F1 Foods Italy roundup and the next challenge: Singapore

We missed the Italian Grand Prix as we were on holiday but my fiancé was following it online and I made sure I did my post for Formula 1 Foods before I went away! It did mean I didn't have much of a chance to promote the challenge though so there were only a couple of entries; I had hoped there would be more as Italy is a much easier theme than many!

I did an entire Italian buffet for my fiancé's birthday this year and hadn't blogged about it until now so here you can see a selection of ideas and recipes which are really easy if you are feeding a crowd.

Suelle at Mainly Baking made this almond, raspberry and rose polenta cake which is both gluten free and dairy free;  she says it's one of the best cakes of this kind that she has ever made and the fresh fruit gives a lovely seasonal twist.

The other entry this month came from Johanna at Green Gourmet Giraffe who made angel-hair pasta with feta, sundried tomatoes and spinach. I'm always on the look out for interesting pasta recipes and this looks great; and a good way to get in some more veg.

Thanks to everyone who sent in their Italian-inspired recipes. The next few Grand Prix races are quite close together so there isn't a whole lot of time to allow for the next challenge, which is of course Singapore. So you have until Tuesday 22nd to send in anything inspired by Singapore! The linky is here:

Restaurant Review: The Real Greek, Spitalfields

 

 

 

My two closest friends from work have recently left – one is on maternity leave and the other has transferred to a different team in another building. He’s only a few minutes up the street but I’d been missing our daily chats so right after he started his new job we had lunch together so he could tell me all about it. There are loads of restaurants around Spitalfields which is near our offices, so I thought this was a good opportunity to try out one I hadn’t been to before.

 

I actually went to a branch of the Real Greek about ten years ago – it launched in 1999 – and the company has changed hands since then. It is now run by a Real Greek (as the website explains) and operates in what is called the ‘fast casual’ space – in between fast food and a more casual restaurant. They have a special lunch menu for instance where you can easily be in and out within less than an hour, which gives simple choices of the ‘Greek Trio’ or the ‘Skewer plate’, for £8.95 (not including drinks or tip). There’s also a pretty extensive menu which looked very appealing, but for the sake of convenience we both decided to go for the lunch special, and both chose the chicken skewer. It came with saffron rice, a small bowl of tzatziki, some warm pitta bread and some salad. I would have liked more dip to go with the pitta bread but it was quite enjoyable. Probably due to the company more than anything but I enjoyed the meal, and would eat here again.

Butterscotch Blondies

 

 

I set out to make strawberry blondies to use up some leftover strawberries, and found this recipe on the Food Network website. As I started making it, I realised that it used strawberry jam rather than fresh strawberries, and butterscotch chips, which I thought sounded really nice but not necessarily combined with strawberries… so  I set my punnet of strawberries to one side while I found a different recipe to use those, and made what I am calling Butterscotch Blondies instead!

 

You need

4 tbsp butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla flavouring

1 egg

¾ cup plain flour

¼ tsp baking powder

½ cup butterscotch chips

 

Preheat oven to 180C. Line a square baking tin with parchment, or if you have a brownie pan like I do, spray each section with Cake Release.

 

Melt the butter and the sugar in a bowl in the microwave for 1 minute on high. Stir in the vanilla and the egg.

  

 

 

 

 

In a larger bowl if necessary, fold the butter and sugar mixture into the flour and baking powder. Stir in the butterscotch chips and spoon into the pan.

 

 

Bake for 20 minutes – they should still be a little soft as they come out of the oven. Leave to cool in the pan then if you have baked it in a square tin, remove from the pan and cut into squares. If you have a brownie pan, job done!

 

I'm sharing these with Treat Petite, hosted by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat at The Baking Explorer as they have an 'anything goes' theme this month.

 

Restaurant Review: King's Stores

 

Kings Stores (no apostrophe, which bothers the grammar nerd in me) is a ‘proper pub’ in London’s Spitalfields. It features dark wood; serves craft beers and has a pub-grub style menu. At the same time it has a dining room on the first floor though I’ve always sat downstairs when we’ve been for drinks after work.

