Winter Wonderland and the River Cafe

Posted on 2011/12/10 09:32:13 (December 2011).

[Wednesday 7th December 2011]
My team went for a lunchtime outing today to the "Winter Wonderland" in Hyde Park. It was partly a German style Christmas market, and partly an English style fun fair. It was pleasingly nostalgic to have some kartoffelpuffer, which reminded me of a trip to Cologne a few years back, but other than that it was all a bit tacky, as you might expect. We did have a go on the dodgems, and feeling frugal (as the company was paying) I went in the passenger seat, which it turns out means you feel all the knocks a lot more, as you have nothing to hold onto really.

I've been wanting to go to the River Cafe for some time now, and had been waiting for when white truffles were back on the menu. Knowing the season was around November/December I'd been checking the menu on their website every few days, and today finally spotted those all important fungi. So I almost immediately called them and to my delight they were able to squeeze us in this evening - so this was to be our wedding anniversary dinner, a day early.

The place has a great atmosphere, the staff were fantastic (very upbeat and knowledgeable) - the starters and even the bread and olive oil were all delicious. I think we were both slightly underwhelmed by our main courses though. Chie had some sort of odd Italian festive meat thing which I think she found a bit too rich. As for mine, I just couldn't detect much fragrance from the white truffles, served on top of an appropriately delicately flavoured ravioli. Possibly down to the amount (I'd ordered 5g but it didn't look like very much and according to the bill it seemed to be 2g) and the fact that there were too many other strong aromas around me. Still that aside it was overall a great evening.

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