Confessions of a Cardamom Addict: Feast: September Celebrations Part Four

30 September 2006

Feast: September Celebrations Part Four

Apart from the blog birthday and my birthday, my boyfriend (affectionately known as The Fussy Eater (TFE)) and I celebrated our second year together. As with last year, we decided to celebrate in Stratford: tickets to Twelfth Night and dinner at The Old Prune.

Whereas the play was very uneven and somewhat disappointing (please rein in Brian Bedford...the play is NOT about the butler), dinner was fabulous. I highly recommend The Old Prune--beautifully fresh, local ingredients prepared in such delicious ways. The restaurant is heavily involved with Stratford Chefs School, well-known for the quality of their graduates. Service is exquisite--nicely timed and the waiter was friendly and knowledgable.

Here's what we had--TFE's on the left and mine is on the right...

The amuse bouche to share: Herbed goat cheese with pickled veg.

left: Warm salad of duck confit and wild arugula with rosemary, parsley and chilli oil.
right: Mesquite-smoked "kanpachi" with spicy marinated cabbage, green apple and maple syrup.

left: Twice-cooked Guelph's Rowe Farm pork rib on rapini and white beans with basil and garlic.
right: Fragrant and spicy lamb tagine with root veg.

left: Sweet ravioli with cherries in rum.
right: Slow-baked chocolate mousse with hazelnut praline tuile and espresso foam.

after dinner sweets to share: homemade truffles, jellybabies, buter cookies, biscuits and blueberry-lemon mini-mini cakes.

Before the show we visited a costume gallery with costumes from previous productions. Although there were pieces from various shows, I thought this costume, from last year's production of Into The Woods, was something you might be interested in...it's very reminiscent of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's paintings, especially Vertumnus.