 

This time we had lunch in honour of two colleagues visiting from other locations. Incidentally, my Scottish colleague has just discovered Honest Burger, which is only in London, and says it’s the best burger he’s ever tasted. He had one in Kings Stores and said it was very good – but not quite the same.

 

I’d gone along thinking I would have a starter of grilled sardines with a side order of fries, but by the time we got there it was later than I usually have lunch and I was ravenous – it was lucky I had a big meal in the end as I ended up working late and not having dinner until 9pm.

 

My eye was caught by the burger: Angus beef, topped with Cajun pulled pork, barbecue sauce and cheddar cheese (£14). It was a tower of dripping deliciousness- literally dripping, as the burger was so juicy it dripped every time I lifted a bite to my mouth. It had some kind of tomato salsa on top (unless it was the barbecue sauce, but I wouldn’t have expected to see pieces of tomato in it) which was a shame as I would have ordered it without if I’d known. It was also quite expensive for burger and chips, all things considered.

 

 

The chips were good – not too thin, as I’m not really a fan of ‘fries’ – and came in a cute little tub with the burger itself on a wooden board. That seems to be how burgers and chips are served these days – can anyone remember the last time they had one in a pub or restaurant that came on a plate?

 

The food was very filling and tasty; the barbecue sauce wasn’t as zingy as some but I remember having a pulled pork burger at Blacks where I ended up having to take the pulled pork out as the slightly tart flavour was too much! Service was also fast – we were a large group but still managed to order, eat and be back in the office within an hour. So I recommend the pub if you are near Liverpool Street Station and want a filling lunch.

Restaurant Review - Comptoir Libanais, Broadgate Circle, London

Colourful and communal are the two words that spring to mind when I think of Comptoir Libanais, the “Lebanese Canteen”. I’d actually only ever seen them in airports before, but there several outposts of this restaurant around London, including one in the newly-redeveloped Broadgate Circle near Liverpool Street station.

 

We seem to have had quite a few team lunches recently as we have colleagues visiting from other offices and go out for lunch together (we all pay for our own food). We actually intended to go to a pizza place this time but hadn’t booked and the wait time was too long, so we went to Comptoir Libanais instead.

 

The main menu is divided into mezze (hot and cold); wraps; salads; from the grill; tagines, mana’esh (flatbread) and fattets (fried flatbread pieces); chef’s specials; extras and desserts.

 

Two of my colleagues had a mezze sharing platter which they really enjoyed; I didn’t want anything as substantial as the koftas from the grill (though the grilled pomegranate salmon sounded very nice) so decided to try a flatbread. I wasn’t clear exactly what the difference between mana’esh and fattets would be so chose the topping I thought sounded nice, and ordered the sojok man’ousha – oven-baked flatbread with spicy Armenian lamb sausage, halloumi cheese and tomato with a side salad (£8.95). It was very tasty and filling – as I hadn’t known how big it would be I also ordered a side of batata harra (£3.25) – Lebanese spiced fries with red pepper, fresh coriander, garlic and chilli. These were cubes or chunks of potato rather than chips and not too spicy – I recommend them.

 

Another thing I liked about this restaurant was the soft drinks menu. It was much more imaginative than just the usual fizzy drinks and juices – I had an apple mint and ginger lemonade called toufaha (£2.45) which was unusual – in a good way – but the ginger flavour was a little too strong. Other people had pomegranate and orange blossom lemonade, or lemon and lime with rose syrup, which looked lovely.

 

Around the restaurant were items for sale ranging from bags and bowls in Lebanese-inspired patterns to spice mixes and the Comptoir Libanais cookery book which I hadn’t come across before. The company seems to have put a lot of effort into its website which is full of interesting things to read, and they have an online shop – their souk – coming soon.

Blueberry Cheesecake Brownies

Doesn’t the name alone sound indulgent?

