July Date Night

So July's date "night" was one I was really looking forward to - a tourist day in London with lunch at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and a trip on the London Eye.

Although the original plan was to go on The Eye, the more I thought about it, the more I realised how ambitious I'd been with thinking I'd be able to do that. I'm more than a little bit afraid of heights, and I'm a touch claustrophobic, so I didn't know that I'd be able to cope with it in the end! So instead, we did a bus tour round London.

We only live a 30 minute train journey from London, but we don't often go just to be "tourists". It's usually to see someone or do something specific, so it was actually really nice to just enjoy it for a day.

We've both said for a long time that we wanted to eat at a Gordon Ramsay place, and it was on our list for 2010, so it made sense to combine it with one of our dates, so I booked a table at The Savoy Grill for lunch.

I had a minor panic when someone at work said they went for her birthday and it cost them £400 for the 4 of them, but I knew the hubs and I would be ok with the set menu for lunch (Three courses for £34 each. Much more our budget.)

It was frigging amazing. The service, the food, the place itself. Fricking awesome.

I was a bit self conscious taking photos of the food in there, so they're not great but I ate (top row) baked beetroot with shallot, mozarella and toasted pine nuts; beef filet ravioli with garden peas and Eton mess. Hubs had duck egg mayonnaise, goats cheese and red onion tart and summer berry mille fueille. 

It was, without a doubt, the best meal I've ever had. And definitely worth the money. The service was immense, too - and despite the fact that we were both wearing jeans, I didn't feel under-dressed or that we were being "looked down on", which was nice. 

We then did the bus tour, which was pretty interesting - we both saw things that we'd never seen before, which was cool, and it's given us ideas for other date days in the future!! 

We're having to put August's date day on hold, though - it's to go to the theatre, and the local one is only showing kids stuff this month. I never thought of summer holidays when planning that one!! 

We will get there, just not this month. x