The real meal

If you want to go out for breakfast on the island, there are two places you can go. (They also do lunch.) If you want to go out for an evening meal, there are three places you can go: two pubs and one restaurant.

One of the pubs is totally characterless, as is its menu. The other pub and the lodge beside it are beautiful log buildings with a beautiful view. The kitchen that produces meals for both delivers perfectly adequate food. Then there is the restaurant. No view to speak of, but, oh my, the food is wonderful. 

Where’s an old broad supposed to go for a birthday meal with friends? We’ll get to that a minute.

I had a lovely birthday.

A friend who couldn’t come to dinner that evening offered to buy me lunch. I told her to come here for brunch instead, because what I wanted wouldn’t be on the menu. She brought flowers. Yay. I made something I have for brunch twice a year, once on my birthday and the second time on Christmas Day: crab cakes on a bed of rocket with a poached egg and blender Hollandaise. Along with non-alcoholic Buck’s Fizz. Yummy. Shoulda taken a picture.

After brunch I met another mate for a pint and a game of pool at the good pub. He greeted me with this.

The paper red rose in the middle of the table is a gag from the play. The card is a gag of his own creation. Earlier in the day another friend had posted this for me on Facebook.

Is there a theme emerging?

I won the game of pool – played with the cue my neighbour Pat left me when he died a couple of years ago.

Now, back to dinner. Ordinarily I would want to have a special birthday dinner in that restaurant I mentioned, but it’s only open Wednesday to Sunday and my birthday was on Tuesday. So, lodge it was. (They don’t take reservations in the pub.) As previously stated, the biggest selling point of the lodge (and pub) is the view. 

Gorgeous during the day (and it was a gorgeous day when I was at the pub earlier), but by dinner time on a November Tuesday it’s pitch black outside.

Now I’m not complaining. (Well, not yet.) What really mattered was getting together with good friends, which I did – nine of them. So what if it wasn’t the restaurant? It’s the people. I do love them and I had a lovely evening with them.

Dinner was perfectly adequate. My mistake was ordering desert, which I almost never do and never at the lodge. (The restaurant, on the other hand, oh my, their deserts are fab.) But it was my birthday and people insisted I had to have desert. When the list of deserts was recited, in a moment of madness, I opted for tiramisu.

When I lived in Walthamstow with my friend Ben, whose birthday is a couple of weeks later than mine, we always used to go to this restaurant for a joint birthday dinner somewhere in between the two dates.

There’s a lot I could say about this little treasure and how lucky we were that it was a 10 minute walk from our house, but I will limit myself to this: It made the best tiramisu I’ve ever had in my life. 

It was the memory of that tiramisu that prompted me to order it on Tuesday.

It came with a candle in it. Everyone sang Happy Birthday. I blew out the candle, looked at it and wondered in what world this thing in front of me could possibly be called tiramisu? It was a sickly sweet white concoction with a layer of cake, way too much tinned whipped cream and drizzles of nauseating butterscotch sauce. I gave most of it away to someone else.

Still, as I said, it’s the people who matter and it was a jolly evening with great mates.

My friend Krys (who’s had the pleasure of eating there) had sent me a gift certificate for the restaurant as a birthday present and I was pretty keen to use it, but, given that most of my friends on the island had been out for dinner at the lodge, no one was in a hurry to go out for another, more expensive meal so soon. Oh, well.

But then on Thursday I had a text from one friend who’d been off island on Tuesday and thus unable to attend the festivities at the lodge. “Hey, birthday girl,” it read, “wanna do something tonight?” Yes, yes, yes! I did want to do something. Texted back to ask if she was up for dinner at the restaurant. She was.

Cocktail first. (You don’t get those at the lodge.) When the list of specials was recited, there was no question what I would be having. It was a mahi mahi dish the chef had done before and which I had the great food fortune of tasting. 

I’m not normally one for taking photos of my food, but I figured my friend Krys deserved to see her present.

Oh, my god. The crust on that fish! That sauce! 

Could this get any better? Yes, it could, because one of the desert options was tiramisu! I told the owner about my hideous tiramisu experiment at the lodge. She sympathised and assured me theirs was made from scratch. Yes!

Not only did it look like tiramisu, but it arrived on a platter with a dark chocolate message and a raspberry coulis heart. And, bloody hell, it tasted absolutely amazing.

Sent the chef a message the next day: “Oh my god, mate. That mahi mahi last night was incredible. Doubt you saw my plate come back. Might have looked like I licked it. I didn’t, but I did run my finger all the way around to get the last bit of the amazing sauce. And thank you so much for taking the terrible taste out of my mouth from whatever the hell it was the lodge is trying to pass off as tiramisu.” Quick two word reply: “My pleasure.” Oh, no. My pleasure.

So, I got to have two birthday dinners this year, which, given that it’s the year I officially turn old, doesn’t seem too greedy. One a delightful, laughter-filled evening with great mates, the other a tiramisu dream come true.

Lucky me.