Cracking good time at Prix Fixe bistrot.

Meandering through the wierd and not so wonderful world of the post-break up, heart still a touch battered and appetite on a whirlwind of ups and downs, I decided to amuse myself by exploring a little light-hearted internet dating.

Call it part social experiment, part desperate attempt to move on, part insanity.

So, blind date number one (and this is in no way meant to sound like there's hundreds of them lined up!), let's call him "A" to preserve the poor guy's anonymity, was at Prix Fixe Brasserie which is only appropriate as my date was French (anyone seeing a trend here?) and, thank heavens, not vegetarian.

Last time I ate here I don't think I'd ever even earned a pay check, although not much has changed, except they now serve Atlantic Rock Oysters (hurrah!) of which I ate five as my starter. Plump, sweet, large, perfectly good and not horrendously overpriced.

A opted for roasted foie gras (you can keep 40 virgins and God, when I die I want a bathful of this stuff) on toast. Actually, since we were too busy discussing my traumatic friday (neighbour jumping off roof, coma, police etc. average Brixton night) I never actually asked to taste it, but since he finished the lot, and hey, its roasted foie gras, I'll make a stab at it and say it was very good.

Mains were slow-roasted pork belly for me, with sauerkraut and apple relish. The slab of belly was humungous and the crispy skin so thick I nearly swerved it off my plate a few times, but quite scrumptious, although a smaller portion might have made me feel less like a hog myself.

A. had simple entrecote and frites on recommendation of the waiter who seemed to snub the filet. Again, yakking away as I do when I'm nervous, I totally missed the food exchange opportunity. So... probably a decent steak...

The fun came at the cheese course, where for almost ten pounds I got served a wedge of cheese small enough to mistake for a postage stamp but accompanied by enough cheese crackers to build a second leaning tower of Pisa. How I was supposed to divide my teeny cheese wedge onto so many crackers was beyond me, and I could see A. (scientist) eagerly making calculations in his head, but the mathematical conundrum that this cheese to cracker ratio presented was beyond all of us. It did provide quite a few laughs though, and the cheese, though small, was very good.

I won't bother telling you what A. had for pudding because AGAIN I failed to try any. Poor show on the Itinerant Epicure's behalf I must say...

But anyhow, the lot was washed down with a rather good New Zealand Jibe 2006 Pinot Noir and conversation flowed very nicely and we both have problems with mice in our houses and an inevitable Strasbourg connection (small world, getting smaller by the minute). So all in all a pleasant evening.

Which is good since I'm heading to Prix Fixe next week for my birthday dinner, which means I can try the steak and the foie gras and the dessert and actually report back properly as a good food blogger should and even take annoying photos of my dishes!

Now, must go and read that article on French Basque cuisine in the Guardian... the mind tries to move on but the heart doesn't so quickly...


PRIX FIXE
39 Dean StreetLondon
W1D 4PU
020 7734 5976

Gufaa? Load of Guff

I'm not sure at what point the meal turned sour. Was it possibly the £9 for five half-charred poppadoms and chutney? Yes, I double checked my poppadom hadn't been lacquered in gold-leaf and no, the chutney hadn't been hand-milked from the breasts of mermaids either. It could possibly have been the rosé wine, which conformed so delightfully to that futuristic E.U vision of bored French viticulturists mixing dreg-ends of white and red bargain-bin plonk together in industrial-sized vats and shipping the resultant vinegar off to the ignorant "rosbif". 
Or maybe it was the 45 minute wait for a collection of identical dishes swimming in a ubiquitous lukewarm almondy goop: whether ghosht pasanda, korma or tandoori, you could bet it was going to be yellow and devoid of any kick whatsoever. 
The crispy burnt onion bits at the bottom of my dish were the elements that elicited possibly the only excited groan of the evening. The indignant look of the near-comatose waiter when we tried to remove the service charge from our exorbitant bill at least provided entertainment value, as did the grand debate on the possible provenance of the aforementioned "creamy sauce". Best not to think too long about it, and head somewhere else.

Gufaa

39 Upper Street
London N1 0PN
020 7354 5465