Utterly Scrumptious Day!

Imagine our surprise, to open a stiff green envelope on Christmas Day and discover 'major Darling's' present was a trip to London to enjoy an extravagant lunch in an iconic location!

Well, this Saturday we set off with great anticipation for our lunch at the Savoy!  It was such a beautiful crisp sunny day, we walked over the bridge from Waterloo and strolled up to the venue, feeling very grand!

The hotel looks absolutely stunning after the fairly recent refurbishment and once we had taken a bit of time to absorb the atmosphere of this historic hotel, we made our way through to the Art Deco River restaurant, decorated in shades of cream, chrome and black.  Surprisingly it is not a very clear view of the river with trees in the way, so we were glad to sit further back in the middle of the restaurant where we could observe the 'theatre' of this luxury dining room.

 The numerous attentive members of staff, attractively dressed in an unusual sand coloured uniform, were ready to please our every request but not so keen as to be annoying.  Relaxing back with our chilled flute of champagne, the next task was to make a decision on what food to eat, it all sounded so appetising.  We were certainly not disappointed, all three courses were utterly scrumptious!  We were a bit predictable with our choice, both having a divine smoked trout and salmon starter with the very best warm crusty bread, followed by succulent white cod on a bed of citrus couscous.  My gingerbread parfait was heavenly and I was allowed a small taste of 'The Chief's' blackcurrant crumble and apple ice cream - as you have never seen it before! What a thoroughly indulgent way to spend a Saturday,  I could get used to it!

We decided to go on elsewhere for a coffee to take in a bit of the sunshine and I remembered seeing a cafe in Embankment Gardens.  I thought it would be fun to go from one extreme to another in the style of venue!  However, this little cafe was perfect, they even brought the coffee to our table and we sat outside on a little terrace looking out across the sun soaked Thames - couldn't be better!

It was a perfect winter's day to experience the sights of London, especially as the sun began to sink lower and the shadows lengthened.

Unfortunately, South West trains did not plan their engineering works to fit in with our memorable day.  We had planned to meet the girls in the evening for a drink on the South Bank to end off a lovely day, however we needed major Darling to give us lifts to and from another station as it was the only line open over the weekend.  Instead, we had to open a bottle of bubbly when we got home to say thank you for our perfect present!