Last night was a fantastic food and wine event at The Builders Arms in Chelsea. The lovely PR team for the Pub Company of the Year Geronimo Inns, invited a few other lovely bloggers and I along to feast on a delicious four course meal with different wines accompanying each course.
The wines were chosen by two sommeliers from Ellis of Richmond, who were also at the event, and with each course they explained why the wine was chosen and what flavours it brought out in the food. For some reason I didn't get any photos of the wines? It was quite dark inside as well so I had to use the flash on my camera, which is why the photos have a filter over the top - the flash is just too bright on my camera.
We started with Quail, which had prune in the middle, and the entire thing was encased in jelly. I was quite surprised by just how tasty this was; the Quail was slightly stronger in taste than normal poultry, but super yummy, and the sweetness of the prune just made the dish. You all know how I feel about mixing savoury and sweet (love). The only bad thing is that I then went home and Googled what a Quail actually looks like...and they're really cute little birds...so now I feel bad :( The Pinot Gris that accompanied the dish was very light and sweet, and complimented it perfectly.
Next was the Salted Cod stuffed into a baked potato. I'm not usually a fan of 'mashed' fish, but this was actually superb! Very enjoyable, and you could really taste the salt, as usually 'salted cod' isn't actually that salty. It went with the potato perfectly. The Gavi di Gavi wine that accompanied it was quite heavy and I didn't like it as much as the first wine, but I am really fussy when it comes to wine and alcohol in general :/
Next up was Mutton with Sweetbreads. Mutton in case you didn't know, is old sheep. Sweetbreads, can be a number of things from the pancreas to testicles. But usually it's throat. I didn't eat the sweetbreads, as I'm not brave enough, but the Mutton was mouth-wateringly scrumptious - it's much stronger in taste than lamb. The wines paired with it were of course reds, and were excellent.
The final course was my favourite - dessert! Eccles Cake with a large wedge of deliciously creamy Lancashire Bomb! The main part about this dish is that I'm SO happy they didn't choose a mouldy cheese, as I'm allergic to mould, so that would have been a bit unfortunate. The Eccles Cake was just perfect, the pastry was lovely and thick yet crispy and flaky, with a huge amount of wonderfully gooey mince inside.
We had such a wonderful time last night, the food was out of this world, and the company great fun! It was so lovely to see Mina from Kings Road Rocks again, and I also had the pleasure of meeting Mel from Random Mel and Gemma from ggcloset.
A huge thank you to Alix, The Geronimo and Builders Arms team, and the very insightful Sommeliers from Ellis of Richmond for such a fabulous evening!
