Sarah's Birthday

For Sarah's birthday this year I arranged a special treat - dinner at Heston Blumenthal's restaurant in Bray, the Hind's Head. While not as famous as the Fat Duck, his more famous restaurant next door, it has the advantage of having food that is not quite as out there as snail porridge but is still delicious and slightly out of the ordinary. Things like a Oxtail and Kidney Pudding, which came out shaped like a dessert (but was probably the best meat dish I'd ever tried) and Sarah's perfectly cooked Sole - and don't even get me started on the Triple-Cooked Chips...and the highlight of the desserts was definitely the 'Chocolate Wine Slushy with Millionaire Shortbread' (which is a frozen red wine and chocolate blend, paired with chocolate and caramel covered shortbread).

We had a great view of the comings and goings at the Fat Duck, too, and got great amusement from watching the food tourists taking photos of themselves in front of the sign - including one group of 4 who got every possible combination of three of them, then every possible pairing, then each of them individually on everyone's camera before heading in...although for the price you'd want something to remember it by...

We stayed at a lovely hotel, Redroofs at Oldfield, just around the road - it was straight out of Midsommer Murders - overlooking the river and filled with antiques, with each room themed in a different colour. When we arrived we discovered that it had, in fact, been used for murder movies in the past...but fortunately our stay was murder-free and extremely pleasant.