Dinner at the Hawksmoor Seven Dials, 19th May

I've been a longstanding fan of the Hawksmoor restaurant in Spitalfields, which is London's answer to a New York steakhouse. So I was very keen to try the new opening in Covent Garden, and finally enticed a steak-loving friend to come with me.

On this particular Thursday evening I'd had a stressful day involving a trip to Newbury, but it was the last time I'll have to do that so I was feeling very relieved and happy it was all over. We were supposed to meet at 6.30 but my friend was running late. I'd anticipated this eventuality and had some reading material to hand, so I sat at the bar to wait for her and guzzled the most welcome French 75 of my life (sparking a new French 75 project) feeling very cosmopolitan and girl-about-town.

When my friend arrived, we went through to the restaurant which is much bigger than the Spitalfields one. The decor is wood and the odd industrial-looking steel appendage here and there. There aren't any soft furnishings so it's quite noisy.

We decided to skip starters and crack on with the steak. The only problem was that they have a blackboard listing what's available and the smallest thing was 600g, whereas my friend only wanted a 200g steak. I eventually persuaded her that there was nothing for it, we'd just have to share the 600g one.

We had a bit of a wait, but fortunately there was bread and butter to keep us going in the meantime. Clearly they expect you to have a starter. When the steak arrived, my friend's fears quietly vanished and she had no trouble putting away her half. (Do I sound slightly disappointed about that?) We had some chips cooked in beef dripping to go with it, and lettuce and peas, and bearnaise sauce. It was all delicious.

For pudding, I went for the salted caramel ice cream which was divine and a snip for just £3. My share of the bill including my cocktail, which originally they left off the bill, but I'm a good citizen so I owned up, and a glass of perfectly adequate red was £50. I've had a number of meals that have come in around this level lately, and this was the best of the lot. If we'd had a bottle of wine or starters it would have been more, but given the size of the main courses, starters aren't really necessary. I shall certainly be back, because although I can do the steak myself (they get them from the Ginger Pig), it's worth it for the chips alone. They also do corkage for £5 on Monday nights, which is something that definitely has to be tried!

Lunch at my place, 15th May

I have a blogging backlog to get through (shocking! tragic!) but am hoping to do it this week - stay tuned.

Two Sundays ago I invited G, ACC and Baron McG round for lunch. We started with kir royales / bellinis made with Cremant de Bougogne from Dufouleur and Chambord or Creme de Peche (I have a feeling G and I rudely helped ourselves to most of the Chambord before the others arrived) served with some gougeres fresh from the oven. That recipe alone makes Michel Roux's Eggs book well worth the price of admission.

Next up was a bottle of Meursault 1er cru Charmes 2005 from Moret-Nomine. I'd only tasted his wines very young before at one of ACC's "try before you buy" tastings last year, so when I found this on the Wine Society list I couldn't resist, and had been looking out for an opportunity to crack it, as I thought it would be a special occasion kind of wine.

I wasn't disappointed. We decanted it for about half an hour, and it had a lovely golden colour. On the nose it was rich and big and on the palate it had an unctuous mouthfeel and was fat and buttery but with the acidity to balance it. My notes read "Wonderful!" but I didn't quite think it merited a 10, so it got a 9 in the end. It did go very well with the smoked sea trout we had as a starter.

To continue the Meursault theme, after that we had a bottle of the 2007 red Meursault 1er cru Les Cras from Domaine Latour-Labille, provided by G. This was decanted for 2 hours. It had a dark, plummy colour and the nose was wonderful - sweet, heady and with jammy berry fruit. On the palate I've made the articulate tasting note "this is the bollocks". Excellent and accomplished, as it was last time we had it which I blogged about here. We had this with cold beef from the Ginger Pig which I'd roasted the night before.

With the cheese course, we had this Beaune Clos du Roi 2002 from Lois Dufouleur, provided by the Baron. He told us that he bought this at the St Vincent festival and that it had been in his cellar for 3 years so we were privileged to get to drink it!

It had about an hour in the decanter. The colour was dark and serieux, and the nose had that classic beautiful Beaune perfume or "steamy farmyard" according to the Baron. On the palate it was lovely, perfectly balanced and, dare I say it, haunting. It was drinking perfectly now and went very well with the cheese. G said "the only criticism I have of this wine is" (dramatic pause) "that it's not in magnum".

