Café Vue was my selection for our girl's restaurant club 'Ladies who eat'. 12 girls, 12 months, 12 new restaurants - cute. As a self-proclaimed foodie I needed a strong contender for my turn and I selected Café Vue take away style. A unique concept, the café packs a hamper for you (for 2 or 4 people) and out into the woods you go. Sounds beautifully whimsical, in reality, I trudged through the grounds hauling my huge wicker hamper and feeling less like a teddy bears picnic and more like a Sherpa trekking through the mountains of Nepal to our final destination (and perhaps prone to slight exaggeration).
We arrived at our selected destination (group of restaurant girls trying to decide on one perfect space - did I mention the Sherpa) and spread our goodies out. Like santa's stocking we tore through each carefully wrapped goody, oohing and aahhhing over each one (terms biodegradable and recyclable clearly not in our vocabulary today)
The food was spectacularly abundant and deliciously, guiltily rich. Hands were used, often. Something about setting us free in the grounds had us back to nature in no time (carefully removing 'Lord of the Flies' from sight as we speak). I do have a confession. All this food, no idea what went with what, no menu, and I feel terribly ashamed to note, I actually didn't know what one of the meat was! I'm a foodie, I should know this stuff. I don't know if the terrine was duck, or pork, or rabbit. I'm a farce, a disaster. I'll explain the food and maybe someone can help me out for next time... A huge loaf of soughdough with terrine, a thick corn spread and a thick mayonnaise. Then we each had sandwiches (took home as souvenirs for our boy partners), a duck egg quiche (thankfully that was labelled), a whole chicken, heirloom tomatoes, pasta salad, potato salad and an adventurous pepperminty tea. So how did we eat it all? Together, everything just spread everything on everything - paints a pretty picture huh?
At this stage we hadn't even opened dessert. Thinking it a simple but delicious pastry we opened to see a sleep inducing, immediate weight gaining, chocolate mousse cake with a crunchy rice bubble base and a white chocolate egg in the middle. Oh but wait, crack that egg open and it's passionfruit curd inside. It was the best dessert I've had in AGES. You know that type of curd that makes you shudder - so sour, so sweet, so frigging amazing.
At least I burned off the extra calories lugging that wicker basket..... read more