Thursday, 15 July 2010

The Royal Institute, London

Now, this may be a little strange, but recently I attended a wedding here, and the food was so good, that I felt I had to write about it.  It was a late afternoon wedding so there was the ceremony, then drinks and canapes and then the meal, with no extra guests turning up later or an evening buffet.  Unconventional, but worked really well.  

The canapes were plentiful and good quality, there was many of them so I hope I remember them all.  There were miniature beef wellingtons (crispy pastry, juicy meat, yummy yummy yummy), individual baskets of fish and chips (so cute!), mozzarella and cherry tomato and basil kebabs (refreshing), tempura vegetables (great batter, and tasty dip), mushroom tartlets (didn't like these, not sure what was in them (apart from mushroom obviously)), some sort of meat (I think lamb) covered in some sort of green stuff (I think pea) (way more delicious than it sounds), smoked salmon rolly things (I'm not a smoked salmon fan).  I think that's all of them, my favourites were the wellingtons and the fish and chips.  

As there were so many canapes, I was worried that I wouldn't be able to fit dinner in, but luckily they'd gone for speeches before dinner, so I had time to regain my appetite.  And I'm glad I did! The starter was goose liver on cherry mash with a truffle jus.  We had two empty seats at our table, but we told the waiter so they didn't put the starters down and that was a big mistake, I could have easily eaten three of these, the liver was melt in your mouth good, and the mash and jus went with it perfectly.  

The main was beef fillet steak on a bed of artichokes.  I'd never had artichokes before, and I think they went well and provided a good potato substitute for the dish.  The quality of the beef was excellent and I enjoyed every bite.  

The dessert was a mandarin and mango jelly, with some small doughnuts and Earl Grey ice cream (there were posher names for all of these things, but the menu is at home so I can't share them).  I don't drink tea so I offloaded my ice cream on someone else (after trying it of course) and took their jelly in return.  The doughnuts were great, and the jelly was properly wobbly as good jellies should be (I spent ages just wobbling my plate - oh the fun!).  I really enjoyed the taste of the jelly, and thought there was a good amount of fruit in it.

By this time I was thoroughly stuffed! Such great food, lovely company, and a wonderful wedding - I hope their marriage is as good as their food was!

1 comment:

PocketGenius said...

The doughnuts were called beignets :)