One For The Chocolate Lovers: Hotel Chocolat's Restaurant | Rabot 1745 |

As you can tell from my last post, I like chocolate a lot. Matt is also partial to the sweet stuff, so when we received a booking at Hotel Chocolat's restaurant, Rabot 1745, from his mum as a joint birthday present (his birthday is in December) it seemed like a perfect choice! Apologies for the following pictures, I was really excited to use my new camera...but I forgot to put the SD card in and had to use my iPhone instead!

Rabot 1745 is based in Borough, London and situated right next to the market. The basic concept of the restaurant is to present a 'cocoa-centric cuisine' where all dishes have an element of some form of the cocoa bean as a new spice. As soon as you walk in you are hit by a scent of chocolate, which isn't overpowering at all but warm and comforting. You first walk into the cafe which would be perfect in the day to pop in for a hot chocolate while perusing the markets. They have merchandise on offer too and even have the machine they use to grind the beans on display and tell you which beans are being ground at that time.

The small restaurant is situated upstairs and is a dimly lit and cosy affair influenced by their St Lucian estate, made complete with a well stocked bar. We chose two chocolate based cocktails to start although they have plenty of other cocktails and drinks to choose from - I had the chocolate soother and Matt and the hazlenut soother. Both were very alcoholic and we both preferred Matt's as mine had the consistency of a pudding it was so thick!

L-R: Chocolate Soother & Hazelnut Soother

Each person each gets 3 cocoa beans before you order, along with some information about how the restaurant uses the beans and the history behind them. This meant we got the opportunity to be hands on with them and try a pure cocoa bean which was surprisingly sweet and a little nutty. It was a really nice touch and something that made you more involved with the experience.

Before our starter arrived we got given a shot of butternut squash soup accompanied by bread with cacao nibs in which was a delicious indication of the quality of the food that would follow the rest of the night.

For starter I had the Pearl Barley Scotch Egg which was encrusted with cacao nibs and accompanied by a warm salad of  roasted root veg (although I wouldn't call it much of a salad), goat's cheese dressing and cacao oil emulsion. It was so tasty and the unusual combination of flavours were unlike anything else I've had before. I loved that the scotch eggs were warm and runny inside too. Matt had the Seared Plantation Pork Terrine which came with gribiche sauce, crisp sweetbread and cacao nib condiment and was equally as yummy.

Slow Roast Shoulder of Lamb was my choice for the main course which was basted with cacao balsamic, roast garlic mash and studded with seasonal veg. It was so tender it literally fell of the bone and melted in  your mouth and the rich sticky sauce and creamy mash worked really well together. I also liked that it was a big enough dish that meant we didn't have to order more sides so value for money was quite good. Matt had the  35 day aged cacao marinated rib eye steak that came with roast winter vegetables, white chocolate horseradish mash and a red wine cacao jus (which I also got). I don't think he could detect the white chocolate in the mash and he preferred the steak without too much of the jus. 

Lastly, we picked Chocolate Genesis for dessert, which is every bit as decadent as it sounds (how could we not?!) In hindsight we should have probably just shared one as we were pretty full by this point and nearly at the point of total chocolate consumption. It includes lots of bite size pieces which signify the story of the bean - from roasted beans and drinking chocolate to truffles, pralines and pure bars of the stuff. It also included a small shot of coconut water to cleanse your palette but even this addition didn't let me finish the whole thing. We ended up getting a doggy bag of what we couldn't finish. A happy birthday was written on both our plates too which was a lovely touch.

I'm so pleased that the inclusion of chocolate in every dish didn't turn out to be a gimick as it could have easily slipped into that territory. If anything it added a subtle rich flavour to the dishes and worked really well with the other ingredients - whoever planned the menu did a fantastic job! It is pretty pricey (around £20 for a main) but for a completely different dining experience for top quality food and service, I think it is well worth the money. The only negative is that the emphasis is mainly on dark chocolate and combined with the dark chocolate drinks, cacao nibs and pudding we really were chocolated out as it was so rich! We also received some dark chocolate buttons with the bill and some chocolate goodie bags to take home as it was our birthday celebration.

I would definitely recommend this restaurant if you are a chocolate lover or just fancy something different to try, and the laid back vibe of the establishment and quality of the food makes for a perfect pairing.

Would you try a dining experience like this? Do you like Hotel Chocolat? xxx

Bank Holiday Weekend

Hi everyone, this is my first post in a few weeks now so firstly I wanted to apologise for my absence. A lot of things have been going on in my personal life so the blog  had to take a back seat, even though it was really annoying to have to do so. I should be back on a more regular basis from now on, even though things are still a bit crazy, its nice to have this place to be creative and take my mind of things.

I thought a bit of an update would be a good idea as this is a lifestyle blog too, so thought a good post would be to write about what happened over my bank holiday weekend. 

