It was a no brainer that for my birthday that I wanted to dine at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen restaurant. I have been following his work since I entered my early 20's and started learning to cook like a proper adult! Perfecting his risotto recipe has taught me the rewards of being patient when cooking but it has also provided me with a fail safe recipe to impress friends at dinner parties.
I love his passion for food and for his determination to make a difference around the world through cooking- for this reason he is my favourite chef.
Unfortunately I was late to my own birthday dinner, one thing you come to learn very quickly in London is how unreliable the public transport is, often tube lines are down, running late or just plain slow. On this particular occasion some idiot had left their bag on a tube sparking a security alert that it might be holding a bomb (this is one my favourite tube disruptions reasons, another is 'delays due to a person under a tube' I was shocked the first time I heard this announcement over the loud speaker, surely there is a more PC way of saying this!)
Not only was I and most of my guests late but one of my friends couldn't get to the restaurant for at least another hour so she had to cancel!
A glass of wine later and we were all in a better and jolly mood. Upon reviewing the menu we all decided to have the risotto for main, most of us ordered the seafood option and two others decided to try the vegetable option.
We ordered starter sizes and thank goodness we did as the portions were more than fair and very satisfying, I would like to say that my version of risotto is better but I think I would be foolish to make that claim!!! Either way our main meals were damn tasty!
As you are now aware I have a sweet tooth and so ordering dessert was a given. I chose the Jamie Oliver special brownie and I was not disappointed, hands down the best brownie I have ever had. Other guests had the panna cotta or an afagato, which had equal reports of deliciousness.
As you can imagine a famous restaurant like this was packed out and even though I called more than 6 weeks in advance the only time we could book dinner for was 6pm! Laughing at the fact that I was now 'older' we were out of the restaurant by 8.15pm (a time one usually goes out to dinner!) and so to keep the night going I had planned for us to go to after dinner drinks at a nearby restaurant/bar that we knew would have a jazz band playing.
Lena's is situated just near Old Street tube and the downstairs bar has a lovely cosy atmosphere and large couch/booth type areas for groups to sit in. This was a perfect setting for us to enjoy cocktails/proseco and enjoy classic jazz songs sung by an amateur jazz band.
After a night of heavy eating and drinking I was happy to head home at the stroke of midnight. I had a lovely birthday evening that I would do over again in a heart beat.
Any special birthday celebrations that you hold dear to your heart?
x
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