 

I realised that despite launching The Brownie Blog a few months ago I haven’t made brownies – or posted anything on that blog – in ages. I had some blueberries left over from another recipe (these chocolate blueberry cakes) and I also had some of the blueberry flavour icing that I’d made up from a packet from Sugar & Crumbs as I’d made a little too much. I wondered if I could incorporate the two into brownies and remembered seeing some nice brownie recipes in my Hummingbird Bakery book. They had a recipe for raspberry cheesecake brownies so I decided to borrow that idea, using blueberries instead, but rather than blending the blueberries into cream to go on top, I used the leftover blueberry icing.
 

These are pretty easy to make – I knocked them up in about an hour around 10pm one evening!

 

You can find the recipe in the Hummingbird Bakery book or online on GoodtoKnow (the website for various women’s magazines including Essentials), so I won’t repeat it all here. I will instead describe what I did.

 

To start, make the brownie base. The Hummingbird recipe uses icing sugar instead of caster sugar which gave the brownies a different texture; they were nice (especially when they were a day or so old) but if I made this again I would probably use a more traditional brownie recipe for the base.

 

 

Preheat oven to 170C. Melt 200g chocolate (the recipe calls for plain, but I used milk chocolate) – I did it in the microwave. Cream 200g butter or margarine with 250g icing sugar then add 3 eggs and 110g plain flour. Stir in the melted chocolate.

 

Pour into a square baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.

 

Next make the cheesecake layer – mix 400g cream cheese (not the low fat kind), 150g icing sugar, dash of vanilla flavouring and two eggs until you have a smooth mixture. Pour over the top of the brownie layer and then bake in the oven. I found mine took a lot longer than the recipe called for so I’d advise baking for about 40 minutes then checking it to see if the cheesecake is still wobbly or the brownie still raw. You don’t want it to go brown on top but it does need to be cooked through – I think mine took about an hour.

 

Leave to cool; if you want the fruit and cream topping see the recipe instructions (link as above); I spread the remainder of my Sugar & Crumbs blueberry icing on the top of the cheesecake layer and topped with my leftover blueberries.

 

This sliced easily into squares – I cut it into fairly small pieces since each piece was quite deep. I took them into work and they were very popular!

I'm sharing these with the Vegetable Palette Challenge, hosted by Shaheen at Allotment 2 Kitchen; the idea is to use fruit or veg in the chosen colour each month and this month she has chosen blue and purple.

 

Restaurant Review: Desperado's, Islington

 

Having just been to Mexico I seem to be noticing Mexican restaurants around London a lot more. A little while ago I was spending the day working out of a supplier’s office in Angel with a colleague and we wanted to go somewhere for lunch that was a bit different. We were spoiled for choice of restaurants on Upper Street and while there are plenty that I think would have been better I spotted the bold sign for Desperados and suggested we eat there.

 

They had a two-course set lunchtime menu (as well as a la carte) which was good value though the portions weren’t particularly large; I guess it was fine for lunch but I was expecting a bigger meal. They advertise themselves as offering authentic Mexican street food and I’m not sure whether that applies to the loaded potato skin filled with melted cheese that I had as my starter – I didn’t see any of those on menus while I was in Mexico. The main course was an enchilada, with a portion of rice, refried beans and salad. It was a bit dry – it would have been nice to have something to go on the rice, and as I don’t like refried beans they stayed in their separate bowl!

 

 

The restaurant is very colourful with décor in keeping with the Mexican theme (though I’m not sure what the VW camper van was doing there); I imagine this place would be pretty busy in the evenings as Mexican restaurants are usually pretty good for tequila and cocktails!

Cocktail Masterclass: Perfect Storm

On holiday in Mexico I was lucky enough to stay at the Zoetry Paraiso de la Bonita. It was actually a matter of luck, as we really didn't like the hotel that our tour operator put us in and asked to be moved. We didn’t know where to move to, as we didn’t have internet access in our hotel, so named one that another couple on our tour were staying at. We had seen the outside of the hotel as they were dropped off from the minibus and I remembered spotting a discreet sign saying “Leading hotels of the World” – which is an organisation rather than just their own claim.