On the Saturday, Matt took me to St Michael's Manor in St Albans for a lovely lunch. The food, drink and service was incredible, which was made even better by having a great view of the fabulous surroundings that the Manor has to offer. I would really recommend you take a visit if you are in the area. Two very exciting things happened over the lunch to make it extra special. Firstly, Matt officially asked me to move in with him :)! Of course I said yes and I am so so excited about it! He still has a few months on his lease of his flat at the moment but after that we want to find our own place. Even though we have talked about it before, it was so nice that he made an occasion of asking me to make it special and it has definitely made it feel a lot more real. I really can't wait! The second bit of good news was another surprise! Matt told me that after my graduation ball (which will happening next week) he has booked a trip to Barcelona for us!!! I felt so incredibly spoilt and shocked and obviously really happy, but at the beginning I wanted him to cancel it because I felt bad for him spending the money on me! I've had a bit of a rough time recently so he thought I deserved a treat - I really couldn't ask for a better boyfriend :) Now I just need to think of things to pack - I've always been really bad at being spontaneous so this will be a test to my organisational skills! 

The next day, my family had a big BBQ with loads of family friends, some of which I hadn't seen in years! There was around 28 of us and we got through a lot  of food - 6 legs of lamb, 4 desserts, cheese boards and more were demolished! We had the croquet out in the front garden which the men enjoyed and made it feel very English. It was a great way to spend a Sunday and it was nice to see my sister as well who I don't get to see that often very more as she lives in London. 

On the Monday Matt and I enjoyed time just chilling together and watched a film called Cloud Atlas, which is very long! I can't make up my mind whether or not I liked it, although I loved the bits with Jim Broadbent in it as he is one of my favourite actors.

What did you get up to over the bank holiday? Do you have any suggestions for things to do in Barcelona? xxx

Restaurant Review: Lasan

While February can seem a pretty blah month for most people, I was excited as the end of the month marked one year of Matt and I being together. Our relationship is a lot different now to a year ago - we first met at our Student Union (classy) when he was studying his Masters and I was in second year so we were able to see each other easily and very often. Now he is down in London, making life a bit more difficult for us, especially as I have so much work with essays and dissertation now third year is coming to an end. We had always planned to go to the same place we went on our first date for drinks but as an extra surprise Matt booked a restaurant called Lasan, which is based in the Jewelery quarter of Birmingham.

When he first told me it was Indian food I wasn't sure - I was picturing standard greasy curry which is all well and good but not what I was imaging for a romantic meal! He reassured me the food was amazing though and that the restaurant had actually won Gordon Ramsay's F word. I'm glad he was right; the food was amazing! Everything was cooked perfectly, and the flavours were more fusion cooking rather than a standard curry. Matt kept on laughing because I couldn't get over how they could make even rice and naan taste so incredible!

We started off in the bar and ordered a drink while having a look through the menus. They have a large selection of spirits and wines, but it might be worth noting they don't offer cocktails in case that is your thing. I think that set the precedent for the night though - everything was simple, from the decor to the food but it really worked as sometimes getting simple right is the toughest thing. One of the coolest things in Lasan was the F word trophy encased in glass in the bar which I obviously had to take a sly photo of! The atmosphere is also really nice and relaxed, and I really liked that the tables were all quite far apart so you could have a quiet and private dining experience.

Once we had ordered, a selection of free tasters were bought to our table. There were 3 dips; mango chutney, a yoghurt based one and the other I can't remember (woops) along with some popadoms and spicy chickpeas encased in thin puff pastry which were a yummy surprise.

For a starter we decided to get a sharing platter as it was our first experience and we wanted to try as much as possible. It was the best choice as we got a selection that included spiced chicken sheesh, lamb chops, tandoori salmon and spiced potato cakes served with tamarind and mint sauce. It was literally the best salmon and lamb chops we have ever tasted as everything was flavoured beautifully and so tender.

For mains we ordered two dishes but shared them, with rice and peshwari naan (like I said before they were incredible too haha). The first one we ordered was more lamb in the form of lamb lababdar - the winning dish from the semi-finals of the F word so naturally we had to get it. This was our favourite of the two and consisted of 'Wiltshire Downs free range lamb, marinated cutlet, 10 hour confit shoulder, braised shin pattie and tempered lentils, with smoked braising juis spiced with nutmeg and cinammon.' 

The second dish was Kodi chettinad a 'Tamil style rustic curry; spring chicken in a spicy masala of roasted coconut, star anise, sundried chilli and black peppercorn.' I found this a little bit too spicy but again it was cooked to perfection and all the flavours worked really well together. 

By this point we were absolutely stuffed and had no hope of ordering pudding even though there were a few that caught my eye! We also ordered an amazing bottle of red to go with our meal which went down a treat, although resulted in us being a bit tipsy by the end of the night - we got to and from the restaurant by taxi though so it was ok :) 

In regards to price it wasn't as expensive as we thought it would be for such amazing food, although I don't know the exact bill as Matt wouldn't let me know! Mains range from £15.95 being the lowest to around £25.95 each. The service was also excellent as they helped us with any queries, were attentive but not domineering and even ordered us a taxi home. I really wish I didn't have to use an iPhone for pictures as it didn't really do the food justice, but I guess that means you will just have to visit Lasan and see for yourself :) I don't think I can ever go back to a bog standard curry now and will definitely be visiting again xxx