It seems that both Simon and I dodged a bullet when we moved the date of this meet up on by a week.
I explained my near miss in my 8 August write up of the Janie and Ian anniversary dinner at the Chelsea Physic Garden. Simon explained his by message:
on Tuesday 8th August, about half way through the evening, I went from ‘absolutely fine’ to ‘really not fine at all’ and I had to go to bed with no story. And today I’m properly better after the nastiest bout of ‘flu I’ve had in many a long year. This was proper delirious flu – unable to even think of getting out of bed… So there were many reasons why 8th August was not the right night for us to meet!
Having been brought up to think of others before myself in times of crisis, I responded with all the altruistic empathy my soul could muster:
OMG I might have caught the lurgy from you and then where would I have been?…I mean, poor old you, that must have been awful for you, my first and only thought is for your welfare.
Anyway, we settled on Fulham for the venue and I provided Simon with a shortlist of two possible venues; he chose Manuka Kitchen (a place neither of us had tried before), narrowly ahead of Claude’s Kitchen (where I had dined previously, as reported on this here link).
Good choice, Simon.
Despite his recent indisposition, Simon was completely better by the following Tuesday and in good form. He arrived a tad early and even I beat the 19:30 clock by about one minute – almost unheard of.
Here is a link to the Manuka Kitchen dinner menu…
…but of course that might have changed by the time you read this, so I have scraped the menu we enjoyed – click here.
Simon enjoyed the hand cured smoked salmon starter, while I tried the crispy squid. Simon went for the Bavette steak while I went for the Cod with fregula…
…what do you mean, you don’t know what fregula is? Surely everyone knows what fregula is!
For desert, we were persuaded to try the signature peanut butter, chocolate and pretzel tart, which we cut in half to share, along with a plate of presumably also-signature bitter chocolate and manuka honey truffles. While these desserts sound especially yummy by description, they were, in fact, incredibly yummy.
We chatted about all sorts, not least the recent correspondence out of the blue, via Ogblog, with Jon Gorvett – Ogblog really does have its practical uses you know!
Always an enjoyable evening with Simon; let’s hope for both of our sakes that, next time, we get the date right first time.