nice Sunday lunch main course.
 

 
Chocolate Fondue (perfect for sharing!) - chocolate chip cookies, warm sugared doughnuts, honeycomb, fruit skewers and chocolate brownie and warm chocolate dipping sauce - £9.75

This was Peter's idea......It sort of worked, the chocolate was nice, but far too shallow in it's pot to really dip into, there were no spoons for extra greedy spooning, the honeycomb was so sticky as to be almost inedible, the brownies were yummy, the chocolate chip cookies were shortbread and the fruit skewers were feeble - orange and grape - who wants to dip orange and grape into chocolate? Where were the lovely big strawberries and pineapple? So a sort of fun pudding, but we'd have been better off with some cheese I suspect.

 I've moaned about the food a bit, but there weren't any major horrors, just my normal low level complaints. I didn't get my crisp green veg, just some rather over steamed broccoli as a side dish. Despite this, we had a very enjoyable time with our friends and I'm sure we'll be back again.

Excess

The excesses of the season have finally kicked in. Friday was our 'office' lunch at Carluccio's which was rather nice and not a slice of overcooked turkey in sight! We had friends round on Saturday night and I cooked smoked gammon for the very first time (boiled then glazed and roast) and it was utterly delicious, and I'll definitely do it again. 

Sunday was our annual champagne and lobster lunch with friends, they put on a magnificent spread of lobster, crab, prawns, smoked salmon, gravadlax, assorted mayonnaise, sour dough bread, caviar with vodka, then a salad course, then prune and Armagnac tart, mince pies and chocolates. All washed down with indecent amounts of Champagne (2 magnums) and a healthy selection of the six bottles of Prosecco my mother supplied. It was splendid. I was very glad indeed to get to the gym this morning to undo a little of the damage!

Bicycle!Bicycle!Bicycle

by Jan Morales Photography

And there was also a Treasury West by Jan featuring my Mansion House print. Thanks Jan!

The Children are Overstimulated
by Jan Morales Photography

Late Sunday Lunch at Carluccio's, Manchester

I've felt faintly guilty that since I changed the name of this relatively new blog to reflect my passion for food, I've made not one single foodie post.....and that includes all of the delicious food we ate in Japan.

So I'm starting now, but not with Japan!

We were away for the weekend in Morecambe for a wedding at the newly refurbished and restored Midland Hotel and by the time we arrived back in Manchester the afternoon after the main event, we were famished and I knew that there was nothing at all in the fridge to make a meal with - and when I say that, there really isn't as I am the self-confessed queen of making a meal out of nothing. We decided to go to our favourite Indian cafe, Al Faisal's for some of their delicious chicken tikka and the usual accompaniments of chick peas, rice, salad and some grilled minced lamb, but that area of town is currently in disarray due to the roads being dug up. By the time the traffic let us through, the shutters had just gone down. So we had to start again in our aim to eat. Carluccio's was our next prospect and we planned to meet our chum Adam there to have a gossip. Eventually we arrived about an hour after arriving in Manchester and we were suitably famished.

I've a funny relationship with Carluccio's, I think the stuff they sell in the shop is really good and great quality adn their deli counter is wonderful, but I'm always somewhat dissapointed with the menu, I've never quite put my finger on it, but that's the way it is.

Peter and I ordered the following to share as a starter:

Antipasto di Verdure £9.95

Roasted halved peppers filled with pesto, fresh green bean salad with mint, caponata, oven-roasted tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella.

It was mostly very nice, the caponata was deliciously rich, the pesto in the peppers was lovely (Carluccio's pesto is the only shop bought one I ever buy, it's really very good indeed), the green beans were a bit of a non event with tasteless mint, there were a few massive caperberries which is always a good thing and some very nice olives. Served with two dry slices of ciabatta. It was a just what we wanted and fairly filling.

It's the main course I have trouble chosing at these restaurants, I often find the pasta dishes dull and tastless, the risottos are generally okay but far to big, rich and calorific for my liking, so I often rely on the specials as I did on this occasion.

Saltimbocca di Pollo £9.95
Chicken Breast Wrapped in Parma Ham served with Pesto Potatoes and Rocket.

