Extravagance

Posted on 2009/03/08 15:44:52 (March 2009).

[Thursday 5th March]
A colleague suggested a visit to the pub after work today, as we had jointly said recently that we should embark on a mission of trying to find at least one new pub every week. So it was we tried out The Clarendon, which despite being not too far from the office I had managed to have never even heard of before. It wasn't a particularly pubby sort of pub - more of a wine bar nestled amongst the stucco fronted terraces of Pimlico's grid - but I found it pleasant enough nonetheless.

This initial foray had obviously instilled some enthusiasm in my colleague, and I was pleased when he suggested we go and try somewhere else - so I put forward a slightly unusual proposal, that we should give the bar at the Boisdale a go. I'd been there to eat once before, and had heard there was a bar which didn't require a table reservation or anything, but had always half suspected that in practice they'd give preference to people waiting for a table, and you couldn't really go there just for a drink.

However that turns out not to be the case, and we wandered in quite unimpeded. I started off with their own bottling of Laphroaig which was thankfully every bit as rascally as one would hope for from a Laphroaig. My colleague had a Lagavulin. For the second dram (my colleague's round), my colleague appeared to be overcome with a wave of extravagance, and suggested we try some 20+ year old Taliskers, which were a bit on the dear side. I felt it important to savour this dram somewhat, and made a point of nosing it as thoroughly as I could - although I'm not sure this was the best environment - to begin with I thought it had hints of seafood, but then realised there were a group of people sitting behind us with a pile of particularly pungent scallops. That aside I would have described it as a sort of chestnutty, gamey sort of aroma, with obvious sherry notes. It was as though somebody had taken pheasant with chestnuts in a red wine jus and turned it into a whisky. Or maybe that was just what the person at another table was eating.

Rounded off the evening with a quick bite to eat at Oliveto, round the corner, which was excellent as always. A reassuringly sophisticated (i.e. expensive!) night out.

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