Wedding bells (part 4)

Food glorious food! This is the direction this fourth wedding post is going to take (the entire series is here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7). Because the entire restaurant had to be closed for the event, there was a fixed cost that needed to be covered. As we had only 30 guests (maximum occupancy for the top floor of the restaurant is 60), the person in charge of the food a.k.a. my friend Ivan had to choose the best and most expensive ingredients for the menu to match this fixed cost (the menu can be found here). I only gave Ivan the instructions not to have beef and lamb on the menu as Ision doesn’t consume those kinds of red meat and left the rest to his imagination and expertise. All I can say is I was not disappointed at all and with free-flow beer, wine, champagne and cocktails, the guests weren’t either. I got so much positive feedback from them after the event and some even said they will come to the restaurant next time to sample other items on the menu. I will let you decide for yourselves whether or not we are exaggerating when we sing all these praises (I always get so hungry looking at these pictures!).

Pre-lunch mingling needed open-faced sandwiches of both the sweet and savoury variety and so there they were. I told the guests not to fill up on those regardless of how delectable they were as there were much better main courses to come (shown below in the order they were served).

 

 

Caesar salad with caviar on Belgian spears. The leafy greens were imported from Australia and thus were ultra-expensive (how ironic), and the caviar elevated the decadence to a whole new level.

 

Garden herbed mushroom bruschetta and foie gras. How often do you have foie gras on a wedding menu? This is why I love this non-traditional wedding of mine. Ision was initially against this product of animal cruelty being served on our special day but I managed to veto his veto!

 

Baked ravioli with marinara sauce. The filling was seafood and I thought it would have been better to have included that detail on the menu so that people could know what was in the ravioli but when I got to taste it, nothing else mattered.

 

Hokkaido scallop B.L.T. This was yet another creative course which the guests thoroughly enjoyed. They would have liked it even more if this course were all-you-can-eat i.e. like the others. Unfortunately scallops are much too expensive and everyone (bar the VIPs a.k.a. family members) had only one serving.

 

 

Balsamic honey pulled pork burger sliders. I always like my food to be on the sweet side instead of sour or savoury so these mini burgers were just the way I like it. I had two but could have had so much more if there weren’t more food coming.

 

Brown sugar bourbon pork tenderloin and saffron rice. My favourite meat is pork so I had absolutely nothing to complain about, not to mention real saffron was used which added so much more class.

 

Spicy aglio olio in chilli crab gravy. There were just so many reasons why I love this course! It was really spicy and the portion was really generous. I had this dish on its own once at the restaurant before and was really glad it was featured on our wedding menu. Unfortunately at that point I was totally stuffed so I had only two servings.

 

Citrus tartlets of two kinds–with raspberry pearls and with frozen blueberry and orange zest. I was told the pearls didn’t turn out successfully due to issues with the gelatine so the mandarin slices were only soaked in raspberry juice. These tartlets were of the perfect size to not make you feel guilty when you down one after another although they so should!

 

The waiter serving us the food was not too bad to look at as well!

So do the pictures tempt you enough to pay the restaurant a visit yourself? Well you really should make that trip down and I know you will leave impressed. In the meantime, look out for my next post in three days’ time.