Birthday Weekend – Dinner
Posted: Thu 10 November, 2016 Filed under: 2016/17, Day Trips, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, London, Reviews(ish), Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »For the birthday weekend, once I’d done Le Manoir on Saturday, I was in London on Sunday for two things – the first of which was lunch at Heston Blumenthal’s “Dinner” restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.
I can’t claim to be a huge fan of Blumenthal, but Dinner is an interesting concept, resurrecting and reinventing meals from previous times/eras, ranging from the 1300s through to early 1940s.
It’s also one of the few places I’ve been to this year that doesn’t do a tasting menu, opting instead for three larger courses.
I had a great meal consisting of
- Roast Scallops (c. 1830) – with cucumber ketchup, roasted cucumber, bergamot and borage
- Chicken cooked with Lettuces (c. 1670) – Grilled onion emulsion, spiced celeriac sauce and oyster leaf, with a side of some of the best mashed potato ever (as recommended by the waiter)
- Tipsy Cake (c. 1810) – fresh-made brioche on a beautiful sauce, with spit-roasted pineapple.
- And finished off with Liquid-Nitrogen ice cream, made at the table, which was a great finale.
There’s also a lot more stuff on the menu that I now really want to try, so I’ll be aiming to return in 2017.
Birthday Weekend – Le Manoir
Posted: Wed 9 November, 2016 Filed under: 2016/17, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Reviews(ish), Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts 4 Comments »As I said earlier this week, for my actual birthday I took myself to Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons for lunch, partly for birthday purposes, partly for the whole solo-dining project.
I grew up close to Le Manoir, and my parents are still close by, so I’ve never been able to justify going there (and particularly staying, which is the best way to book a table well ahead of time) but I did get lucky when it came to booking myself for lunch. They open the bookings for non-residents three months in advance, and I’d called them before lunchtime on August 5th. (That was more about lucky ‘why the hell not’ thoughts and decisions on that day, rather than anything I can claim to be planned)
So it’s fair to say I was looking forward to this one quite a bit. Happily, it lived up to the expectations.
Le Manoir is well known for its garden, where they grow a lot of their own vegetables, fruit and herbs. It’s an impressive setting, and guests are free to have a wander round the garden, either before or after their meal.
I had the November tasting menu, and it was bloody good. It included…
- Roasted Pumpkin and Butternut Squash soup, with a biscotti loaded with pumpkin puree, cashew nuts and Cashel Blue cheese
- Beetroot Terrine (which I’d been recommended to ask for, and managed to get as a complimentary extra course, because Birthday)
- Confit Salmon with Lemon Verbena, Apple Pieces and Apple Puree
- Free-range Hen’s Egg, watercress, ham and toasted hazelnuts
- Quail, beetroot gratin, bulgur wheat and “leaves”
- Comté Cheese, aged 12, 24 and 36 months
- Ravioli of exotic fruits (a mix of exotic fruits under a shell of apricot) with a coconut foam/jus
- Millionaire Shortbread to finish, a soft toffee with bitter chocolate on shortbread, and salted butter ice-cream
It was a fantastic meal, and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Admittedly, it wasn’t in the top three meals I’ve had this year – but some of that is because I’ve massively spoiled myself this year with other places. In any normal year, it would definitely have been one of the best.
Birthday Weekend
Posted: Mon 7 November, 2016 Filed under: 2016/17, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Getting Organised, London, People, Single Life, Solo Dining, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »In general, I don’t really do much on/for my birthday, or surrounding it. Birthdays aren’t something I see as generally important, they are (to me) just another day. I try to recognise them for others and so on, but honestly, I’m not that bothered when it comes to my own.
This year, though, the weekend of my birthday turned out to be a fairly epic one – albeit still not massively social, and more because of the way things worked out, rather than anything else.
The first indicator that it would be a non-standard weekend came a lot earlier in the year, when I discovered that the Royal Albert Hall (RAH) was going to be showing one of my all-time favourite films, Aliens, with the soundtrack being performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I’d have booked it for any damn time of the year, to be honest – but the fact it was being done on the day after my birthday made it even better. So I booked tickets for myself and a friend to see it. Happy day. And really, that would’ve been enough to make it a good day/weekend.
