Wednesday 1 September 2021

Chez Bruce.

Whenever we go to awards nights, Chez Bruce wins stuff. If it's not "best local restaurant" it's "best food" or "nicest table cloths" or something, so I was dead excited to go for the first time last night. It was me and Sarahs (don't cringe, I know that's not grammatically correct but it's how I talk) 26th anniversary. Forget Pen Whistle or whatever that bloke who brought the dogs back from Afghanistan is called, this lady deserves a medal.

Anyway, you've got to book. It's all very efficient on your phone, you tick a couple of boxes including the "cancellation policy" one, stick your credit card in and bingo. The cancellation policy probably says they'll charge you twenty quid or something if you don't show up. It should be two hundred quid, and as I would never do that I didn't read it. There was only one table left (8.45) so I nabbed it.

The food and service was superb. Before anything arrived they brought out these parmesan biscuit things. I ate those in about thirty seconds so they brought some more with bread (ditto, although Sarah did get a taste this time).

I had a pigs head croquette thingie to start which was lovely. Sarah had a tuna ceviche with super hot chilli's which was great. 

For main, anyone who had bet their house on me ordering the chateaubriand is now sleeping under Waterloo bridge, I went for the cod. I can only apologize for the loss of your humble abode, I pretty much always go for steak but just fancied a change. The cod had this pink stuff on the outside (I've never been an avid reader of menus when I go out) which made it taste like lobster claws. It was sensational, I had the slightly embarrassing situation of finishing it completely before Sarah had hardly started. She had the pigs cheek dish, it was delicious (I stole a fair bit of it).

They do say when gambling that you should never chase your losses, and so it proved as for the first time in history I swerved the chocolatey dessert option and went for a buttermilk thing instead. It was so sharp it made you pull faces, I absolutely loved it. I can't for the life of me remember what Sarah had, sorry for that but if you want technical food reviews go for Jay Rayner or Faye Mashler, not a bloke who runs the Alex.

We'd mentioned in conversation to our server that it had been our anniversary the previous day (couldn't go out then, I was doing the quiz) and she brought out a "happy anniversary treat'. It was a coffee fudge and a pistaccio nibble thingie on a plate.which had "happy anniversary" piped on in chocolate sauce. The person who wrote it has neater writing with a piping bag than I do with a biro.

We had a lovely bottle of NZ wine (don't ask me I can't remember), Sarah had a dessert wine (ditto, and not me I don't like it). The bill was £205 including service, worth every sheckle. My one criticism is that I'd lose the masks on the servers. That said, I'm speaking as someone who has been breathed on by about 200,000 people in the last year so it might be just me.

Chez Bruce is a great place, go. We absolutely loved it.