And finally, with our rhubarb crumble we had this Coteaux du Layon 2003 from Domaine de Pierre Blanche, provided by ACC. It was a beautiful golden colour and was luscious, sweet and herbaceous. I wasn't making proper notes by this stage, as we were singing along to various Pet Shop Boys classics, mis-remembering lyrics and competing to see who could do the worst impression of Chris Lowe's monologue on Paninaro. After that we inflicted some Red Biddy on the Baron, but hopefully we're still on speaking terms!

SPNS dinner, 13th May

Last Friday saw the return of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society. It was a glorious evening and we sat outside in the courtyard of the Savile where T instigated proceedings by producing a pink fizz and challenging the rest of us to guess what it was. The last time T produced a bottle of pink fizz, it was from Bulgaria and tasted like paracetamol. This time, fortunately, it did not.

We came up with a wide range of possibilities but it hadn't occurred to any of us that it might actually be, in fact, Swiss Pinot Noir. It was Mauler Tradition Rose to be precise but sadly I do not have a photo of the bottle as we left it downstairs. Apparently it also included cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, if I have deciphered the spidery handwriting in the Book correctly. Comments ranged from "Taste of strawberries and complex from all the different grapes" to "Great mouthwash". I felt the latter was harsh. It was a perfectly agreeable aperitif and the fact that we all necked a second bottle without any complaints confirms that.

Then it was upstairs for dinner where I produced a bottle of Domaine Leflaive Bourgogne Blanc 2007. This particular bottle did not show as well as it usually does and left some of us slightly disappointed. I also wonder if failure to decant and the use of extremely small wine glasses (as opposed to my usual Riedels ahem), may have made an impact. Oh well!

Next up was a Californian Mountain Barbera 1968 from Louis M Martin provided by D. I found this big and powerful with dried fruits. It had survived very well considering it was 43 years old. G thought it was "genuinely unusual and excellent" and the other comments in the book were also favourable. At the end of the evening I sneakily took some photos on my phone and it's the one on the right.

Then we had a Confradeiro Douro Riserva 2000 from Sandeman, provided by G. This was a lovely drop too - again big, fruity and rich. I felt it was a crowd-pleaser. T described it as thick and gooey which I believe are terms of high praise coming from him. Some felt it was still on the young side.

After that, D kindly produced a second bottle, but this time something very different: a Sheldrake Point 2007 Barrel Reserve Finger Lakes Cabernet Franc. I'm not a particular fan of cabernet franc but this made me reconsider - it was harmonious and drinkable, a lovely wine. P thought it was the most exciting wine of the evening (so far) and T who was clearly incoherent by this stage simply said "Words fail me. Fantastic!"

We moved on to a sweet wine but somehow the Savile had managed to lose P's bottle (hope it turns up again!) so he opted for a Chateau Doisy-Vedrines 1996 from the wine list. G detected lemon and pineapple on the nose and I think the general verdict was that this was decent sauternes but didn't offer any surprises. Apparently it went well with P's treacle tart!

And finally, it was on to the wine I had been looking forward to for several months, ACC's "Yates's Red Biddy". Some stragglers had fallen by the wayside by this point or been nobbled by an extremely boring man with a repetitive anecdote. How they missed out... In fact this was not wine but was described on the bottle as "Australian Red Wine Blended with Grape Brandy".

G said it was the second worst wine ever produced for an SPNS dinner, after the Israeli pomegranate wine we had some while back, while ACC opined that it was best of show and possibly even better than Lafite or Latour! I wrote "Sensational! Remarkable! Wow!" which I felt tactfully failed to answer the question of whether it was good or bad. Shortly afterwards everyone made their excuses so I was left to take the bottle home with me to inflict on Baron McG on Sunday... Strangely, there is still some left!

All in all, a great evening and a wonderful range of wines.

Beaune 1er cru Les Aigrots 2005, Domaine de Montille

We had this white Beaune a couple of weeks ago, which came from the Wine Society. Expectations were high as this is a domaine we have liked in the past, with their trademark low alcohol levels (this was 12.5%) and purity, and of course Hubert de Montille's star appearance in Bottle Shock! (joke, it was actually Mondovino).

We didn't decant it but I think maybe we should have done, as we felt it improved as time went on. It had a very pale colour and looked like a Chablis. On the nose, it was serious and austere, not a big fat chardonnay monster. And on the palate, similar - precise, well-balanced and with a lot of "grip".

We tried hard to think what it reminded us of - it wasn't like a Puligny or a Meursault. I thought there was some resemblance to a Raveneau Chablis and G agreed that the precision was similar, but it wasn't flinty. We also thought it was a bit like a mini Corton. We haven't drunk all that much white Beaune, but the Aigrots vineyard is next to Clos des Mouches which is the one we have had a couple of times, and liked a lot.