I really don't like Parma ham but I decided no to ask them to cook the dish without as I really wasn't in the mood for a battle and I suspect that they wouldn't have done it very graciously so I just hoped that it would taste like bacon. It didn't taste like bacon, but had the very piggy taste I dislike about so many 'premium' hams, but it didn't really spoil the dish for me as the chicken was very good. Tender, tasty and plentiful served with perfectly cooked waxy potatoes with just a hint of pesto - I'd have liked more of that but then I can eat vast amounts of the green goo. The hot, wilted rocket was a surprise as I had been expecting a salad, it was much better than a salad as it soaked up the very abundant winey, buttery sauce very well indeed.

Overall it was a good meal when we were really in need of one, satisfying, pretty enough for me to want to take photos of it, reasonably priced and we'll inevitably go back as it's on our local circuit. Oh, the service was nice and relaxed and friendly too.

Carluccio’s
3 Hardman Square,
Manchester,
M3 3EB
Tel. 0161 839 0623

El Bulli, Roses, Spain.

This was, as you can imagine, a totally epic experience. We flew from Liverpool to Barcelona,stayed one night in Barcelona and then travelled the following evening in a rather nice chauffeur driven Mercedes for about 2 hours (the car waited to take us back to Barcelona when we had finished) up the cost to the town of Roses to collect our friends, J&M who had flown in from London earlier that day. From there we drove up and up and round and round some stunningly precipitous roads with amazing views with anticipation building like you wouldn't imagine. Eventually we arrived at our Mecca. El Bulli is a pretty low lying stone building with traditional influences, but it is unmistakably something modern and special. It nestles in a tiny bay backed by pine trees and mountains with the sea lapping at its front.

We were first shown the kitchen which was more like a laboratory than any kitchen I have ever seen, it was silent with dozens of white coated chefs, men and women busily creating their little mysteries. Ferran Adria was there, and M managed to pose for a photo with him - another celebrity portrait for her collection! We were in there for a while and it helped to fuel the anticipation to a fever pitch, we were desperate to get started.

We were led outside to a very pretty 'patio' area overlooking the sea for the first of our many starter dishes. . We started off in style with a ‘welcome aperitif’ which was a cocktail made with Caipirinha, lemon juice and liquid nitrogen! The nitrogen was poured into the mixing bowl with the liquor and juice and stirred and stirred until everything was frozen to a silken slush and then decanted into cut limes.
After this all twenty of these dishes were totally outstanding. The highlights for me were the Spherical Olives which aren’t olives at all, but an incredibly thin membrane of olive coloured something which explodes in the mouth with a gush of olive and garlicky deliciousness. The Knots of Yoghurt were truly bizarre and wonderful; they really were knots of yoghurt with a kind of outer skin which bursts in the mouth with a rush of mozzarella flavoured liquid with a basil leaf.

It was a shame when we were taken inside, as it was pretty perfect outside, but I suppose a more formal atmosphere was necessary for the next session. We proceeded to have thirteen dishes which were followed by ‘Morphings’ which were a stream of puddings.

The food was not surprisingly, sublime, even the things I didn’t like (monkfish livers, oysters, lamb brains, warm walnuts) were all things that I don’t like anyway, but I chose to try (with the exception of the walnuts which were really odd). The predominately vegetarian dishes were by far the best – who’d have thought that El Bulli would turn out to be a vegetarian restaurant! We were very surprised that there was no meat at all, although M had an alternate dish to the lamb’s brains which was a chicken wing confection which she proclaimed “delicious”. The fish was excellent – mackerel, crab, prawn, mussel, monkfish liver and oyster (so I was told!). I don’t know where snails fit it, but they were fabulous too.

Puddings were great fun and the highlight of these was the Milkshake which came in a closed and sealed polystyrene box. Inside was an aerated, frozen vanilla flavoured foam and next to the box was a small plastic bag containing what looked like earth. The earth was in fact caramelized cinnamon which was for sprinkling onto the milkshake! The result was bizarre, rich, light and delicious. We scraped our boxes clean. After all the puds we had a totally unbelievable pudding wine – Olivares 2001 by Bodegas Oliveras @ Jumilla, it was dark, dark red and tasted of intense blackcurrents.

I feel I should mention the wines - J chose the wine from an epic wine list, wine is his forte, so to say that he was content to choose is the understatement of the year, he selected for us a stunning range of Spanish wines. Our first was Chivite Collection 125 Aniversario 2001 by Julian Chivite @ Navarra – we had two bottles of this, followed by Finca Dofi 1994 by Alvaro Palacios @ Priorat and Pagos Viejos 1998 by Artadi-Cosecheros Alaveses from Rioja.