 

So after two nights in a very poor hotel (it took them that long to sort out the move, even though we complained minutes after arriving) we found ourselves in one of the most amazing hotels I’ve ever stayed in. For a full review see my recent blog post.

 

The hotel offered a programme of activities but far more upmarket than the sort of thing I’ve seen elsewhere, like archery, aqua-aerobics and so on. The Zoetry offered yoga, a shopping trip by boat, a sunset cruise, cigar rolling and cocktail making, to name but a few. I went along to the cigar rolling but it was a bit disappointing – it was one man with a stall full of cigars, and when it became clear I wasn’t interested in buying one, he wasn’t interested in me. I hung around in the hope that I would get to do or at least see some cigar rolling but all he seemed concerned with was selling the cigars he had already made.

 

So when it came to the cocktail making the next evening, I wasn’t expecting much. I went into the Library bar (there is of course more than one bar at the Zoetry) where I had been chatting to the barman Tico the night before. We were joined by half a dozen others and lined up along the bar as Tico got out a selection of cocktail glasses. Ooh, a demonstration, I thought – and because it’s an all-inclusive resort, no doubt we would get to drink a cocktail or two as well. What I didn’t expect was for Tico to start by inviting me behind the bar! He said we would all get a turn to make a cocktail for the whole group and that first I would make a Perfect Storm.

 

 

Under Tico’s watchful eye I began by pulsing some ice in a blender with blue curacao to crush it. Pouring it from the jug into each glass was harder than it looked – the ice came out very fast and some glasses ended up with a lot more than others! Next was a shot of raspberry vodka and the glass was topped up with cranberry juice. Finally I poured a sort of mango puree onto a spoon to let it fall gently into the glass, creating a top layer. Again this was harder than it looked leaving some drinks with more uneven layers than others!

  

As bartender I then served the cocktails to my customers – and I have to say it tasted delicious! I bought some raspberry Absolut vodka in the airport on the way home with a view to recreating this cocktail at home.

 

Other people took turns to make cocktails for the whole group; a couple of people drifted off after one of their friends had a go meaning that we each had five cocktails. One of them tasted foul – it was similar to a caipirinha apparently (which I’ve never had before) made of cachaca and lime – it was very sour and I only had one sip. Which was probably a good thing as I drank four other cocktails on an empty stomach in the middle of the afternoon! One was a shot – a B52 – and one was a very sweet fruity cocktail. When we had finished, Tico invited us to join him in a shot of tequila – he had been a professional tequila taster before coming to work at the Zoetry hotel. I had a great time chatting with the other people at the session (my boyfriend had stayed in our room as he is teetotal and wasn’t really interested) and it was a great way for the hotel to bring people together. It was the sort of masterclass you would probably pay quite a lot for in London so it was fantastic that it was free – it was one of the highlights of the three days we spent in this hotel, along with the resident friendly parrots!

How to make a Sugarpaste or Fondant Rose

Wired sugar flowers are really tricky to make and I've only done it once before, so when the tutor of my cake decorating class said we were going to make them I was really pleased. I was also a little surprised as the class is aimed at all levels and has several complete beginners but I thought it was good that we were going to do something that would stretch abilities and teach me something useful.

