People watching after Latium

I have lost count how many times I've been to the lovely lovely Latium on Berners Street, but my most recent visit assured me it is certainly remaining lovely, and still very dserving of the title of Connie's Favourite London Restaurant. The small occasion this time was dinner with Amit, a pesky vegetarian / skanky ho. It didn't take me long to think of Latium as a place which might please. They serve the most excellent ricotta and lemon ravioli there, so good that I have chosen this over meat options before.

This time, I was even more adventurous and did not go for the fish ravioli for starter. Instead, I remembered once that I stole a bit of someone else's papperdalle with wild boar ragu, and this time I wanted a whole plate of it. It is not pretty, hence no photo, but it is sooooo incredibly good. The beautiful thing about it is that it is more about the pasta than the ragu, and it is so silky yet still with chew. It nearly moved me to start making my own pasta.

For main, I had a roast cod with beetroot sauce and spring vegetables. Much prettier:

And as usual, very well executed, my only complaint being that the beetroot sauce wasn't very beetrooty. I guess they do it more for the colour than for the taste in this dish, which when I think about it would've been a bit overpowering. I also now have a new phone, and therefore new camera (5 megapixels I'm told), so I'm hoping you're seeing a slight improvement in picture quality.

We were both too stuffed for puds (which aren't that amazing here anyway), but we did decide to go to the opposite Sanderson's Hotel for a drink or two. Normally I completely forgo this option as they rarely let you in, and it's ridiculously expensive, but Amit was still recovering from his promotion, so I thought I would take advantage of it. You go there simply for the people watching, and even before we crossed the road, we saw some evidence as to the kind of people you might find in there:

Yes, your eyes are not fooling you, that is a 100% chrome Merc, so shiny that my flash really didn't like it. Absolutely hideous. But completely the kind of car that the typical Sanderson's Hotel clientele would drive.

And inside it was all confirmed. I haven't been here for years, but it came to no surprise to me that I immediately felt like I was about the youngest person in the room, plus I was wearing way too many clothes, even though I was wearing a skimpyish summer dress. It was just like a mutton-dressed-as-lamb party that I had just gatecrashed, more fake tan than an episode of Bargain Hunt. All this with good cocktails made for an excellent evening.