Overall the verdict was that it fulfilled our inflated expectations, we had a ball and didn’t regret the hassle, expense and the general performance of getting there!

J&M who have eaten in comparable restaurants several times said that this was without a doubt the best of the Molecular Cookery type establishments, beating the Fat Duck hands down and even beating Marc Veyrat, although he has the advantage of cooking red meat to die for apparently. His restaurant is next on our wish list.

We felt very lucky indeed to be there at all as it is the most oversubscribed restaurant in the world with 500,000 people chasing just 8,000 places and of course, incredibly grateful to our friends J&M who asked us to share the experience with them!

What did it cost?
Return flights to Barcelona
Two days car parking at Liverpool Airport
Two nights in a Barcelona Hotel
Chauffeur driven Mercedes for 4 hours driving and 5 hours waiting for us.
Supper for the previous night (also fantastic in a totally different way, report on that later)
El Bulli itself – food and wine.

Answer
Worth every penny!

I’ll list here the few things (from the outside starters part of the meal) which escaped my camera:
Carrot ribbons – verbena, ginger and liquorice.
Black olives “oreo” with bitter cream.
Mango disc and black olive.

I haven’t posted all of the pictures here as there are far too many, but you will find them here on my Flickr page. Enjoy!

The Fat Duck, Bray

This meal was part two of our ‘eating the best’ challenge. We were with the same friends who miraculously managed to score a table at El Bulli, the Holy Grail for lovers of fine food everywhere.

We arrived in Bray with perfect timing, just as our friends arrived from Central London, so we were off to a good start. The restaurant is seriously subtle from the outside, just the fabulous logo on a hanging sign. The inside is low ceilinged with beams and really bad abstract paintings in yellows, blues and greens. The place was packed, not bad for a Thursday night.

There were some pretty ordinary but tasty green olives on the table and then no sign of any food for an hour, by which time we had polished off one bottle of stunning Chardonnay and were frankly getting a bit peckish - a bit of bread would have been nice. We questioned the lack of food and were fobbed off with a lame excuse along the lines of "We were waiting for you to choose your wine" which really doesn't make sense as we were all having the tasting menu which is set, apart from a few substitutions and we had ordered and drunk our first bottle. The boys wanted to add one of the A la Carte dishes to their experience, so after a bit of negotiation with the very helpful staff, it was included for them. Perhaps this little deviation from the Fat Duck norm is what really slowed the process down?

Eventually the food started to arrive (we were onto our second bottle of wine by then), the first series of dishes were the appetisers:

The starters

NITRO-GREEN TEA AND LIME MOUSSE


Little frozen nuggets which we were told to eat in one mouthful, lovely silky texture on the outside and runny on the inside. The lime was by far the dominant flavour. No way near as impressive as the El Bulli nitrogen performance.

OYSTER, PASSION FRUIT JELLY


I am no fan of oysters, but this was delicious. Or rather the passion fruit jelly was delicious. The oyster was like oyster.

HORSERADISH CREAM, LAVENDER POMMERY GRAIN MUSTARD ICE CREAM RED CABBAGE GAZPACHO


This was stunning; the mustard made a delicious and beautifully textured ice cream and the gazpacho was a revelation.

JELLY OF QUAIL, LANGOUSTINE CREAM, PARFAIT OF FOIE GRAS


I think that this was my favourite dish on the entire menu. Which is odd as I have only very recently come to eat foie gras and I have a bit of a problem with savoury jellies – it’s a texture thing. The delicate little quenelle of foie gras was delicious, it was sitting on a pale and creamy langoustine cream which broke into dark brown and vibrant green once you dug in to the bowl. Visually stunning and delicious

Then came the main courses

SNAIL PORRIDGE - Jabugo Ham, shaved fennel


The infamous Snail Porridge……I saw this being made on BBC2’s Full on Food a couple of weeks ago, and it looked much nicer than this one did. The snails were much bigger and plumper and were sitting proudly on top of the porridge (perhaps bigger and plumper snails aren’t such a good thing?). Despite this, the porridge was delicious, really herby and I must say that the snails didn’t really taste of much at all. Somewhat overrated. (recipe here, if you feel so inclined!)

