Joe and I had a brilliant Christmas period on the Wirral and in Edinburgh, so it was a sad goodbye on New Years Eve when we headed back on the train to Leeds. After such a busy few days, a low key night was definitely in order - a few drinks and some nice food close to home!
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| Me and Tom - who is clearly much more photogenic than me! |
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| A post train snack - excellent cheese and crackers, courtesy of Cousins Rosie and Tom and Uncle John - really good cheese! |
So close to home we did indeed go - to Sweet Basil in Roundhay! Rock on! But it was a good way to spend new year - tasty Chinese treats and some wine - great stuff.
We decided the least we could do is go a bit "off-piste" and not order our usual choices! We also steered clear of the Thai dishes, as we have Thai food so often. So for starters we had the lettuce wraps with minced chicken and stuffed crab claws. The lettuce wrap was quite possibly the largest starter I have ever seen - a iceberg leaf full of chicken and mushrooms - with more leaves on the side! It was really tasty, although challenging with the chop sticks. The crab claws were stuffed with crab and prawn meat and deep fried. It was a little underwhelming compared to the lettuce leaf, but still a good shout.
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| Pre-dinner rose bubbles |
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| The obligatory prawn crackers |
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| Stuffed crab claws |
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| Lettuce wraps with chicken |
For main courses, we went for sizzling fillet steak with green pepper and black bean, and peanut and chilli hot bean sauce with chicken, and some fried rice (a new year treat for Joe!). The sizzling fillet was really good - lots of beautiful soft steak with a punchy sauce, juxtaposed with crunchy green peppers, and the chili hot bean chicken was a great match - equally hefty, packed with burning dried red chillis, fiery ginger and a sweet and savoury sauce.
We gave the desserts a miss (sorry Hunter Pig!) - despite our intentions there was simply no room for the banana fritters we had promised ourselves. We strolled home and settled down in front of Match of the Day, celebrating a crazy day of football with a limoncello and a whisky - starting our party-animal 2012 as we mean to go on!!
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| Sizzling beef with green peppers and black bean sauce |
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| Chicken and peanut chilli hot bean sauce |
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| limoncello and whisky - cheers to a new year! |
1 comment:
I realise I am a bit late! But YAY you tried some of the cheese! It was lovely to see you, albeit briefly between Christmas and New Year. Hope to see you soon. Training seems well underway - for all of us so that's great! Jo - get your trainers on and join us :-) !!! Lots of love to you both! R x
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