Let's start with the not-so-good stuff though. The space Boundary occupies is awkward to the extreme. The main restaurant is in the basement, with diners having to navigate some quite industrial looking stairs to get there. They have done their best to paint the space with celestial inspired murals, a theme which continues into the restaurant itself, but it is simply not a nice welcome.
And it also leads me to my second main complaint, and that is the toilets. You walk past them on the aforementioned stairs to get to the restaurant, and the smell wafting through made the welcome even worse. What's more is the fact that all the loos are unisex, which I don't get given that there is no shortage of space, and there was a very suspect puddle on the floor on both my visits. Yuk and ick. Loos should never be unisex if there is space available.
It is just as well then that the food and service was so good that I can get over the ickiness. The menu reminded me of Le Cafe Anglais: British classics with a hint of Frenchiness, I would be happy to eat almost anything off the menu. Most pleasing is that they don't call dessert 'dessert', they call it 'pudding'. Love love love!
I started with a steak tartare, more because I had been craving one than because of the selection on offer. I liked that it was served with a little side of gherkiny stuff, but still needed a little more kick:
Their salads were interesting, and I should have had one of these in retrospect. Lindsay had the Perigourdine, which translates into a salad with lovely ducky bits, including gizzards and fois gras:
A recovering Fil was definitely not ill anymore if he was ordering artichoke and truffle salads:
But starters were quickly rendered irrelevant when our main course came. They have roast special everyday, and we were so lucky that it is suckling pig on a Monday. 3 of us had it, potentially some of the best pig I've ever eaten (sorry Mum). Impossibly soft, although the crackling wasn't quite that crackly. The potatoes they served with it was also very lovely and nutty, like a wintery Jersey Royal:
And onto the very lovely puddings. I have had a bit of a weird turn lately, eating lots of sweet things, and I had real trouble deciding on puddings, the menu for which included Pear Belle Helene and Mandarin souffle. Again, reminiscent of Le Cafe Anglais, I was just pleased to see some stewed fruit on the menu, and shared some warm cherries with pain d'epices with Lindsay:
We also tried their white chocolate tarte du jour, very good in that they got the sweetness just right, not at all cloying, even I would have happily eaten it despite my dislike of white chocolate. Mark declared that it looked like a 'very Conran' dessert when I showed him the picture at work, haha!:
What I also really liked was they had a few surprises for us too, including some candied orange to go with our teas and coffees, nice to see they put a bit of thought into this 'petit four':
And because it is Christmas, they came round with a basket of clementines and nuts to round off the meal. This. however, turned into a bit of a nasty personal surprise. I tried some of their almonds and hazelnuts, and soon after discovered my lips and throat were very swollen, to the extent I had difficulty breathing and swallowing for the rest of the night. Now, I love nuts, never had any reaction before, and this episode really scared me, not for health implications, but because I may not be able to eat nuts again!! I have eaten nuts again since then (probably dangerous, but I wasn't paying attention), with reactions ranging from none at all to slightly swollen lips again. I knew things were going a bit too well lately, a newly developed nut allergy is dampening my spirits a little. I've just made some brownies with nuts in, they just came out the oven. So someone please come and check on me if it's all quiet on the blog front after this :)
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