ROAST FOIE GRAS - Almond fluid gel, cherry and chamomile


Delicious – I seem to be developing a bit of a taste for Foie Gras! The almonds on this dish were fabulous, really fresh, waxy and crunchy. Almonds were used quite often in the El Bulli meal too – must be a seasonal thing.

SARDINE ON TOAST SORBET - Ballotine of mackerel ‘invertebrate’, marinated daikon


This is the one dish I didn’t have – I can’t stand sardines. The others liked it though.

Substitute dish – FENNEL VELOUTE


Fabulously delicate creamy soup which had an oyster lurking in the depths. Very nice indeed. Much nicer than sardines!

SALMON POACHED WITH LIQUORICE - Asparagus, pink grapefruit, "Manni" olive oil


The salmon was perfectly cooked, very rare and as soft as butter. The liquorice was a jelly-like wrapping around the salmon, dark and glossy and tasting of liquorice root, rather than liquorice sweets. I wasn’t too keen on that. The pink grapefruit complemented it perfectly, and you can never go wrong with asparagus.

POACHED BREAST OF ANJOU PIGEON PANCETTA - Pastilla of its leg, pistachio, cocoa and quatre épices


This was very gamy, very strong, especially the leg. The tiny little leg. The last time I had pastilla (shredded pigeon layered with filo pastry, pistachio nuts and icing sugar and cinnamon), we were in a palace in Marrakech sitting in an outrageous room scattered with rose petals. So it had a lot to beat! This little samosa shaped pastilla didn’t do too badly, a bit more pigeon and a little less deep fried pastry would have been a better ratio. The overall effect of the dish was very very rich and tasty.

Lasagne of Langoustine, with Pig's Trotter and Truffles.


This is the course which the boys wanted from the a la carte menu, the girls paused for breath while they inhaled this rather interesting little offering. Actually I did have a taste and it was beautiful, really melt in the mouth tender, sweet and powerful. Strange and interesting but still tasty.

WHITE CHOCOLATE AND CAVIAR


Delicious chocolate and salty caviar which worked rather well. But then sweet and salt always do.

MRS MARSHALL’S MARGARET CORNET


Fabulously whimsical and very pretty, the crystallised rose petals were divine.

PINE SHERBET FOUNTAIN


Very witty– the dipper was a vanilla pod. It bought back lots of warm fluffy childhood memories.

MANGO AND D0UGLAS FIR PUREE - Bavarois of lychee and mango, blackcurrant sorbet


I have no recollection of the bavarois at all, but recall the sorbet as being about as perfect as a blackcurrant sorbet can be. A big bowl of it would have been nice! Or perhaps some in another Mrs Marshall's Margaret Cornet would be more appropriate.

CARROT AND ORANGE TUILE


A really intense burst of orange, a bit like the Middle Eastern apricot leather but much thinner and crisper.

SMOKED BACON AND EGG ICE CREAM - Pain perdu, tea jelly


Out of all the very strange things I have eaten in the last two weeks, I think this was the strangest, and it was just wrong. Weird for the sake of being weird and slightly disturbing. Mind you, the tea jelly was fantastic.

PARSNIP CONFLAKES WITH PARSNIP MILK


Fabulous packaging, very amusing. The little white flakes were intensely parsnippy and I quite liked them as a gimmick, but I couldn’t face the parsnip milk. The others said it was tasty.

The verdict

A really enjoyable meal, Heston Blumenthal can certainly cook (and in the tiniest kitchen I have ever seen, even by domestic standards). Many of the combinations did seem to be gratuitously odd, but most of them worked with aplomb, some didn’t i.e Bacon and Egg Ice Cream but perhaps that was just me. The service was excellent (apart from my long awaited bread being put on the side plate to my right – the waitress said she was new…..) and the dishes we didn’t fancy were substituted with good grace, M changed four of hers and they smiled graciously even at that! The sommelier (I was reliably informed, that he knew his stuff) and he recommended one bottle out of the four which we greedily enjoyed as well as the glasses of Tokaji with our puddings.

