Guernsey – Monday
Not very promising weather today, low cloud and very poor visibility, though some aircraft were landing and taking off. We caught the bus to the top of the road which leads down to Petit Bot Bay. When we reached the bay, we found a group of women were congregating for their Monday walk, dressed in shorts and tee shirts and talking of stripping off when the heat burnt through. They invited Steve to join tem, but he chickened out.
We set off in the opposite direction to the walking party and we went towards St Peter’s Port. We walked along the cliff path in the cloud, the warm mists constantly swirling up the cliffs from the sea made the walk into a stroll through a Turkish bath.
Eventually made it to The Auberge restaurant on the Jerbourg road for luncheon. Normally, there’s a fabulous view, but not today – even Castle Cornet eventually succumbs to the fog. But we were undaunted and started with a quick refreshing pint of lager while we ordered our meals. I am afraid we went the whole hog and went for three courses with wine and coffee, though to keep costs down we chose from the tennerfest menu. As we waited at our table, we sampled a snackrell of bread dipped into olive oil with tomato pesto, served cutely in a quirky plate.
Rosemary started with Crispy Aromatic Duck with a salad of salted cucumber plus honey roasted figs, baby spinach and spice plum and vanilla dressing, followed by fresh linguini with sautéed mushrooms, braised fennel, parsley and toasted pinenuts. Steve chose the slow roasted cherry tomatoes in balsamic with basil, feta and olives, crispy parmesan, followed by grilled black bream, chorizo and coriander couscous salad, marinated carrot and courgette in lemon oil and tomato pesto. Yummy.
The red wine we had to accompany the meal was, amazingly, from Telavi in Georgia. It is not often we see wines from Georgia. Actually it was a good wine, and a lot better than what we had drunk when we visited that country.
The sweet course dishes were absolute works of art. I took a picture of our sweets, and will publish them with this blog entry. I ate, at the recommendation of the Latvian waitress, small, deep-fried doughnuts with a cappuccino flavoured mousse (served in an espresso cup), and a raspberry coulis dip (in shot glass). Rosemary ate a spiced apple and pear crumble with special custard. They sound over-ingrediented, but were again excellent.
After coffees and sweeties we caught the bus back to the flat, and vegged out for the rest of the day.