But then same friend suggested we make a day of it, and do a decent lunch before the film. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s some decent places just up the road from the RAH. So he booked a table for us, as well as his wife and son. (Who wouldn’t have let him eat around there without them, all being foodies) Where? Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental hotel. Because? Well, why not?
But both of those were for the day after my birthday. So, with the Solo Dining project in mind as well, I decided to book somewhere for lunch on the actual day. And ended up with a booking at Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, which had been on my list for a while, and was generally regarded as being bloody good.
And that’s what happened.
And you know what? It was bloody good. I’ll write more during the coming week, but safe to say, yeah, it’s been a good weekend. Although today I do feel just a bit broken. Sad, but true.
Booked in Advance
Posted: Thu 20 October, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, 2016/17, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Thoughts Leave a comment »Considering that I’m planning on a quieter year in 2017 without quite so many busy weekends, is it a good or bad thing that I’ve already got two things booked in for September 2017?
And of course, me being me, they’re both on the same weekend.
I suspect I may just be an irredeemable idiot.
EE’s broken payments
Posted: Sun 16 October, 2016 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Finances, Geeky, Technology, Thoughts Leave a comment »As I wrote yesterday, I ended up having some major issues with the cottage’s already-installed 3G Dongle through EE.
Basically, it’s either not been used for a while, or the previous people ran the account into the ground – there’s absolutely no credit or data available on it. That’s OK, you can connect to EE still and add a credit. Or at least you should be able to.
Basically, the device is set up so that it can still connect to ee.co.uk , and that doesn’t come out of the data allowance. All’s well and good. But. Ah, but.
The thing is, when it comes to processing payments, the processing isn’t all done on ee.co.uk. It also goes off to get the 3D secure (also known as “Verified by Visa” or “Mastercard [something]“) from the relevant bank. Only that’s from a different (and thus not-allowed) domain outside of EE, and because there’s no data allowance, the connection is refused, and the credit transaction fails.
All you get to see on screen is “An error occurred” with “Try again”. Which is… unhelpful.
What’s more unhelpful is that EE’s transaction system has pre-authorised the amount you’ve topped up by. So the funds are then locked by your bank. They’ll be released when the transaction doesn’t complete – but it can take two to three working weeks for that to happen, because banks are paranoid and slow and shit. And EE are just shit, because their failed transaction doesn’t release those funds.
Even better, you can’t then offer feedback or contact EE. Because – yes! – all the online feedback is done through a third party, and goes off to a different domain.
So you’re basically left with no data, no top-up, locked funds, and no way to contact EE to tell them so.
Even worse, I suspect it’s only because I’m a techie that I understand it this much – for Joe Public it’d just be “it’s broken, and EE are shit”. (Which isn’t something I could argue with either, but at least I can understand why it’s broken!) It’s a simple scenario, but one I’m willing to bet they’ve never tested, going on the assumption that people would top up before they ran out completely, etc. etc.
I’ve written to them to explain the same situation, so it’ll be interesting to see what they come back with (if anything)
Mobile and Connected
Posted: Sat 15 October, 2016 Filed under: Customer Services, Domestic, Technology, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »This weekend, I’m away in Dorset, hoping to spend some time relaxing and writing, getting some of the stuff out of my head that’s been resident for way too long.
I’ve been to the particular place I’m staying before, and knew they had a semblance of internet connection (albeit through a 3G Dongle thingy) but when I got here, I found it’s not working properly. (It’s on EE, and because they’re shitheads, there are mega-issues when there’s no remaining data on the device. That’s a post for another day)
So anyway, while I’m wanting quiet, I do still need connection for a range of things. As a result, I went into the nearest town, and bought a MiFi device of my own which turns out to be working pretty well. Considering the location (in a valley, with next-to-sod-all anywhere nearby) I’ve got enough of a 3G signal (blipping up and down to a single bar of 4G) to keep things connected and fine.
It’s meant that as well as doing some writing, I’ve also been able to do some outstanding work stuff that needed completing, and all that usual stuff.
Indeed, it’s doing well enough here that I’ll continue using it, and be interested to see how it works in other places I go to over the next few months. Ain’t progress/technology interesting?