However, the flower we ended up making wasn't what I call wired at all - it had a wire as a stem but the petals were not individually wired. After the tutor had demonstrated, I asked her if we were going to make wired flowers as well - and she said this was a wired flower. Obviously we have different understandings of the term!
Even so this is a very pretty flower and you can make it a lot faster than a fully wired flower and you don't need much specialist equipment - we used a template rather than a cutter. There are a few things you need however, which you can buy from Amazon or any good cake decorating shop:

Culpitt 18 Gauge Dark Green Florist Wires - Sugar Flowers

8pc Sugarcraft Cake Modelling Tool Set - you need the balling tool

PME sugarcraft Foam pad

Renshaw Flower and Modelling Paste 250 g

You can make your flower any colour; I used Sugarflair Spectral Concentrated Paste Colour - Christmas Red

And if you want to make leaves:

Sugarflair Sugarpaste Colour Paste Holly Green

3Pcs Veined Rose Leaf Fondant Cake Cutter Plunger--White

Moss Green Stem Tape 90 feet x 13mm. Stem - Tex. For Corsages, Bouquets, Flowers, Arrangements and Crafts.

Optional: Wilton Gum Paste Flowers Drying Rack

That does look quite a long list but it's nothing compared to what you need to make proper wired flowers!

To begin colour about 70g of sugarpaste in your chosen colour. Make a ball and roll in your palms to form a cone. Bend the end of the wire into a little hook and insert into the cone; this is your central bud.

Roll out some more of the flower paste so it is very thin. You can use a large flower cutter (rather than individual petals) or draw a shape yourself and use it as a template; we used a card template our tutor had made and then laminated. Cut out around it.

Place the petals on a foam pad and rub around the edges with a balling tool, with the tool half on the flower and half on the pad. This will make the edge of the flower curl up.

Stick the wire through the centre of the petals and bring it up so it sits underneath the bud. Taking one petal, wrap it very tightly around the bud, then take a petal from the opposite side and do the same thing, overlapping it. Repeat and start to bend the tops of the petals out slightly until they are all wrapped around.

Repeat the previous steps with another piece of flowerpaste and another set of petals.

And finally repeat with a third layer, bending the final petals out more.

The flowerpaste will start to harden quite quickly; be careful where you place the rose so it doesn't sit on one side. Ideally hang it from a drying rack or stick the wire through a hole in a colander -have a look around the house and see what you can find!

To make the leaves, colour a small piece of flowerpaste green and use the plunger cutter. These need to be fairly thick so you can get a wire through the middle. Cut a shorter piece of wire and carefully insert it into the centre of the leaf and bend the leaf backwards. Bind the wire to the main one holding the flower up using florist tape; repeat if you want to have two leaves.

This would be very pretty on top of a cake and it doesn't take too long if you need to make a few.

Mexico Review part 4 - Zoetry Paraiso de la Bonita hotel

Zoetry Paraiso de la Bonita, Riviera Maya, Mexico

 

This hotel is one of the Leading Hotels of the World group which says it all. We transferred here from a hotel we really didn't like and it was bliss. With parrots.

 

 

and from the moment we walked in the door, it was paradise. Polite and attentive staff, everything from the pool chairs to the lobby looks good quality and best of all they have resident parrots! There are a couple of pairs of parrots which don’t mind you coming up to them to take a photo, then a single female who rather likes the men. We saw a guy giving her high-fives and my boyfriend did the same and she took hold of his hand, walked up his arm and sat on his shoulder, which was brilliant…until we realised she didn’t want to get off and we had to ask a member of staff for help! My boyfriend wasn’t thrilled but I got some great photos. After a couple of days I also got her to stand on my arm which was good because apparently she doesn’t like women!

 

 

We had the most basic room the hotel offered and it was still amazing. It was overlooking the beach, and our balcony was huge, it had two big day beds which were so comfortable we could just lay there and look at the sea and sunbathe. There was a bottle of champagne and also a bottle of tequila waiting in our room, or rather in the living room as we had a separate  bedroom (and the marble bathroom was amazing). We were only here three nights and I didn’t want to leave!

 

I didn’t go in the sea here as there was a lot of seaweed, more than I’ve ever seen in fact, but the pool is great so I didn’t mind. In the morning I saw towels on every sun bed which made me think they were all taken so I would have to sit on the sandy beach but when I asked a passing member of staff where I got the towels from, he explained that they are all put out on the loungers already, and the ones that were still rolled up weren’t taken yet. So I got myself a lounger, not under an umbrella, but shortly after another member of staff came over and asked if I would like an umbrella and went to get me one. They are also very good at bringing drinks which you are allowed to drink in the pool in plastic glasses. And their cocktails are to die for!