How did it compare to El Bulli? I liked the fact that the main courses here were more substantial so that you could taste a bit more of some of the lovely ingredients (for example the salmon and the second foie gras dish). The packaged puddings were very clever, but so was the El Bulli milkshake, this also tasted divine, much more delicious than sherbet and parsnip cornflakes could ever taste. The sheer cleverness of El Bulli is unbeatable; many of the dishes there left us with smiles on our faces whereas The Fat Duck seems to take itself a bit too seriously. Perhaps the Spanish/British character difference. Bray is one hell of a lot easier to get to than Roses, but that’s neither here nor there really – I’d rather fly to Spain than drive down the M6 and M40 after work.

This makes it sounds like I didn’t really enjoy the Best Restaurant in the World and that would be misleading – it was great. I have been unbelievably lucky to eat at both of these restaurants within two weeks of each other and deciding between them is pretty hard, but I think that for me El Bulli must come out on top.

We will go back to The Fat Duck as I would love to choose from the A la Carte menu, in fact we could go any time we like – because we can, it is only three hours drive away. Chances are that we will never go to El Bulli again; it took four years to get there this time……a true one in a lifetime experience.

If you click on any of the photos, you'll go straight through to my Flickr site where the pictures can be viewed bigger with some more comments. Enjoy and please let me know what you think!

High Street, Bray, Berkshire, SL6 2AQ

Okay, I feel I should write about my recent lunch at Rick Stein's The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow

The restaurant is at the edge of the village (but still in it) just in front of the harbour - there is a car park between them, but hype and expectation filters it out! The main room is not too large, nice and light with fantastic mirrors on the walls and a really interesting selection of paintings. Anyway, enough of the interior design and on to the food.

There were six of us, as Peter had very generously invited his Devon-Relatives to dine with us, which didn't score him many brownie points with me it has to be said. So, the food - it's a really good menu with masses of interesting choices, all fish.

fish & shellfish soup with rouille & parmesan £11.50
This came in a big white tureen as two others had it as well. The flavour was pretty strong, I could taste the crabs in the stock which almost makes it meaty. The rouille was delicious, quite hot and lovely and garlicky, the croutes were a good size and crispy enough so they didn't go soggy too fast (I hate wet bread, I'm not one of nature's dunkers) the parmesan was a bit mean between three of us.....and for the money.

Skate with black butter & capers £25
I had never had skate before, no particular reason, I just always thought it seemed a bit odd. But it was delicious, the flesh comes away from the cartilaginous wing really easily and was really soft and quite dense and there was plenty of it. The black butter sauce smelled totally delicious and reminded me of freshly baked biscuits for some reason. The capers were the little tiny ones, which explode with flavour and offset the sweet butteryness really well. Veg came in little dishes - potatoes, which I didn't bother with and courgettes; again I thought this was a bit mean and some more green veg would have been very welcome.
Peter had monkfish vindaloo!!

hot chocolate fondant with a melting soft centre with vanilla ice cream £8.50
When this pudding is done well, it's the nearest thing to pudding heaven. Two of us were in heaven that afternoon. It was just right with a really thin sponge outer casing and masses of really smooth, dark chocolate sauce just ready to ooze out over the vanilla ice-cream. I didn't share any at all ;-)

Overall Impression
Fish soup - good but have had better, and hotter.
Skate - interesting and enjoyable, I'll have it again.
Pud - divine!

It's a fiercely expensive restaurant, (a recent lunch at Claridges was £450 for four of us with a bottle of champagne, a bottle of £60 wine and pudding wine) The total here for six was £350 with one (cheap) bottle of wine (chosen by Peter's mean brother!) and one glass of champagne (me, of course!). So I felt that we got much more for our dosh at Claridges, and it was more of an experience in the whole with the fantastic and friendly service and the busy buzz of a London Hotel. Stein's had no buzz, because the season had not started, the service was spot on but very impersonal so it's hard to define why it didn't feel perfect. Also the man himself wasn't there, and I imagine that the atmosphere is very different when he is! Don't get me wrong, I had a great time, really enjoyed it, I'm just pondering about the value of expensive 'destination' restaurants.


(this review has been posted in October 2007, as I thought that a visit to one of the UK's premier restaurants should be noted here.....I was in Padstow again recently and the prices are still astronomical with the average main course at £28 and the place was packed out. We ate at Rick Stein's Cafe in the back streets of the town and it was charming, excellent and very friendly service. Still not cheap, but worth every pound!)