This was a wine that demanded to be taken seriously and G described it as cerebral, which was spot on. It went very well with our wild Alaskan salmon (no factory farmed fish for me) and we gave it a 9. In fact G gave it a 9.2 but we don't recognise decimal places.

I hadn't checked beforehand how much it cost, but our feeling was that it was £35 booze. Afterwards I had a look at the trusty premier cru spreadsheet and saw that it was £33, but the WS don't seem to have it any more, which is a shame. I continue to rate this domaine highly.

Chambolle-Musigny 1er cru Les Combottes 2007, Domaine Felettig

This was one from G's cellar which he bought a case of, and which we tried for the first time the other night. We decanted it for 2 hours. It looked very appetising and was a translucent plummy colour. On the nose, we got plums and cherries. The palate was singing! Scintillating stuff. It was quite light for a cote de nuits wine - elegant and pretty, with well-integrated tannins and a kick of ripe raspberries. On the finish, it had a slight tartness, but not in a bad way. We felt it was drinking now but there was no rush and it might even get better. It's already a clear 9.

Monthelie 1er cru Les Vignes Rondes 2007, Francois d'Allaines

Having previously had two wines by d'Allaines and found them mediocre, I wrote here that I wouldn't be bothering with this domaine in future. I managed to forget that when I was in the shop in Meursault, and kicked myself when I got back. Still, it was only about 18 euros so not the end of the world.

I had not 'fessed up to G beforehand, but when I eventually did, he of the wine aspergers memory said he had been perfectly aware of the situation! So we both had low expectations.

We decanted it for around half an hour. On the nose it was agreeable, with notes of summer pudding. G described it as pretty. Very '07. On the palate it was perfectly pleasant but G said it was not congruent with the nose, as it had more tannin than you'd expect. It stood up well to venison steaks. I found it hard to think of anything to write about it - it was just not very exciting. I see that's exactly what I said about their St-Aubin too! It went down easily enough but overall, still only a 7.

This time, I really will try to remember not to bother buying any of their stuff in future!

Miscellaneous bits and bobs

Non pc recent drinking round-up...

At lunch a couple of weeks ago ACC served up a Chateau Cantegril 1988 sauternes. For once it doesn't matter if the photo is blurry, as you can't read the label anyway - fortunately I kept the cork! I hadn't come across this producer before but it was a very good mature sauternes and I believe came from an impeccable source. We had some with our starter (pate) and some with our pudding, and well-chilled it was perfect on a hot summer's day. Rather more fun than running the London Marathon I suspect.

I acquired this Bourgogne Rouge 2004 from Rouget from ACC's private cellar as part of a swap. No regrets. Rouget is based in Flagey-Echezeaux in the Cote de Nuits and this wine was was smooth, mature red burgundy. If I'd tasted it blind, I would definitely have said it was village level if not premier cru. It was drinking well now and was impressive for an '04. It reminded us of a Morey-St-Denis as it had chocolate and plums on the palate, but it also had the charming, sensuous nature of a Chambolle-Musigny. G said (and I quote): "you can fuck off I'm drinking the bottle!" which is high praise indeed. It seems to be practically impossible to get hold of in the UK unless you're in the know, which I'm not, but I'm glad I know someone who is - and who is happy to trade it for linieaquavit!

I suspect it may not be possible to read the writing on the label of this wine from the photo - it's difficult enough with the bottle sitting right in front of me! I think this is a 1971er Westhofener Kirchspiel Muller-Thurgau Auslese* made by Günter Käufer. And they wonder why German wines don't sell very well... This is about as unfashionable as it's possible to get and G picked up three cases at auction last year for a song (£6 a bottle). Based on the inverse law of wine labels, the worse the label the better the wine so one would have high expectations and indeed it is very interesting. It's a dark amber colour, off-sweet in style and quite grapey. We had it with a lemon tart and some berries - it wouldn't go well with a sweeter pudding. What's amazing is that it's 40 years old and still going strong.

*The label continues: Erzeugerabfullung Bezirkswinzergenossenschaft Westhofen - my GCSE German is sadly not up to the task but I gather that Westhofen is a place near Worms and is in the Rhinehessen.

And finally, as we were drinking Marc Royales the other night (made with the vieux marc from Felettig and some cremant de bougogne from Dufouleur) I came up with a joke which I was rather pleased with: "a marc a day helps you work, rest and play". There's a lot to be said for it!