 

They offer two free excursions, a sunset boat trip and a boat ride to the next village for a shopping trip. There are only 8 places on each which run once a day so you have to sign up as soon as you arrive. As we were only staying for three days they were fully booked but said often people don’t turn up so if we came and waited we might be lucky. In fact we were able to go on the shopping trip, but I’m not sure to what extent it was worth it. The boat ride took 40 minutes, and it was quite fun at first – we were all allowed to have a go at steering and have our photo taken – but by the end I felt quite seasick so we got a taxi back! The village is really small with just a few shops around a main square. We had been told we only had an hour before we had to come back to the boat which I thought wouldn’t be enough time but actually it was plenty as all we did was buy a couple of postcards and some tequila from a little supermarket (which was a lot cheaper than airport prices). We decided to get a taxi back to the hotel because I didn’t think I could face the boat again!

 

 

On our first day we had lunch at the Kaax Grill restaurant and I had grouper ceviche to start which was amazing, and then prawn tacos for my main course, which was quite a small portion though the prawns themselves (three) were huge. They were in a beer batter though and the beer taste was a bit strong for my liking.

My boyfriend had a grilled chicken sandwich with chips which he really enjoyed. I asked the waiter if I could have a non-alcoholic cocktail and he made a few suggestions and made me something amazing with mango. At the beginning of our meal the waiter had said he would bring nachos and salsa and to watch out for the salsa as it was hot and by the end of the meal we realised he had forgotten to bring it!

 

  

We went to the grill restaurant for dinner, and sat outside; we were seated on the end of a long table – even though there was at least one table for two available – then when a group of four came in later they were seated next to us on the same table. The waiter never came to take our drinks order so we just had water. We both ordered the steak; we had had some very poor quality fatty steaks on our travels around the Yucatan peninsula and assumed this would be much better but in fact again it was very fatty and we couldn’t eat a lot of it. It came with some roasted peppers and onion and only one potato wedge each so the whole thing really wasn’t very filling.

We were still hungry and quite disappointed so decided to go back to our room and order room service, since it’s all inclusive and we didn’t have to pay! We both wanted pizza and I wasn’t sure whether to get one each or share but ordered one each, and I’m glad I did as they were tiny! We also had the chocolate cake to follow (we really hadn’t eaten much in the restaurant) which was a surprisingly big slice and delicious.

 

 

For breakfast in the Kaax restaurant there is both  a menu and a buffet. On the first day we didn’t realise there was a menu so helped ourselves from the buffet; there was a good selection with some really nice eggs in a slightly spicy chipotle sauce, lots of bread and pastries, fruit etc.

 

 

On the second day we sat down and had waiter service; the eggs were so good yesterday I chose them from the menu and this time they came on a muffin like eggs benedict, with the same delicious sauce over the top.

 

  

On our third and final day for breakfast I chose a salmon bagel.

The maids leave a newsletter every day with all sorts of information including a schedule of activities like yoga classes and the boat trips and so on. The first activity I decided to do was ‘cigar rolling’ and I watched a guy set up his stand by the pool; myself and another guest went over to watch. The other guest liked to smoke cigars (I don’t even smoke cigarettes) so the man quickly realised I wasn’t going to buy anything so he spent time explaining to the other guest about the different kinds of cigars he had and the prices. He did show us some tobacco leaves but didn’t do any rolling and just seemed to be there to sell cigars so in the end I went away. The next day however I did a cocktail masterclass which was far better – I’m going to review that separately and share the recipe I learnt.

 

The hotel does afternoon tea between 5 and 6 with a selection of teas and little cakes which was lovely (and I couldn’t get over the fact that we didn’t have to pay for anything, as I’ve never done all inclusive before!).

