This is crazy, isn't it? Especially considering we only send Xmas cards and otherwise make little effort to keep in touch for the other 364 days. We started this routine because we had small children (S & I) and responsible jobs (them) and we all had busy lives. So we started to keep a Friday in the summer in which to do lunch, and we ate at the bistro at the top of the Oxo tower. (great view from the balcony). After a while we got bored of the Oxo tower, and we tried the restaurant at Somerset House, but this was not nearly as good, service-wise. Then we tried the Skylon restaurant upstairs at the Festival Hall. This is extremely good. The food and the service are first rate and we met there for about 4 years. Then we talked about trying somewhere else, and S's sister recommended Medlar in the King's Road. We absolutely love it. It's very quiet and little-known and the service is wonderful and the set menu is £27 for 3 first-rate courses. Also it's in an area of London which is interesting and villagey. To get there, you take a tube to Sloane Square. Ignore Peter Jones! Walk straight past - there's a long way to go. You have to walk past many shops selling desirable clothes and furnishings and bits and bobs, past Habitat (yes there is one left!) Past Heals, past the Town Hall with interesting weddings going on, past the fire station and the Designers' Guild, all the way to the end, and then take a left at the Post Office and round the next corner on the right is Medlar. The front is open if it's a nice day, but we like sitting towards the back.
The kind of service it has, is this, they bring you a glass of ice cubes with tongs, and if they've been there a while and they're melting, they bring you fresh ice cubes. they let you sit there as long as you like, even if you've only had a set menu and a bottle of wine and are hardly last of the big spenders. The decor is discreetly eau de nil and nothing to get excited about. The chairs are comfortable. The food is amazing. Today I started with a crab raviolo with a subtle sauce and a sea vegetable I had never heard of (you get things you've never heard of) and then I had guinea fowl with a mixture of dear little vegetables, and another subtle sauce with truffles and some sort of tiny mushrooms with a strong flavour. For pud S and I had the warm chocolate tart with the nuttiest ice cream I've ever had. It was all fantastic and we enjoyed each other's company so much we decided to meet TWICE a year!!!!
By the way, these are the old girls, in that we were all at school together. It must have marked us very strongly because we all seem to have the same voice: the same desire to do the right thing, perhaps, but skeptically. S is a doctor, JB is a vet, C is an HR boss. And me: I am an abject failure, because I have never become qualified to teach adults in an H.E. setting, and am stuck with F.E. I would do a PhD if I had the money. At least an M.A.
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