Brotherly love

I am continuing my eating fest this week, as both Alex and Lindsay are in town, all ready for a girly foodie chinwag. I have eaten some very good food in the past in the company of these two lovely ladies, so I had to pick somewhere special for our catch up dinner.

The Galvin Brothers seems to have appeared from out of nowhere in recent years and have opened 2 restaurants, both very different, but both very lovely. I've been to their more downmarket Galvin Bistrot de Luxe on Baker Street several times before, where you can get treated to classic French bistro-style cooking at very reasonable prices.

I must say, each time I've gone to Bistrot de Luxe, I have felt like the youngeest person there by about 20 years. The decor does make you feel like you should be an old man there - think wood panelling, green leather chairs, lamps that wouldn't look out of place in the Houses of Parliament - and there is definitely a business dinner crowd. Don't let it put you off though, the service is very charming, however scruffy you look.

Last time I was there, I had their seafood lasagne to start (sorry, this was back when I still had a blackberry, sorry for the out of focus pics):

The only dull note in the dinner was my main course. For some reason I had a funny turn and decided to order chicken - I never order chicken in non-Asian restaurants - and unfortunately this one did reinforce my prejudice that chicken is only ever on the menu for people with no tastebuds and a severe lack of adventure. It was very competently cooked, the chicken was quite moist, but sooo boring!:

It all just made me jealous of Dave's calves' liver:

And now for the twist. Neither Dave nor I are great fans of desserts, and we can always do without. Dave had had a slightly disappointing starter of oysters and chorizo, which turned out to be a plate of oysters and a separate plate of chorizo, rather than some clever combination of the two. He had chosen it over his usual fish soup, and he was still wanting fish soup. So what does he do? Orders the soup for his dessert! The waiters were completely baffled, but they were also quite cute in how they were actually quite impressed by the weirdness. The soup came, it was lovely, and it was accompanied by a couple of cute madeleines:

Bistrot de Luxe, I guess, is the little brother to the much more glamorous Galvin at Windows. Situated on the top floor of the Park Lane Hilton, you do suspect it's going to be one of those restaurants where it's all views and no substance. However, I'd heard consistently good things, and this was where I ended up taking Alex and Lindsay and Jeff. The views are gorgeous, although I was rubbish at identifying all the major landmarks - I have lived in London for over 5 years, honest!:

We were doing yet another cheapo menu courtesy of toptable, this time £33 for 3 courses. The thing that impressed me was how much of an overlap there was between the cheapo menu and the 'proper' menu, which at £58 for 3 courses, is nearly twice as much. Both my main and my dessert was from the proper menu, and two of the starters are also the same. There was also a lot more choice vs. the other cheapo menus I did last week - 5 choices for all the courses.

I was, however, almost disappointed when they bought out an amuse bouche of gazpacho. I am starting to find these extremely gimmicky now, invariably it is always some kind of soup, you know it was pretty cheap to make, it's all bordering on parody. Give me big food that I don't need to eat with a spoon made for toddlers, please!:

Joking aside, the big food they delivered were all of excellent standard. The veloute of sweetcorn with smoked Haddock croquettes was a clever play on textures. Along with the sweetcorn soup was some salty, crunchy popcorn, and underneath you had the fabulously crisp croquettes, the smokiness balanced well with sweetness of the soup. The portion was just right too, just enough:

My main was summer on a plate - braised halibut on peas, lettuce, and girolles. I just looked up halibut on wikipedia, and it has a delightful Latin name of hippoglossus hippoglossus - the fish was anything but hippo-like though, very light, soft, delicate:

The fellow diners were all pudding people, and were torn between lavender creme brulees and a strawberry Vacherin. Myself, I went for the chocolate palet, mainly because it featured cherries. All of them are very 'adult' desserts. I really quite liked the chocolate actually, completely non-sweet, cherries soaked in booze!:

Service was all very gracious, you hardly noticed it was there, leaving us plenty of time to gossip. A nice surprise was a little jar of homemade marshmallows that came with the bill.

The only problem I have is the direct opposite to its little brother though - given its location, it attracts a lot of bling, this place. I was wearing quite a smart dress, and I still felt scruffy with all the backless numbers and sparkly high-heels here. And I'm not sure they would have reacted that well if we'd suggested having soup for pudding!