 

  

We were given $200 of vouchers to spend in the hotel when we arrived but didn’t use them at all – you can use $10 a time on a bottle of wine in a restaurant (but since the house wine is free I was happy with that) and only $40 a time in the spa and given most of the spa treatments cost about $200 I wasn’t exactly tempted!

 

We had lunch in the pool bar on our second day; the menu there is mainly pizzas and a burger. We both decided to have the burger and were asked how we wanted it cooked and if we wanted cheese with it; it then came with a single potato wedge like our meal last night. I don’t know why they think a portion of potato wedges consists of one, or maybe it was more of a garnish? The burger was extremely good but by now my boyfriend was really craving chips!

 

 

The second time we had lunch here, I ordered for both of us as my boyfriend had gone to get something from the room, and I asked if he could have chips with his burger. The waiter said it was the other restaurant that did the chips so I said not to worry but then when the food came he had managed to get a portion of chips so my boyfriend was very happy. Unfortunately his food arrived ten minutes after I had actually finished eating mine even though I ordered both at the same time! I had a pizza; they are pretty small but tasty, and I wanted the seafood pizza without octopus (yuk) and was a bit worried they would misunderstand but it was just what I wanted.

 

 

On our second night we had dinner at the posh restaurant; they do have a dress code but as long as you are smart that’s OK (eg my boyfriend had a polo shirt with a collar and was worried he needed an actual shirt but it was fine). It was a very nice restaurant with good service and a guy playing the violin inside. In fact another day there was a harpist at breakfast!

 

 

I had a starter that was described as “watermelon salad, celery cloud, goat’s cheese ice cream”. It was a round disc of watermelon, a sort of celery mousse (which I didn’t like at all) and the goat’s cheese ice cream was interesting because it was so unusual. For my main course I had duck breast with foie gras risotto and shallot confit which was delicious. My boyfriend had steak again, as he’s very fussy and there wasn’t anything else on the menu he liked. It was a thick piece of steak with no fat (finally after two weeks, a decent, edible steak!) though he said it still wasn’t the same quality as a good steak restaurant in London. And of course it still didn’t come with chips. For dessert we both had a chocolate sabayon with salted caramel sauce that was amazing.

 

 

The bar in the library is great; I had a chocolate martini one evening and asked the barman (I think his name was Tico) who the people in the photos were and he went round (there was nobody else in the bar) pointing out each person, some were the family of the hotel owner and there were various celebrities who had stayed there. Another day one of the activities listed was cocktail making in the library; after the cigar rolling I didn’t have high hopes and thought it would be a demonstration at best. There were 8 of us standing along the bar and perhaps because I had been speaking to him last night, Tico chose me to come behind the bar and I made quite an elaborate cocktail (with his help) for 8 people!

It was really fun and we each got a turn – a few people were in the same group and after one of them had made a cocktail the rest of them drifted off but I ended up drinking four cocktails over an hour and a half plus doing a shot of tequila – Tico had been a tequila taster before working here! It was brilliant fun and I really enjoyed chatting to the other guests including a lovely young couple on their honeymoon. If you get the chance to do the cocktail making then make sure you do, and say hi to Tico in the library bar!

 

 

On our last night we had dinner at Kaax which had a different menu to lunchtime but as my boyfriend is so fussy there wasn’t much he liked again so he had another steak, which once again was thin and fatty and was served with some lumpy mashed potato. I was confused by something on the menu called ‘rock Cornish’ which was chicken – apparently Americans would be familiar with that term but I’d never heard it before. One item on the menu was ‘mixed grill’ and the waiter said I could choose any two of the other dishes on the menu so I had the chicken and the prime rib. The chicken was quite nice but three quarters of my steak was absolutely inedible, it was nothing but fat. In the UK a restaurant just wouldn’t serve you a steak like that in the first place.

 

Overall though we had an amazing time at this hotel – I keep wishing I was back on our balcony overlooking the sea with a glass of champagne in my hand. The staff were wonderful and the parrots a real highlight too!