Tennerfest - Treat or Trick?

Now, a little back-story for you today, dear reader.  I have to give you this back-story in order to defend my corner.  For I've been doing a fair bit of dining out of late and there will be times when I have to drop my recently-adopted lily-livered approach to food shots on this blog and give you pictorial evidence of what I been up to.  For I have been eating.  Rather a lot.

You see, during the month of October, we have something over here called the Tennerfest.  The idea is for restaurants to produce 3 course meals for £10 and sort of compete with each other for the locals' trade.  This creates a buzz on the island and boosts restaurant trade in the relatively quiet period between summer and Christmas. 

That's how it started about 20 years ago.  Needless to say, whilst a few restaurants still honour the £10/3 courses, most have over time either increased prices so that a meal is no longer a tenner, and/or have reduced the number of courses for a tenner.  But a restaurant near us, here, is one of the few that does an amazingly good 3 courses for £10 ...

... and that is where I headed happily when I wore this.

(3 courses? £10?  I have told you I am tight, eh?!). 

(For my Sibs - my Little Boy Blue pose!)

Woolovers heather long-line jumper, Peacocks grey jeans. M&S snake print flatties.

And an embroidered mauve shawl, last seen here.

Nicely togged for a short evening stroll down to the nearby restaurant. But that's not what happened.

For the heaven's opened and the rain belted down.  So instead of a nice leisurely 10 minute stroll we had a 2 minute dash in the car.  I couldn't take shots of the pretty walk to the restaurant.  I didn't even get any pre-prandial exercise to justify my gluttony! 

That's autumn for you, eh, unpredictable.  Even BBC weather can get it wrong this time of year.  Err, Michael Fish and his infamous no-storm forecast hours before The Great Storm of October 87, under whose eye our island nested?

And now, with due restraint, I post you food pics but also with an added bonus, a recipe.

After fish bon bons, I had Beercan burger with gorgeous spicy chips.  I just had to try this from the menu as I'd first seen this burger on a Swedish blogger's site some months ago and had made the dish myself.  So I wanted to taste a Pro's efforts.

I'm justifying this food pic primarily because I want to share my recipe with you.

Here's what you do.  You roll your minced beef mix (mince with added onions, seasoning, herbs etc) into a ball then press down a can in the centre to make a well.  You fill the cavity with whatever gorgeous stuff you fancy and top with cheese.  I filled mine with red onions, cherry toms. mozzarella and lots of herbs. The restaurant's version was a mix which included mushrooms.  Oh joy! :-(.

Anyway. stuffing chosen, you then wrap the sides of the burger in streaky bacon and bake for about 20-25 mins, or less if you like it pinker.  

It really is rather yummy.  Fancy giving it a go?

But back to the pictorials of my gluttony, I'm also fessing up to pecan tart slice.

Very nice food, very nice servers.  Three courses. £10.  Thank you very much. 

And there you have it, dear reader.  My name is The Pout and I ate out thricely last week and I will be eating out three times again this week.  I am supporting local businesses during a quiet period by my over-eating, that's my altruistic starting point.  And I'm catching up with lots of friends.  All good.  

But now into my second week of gluttony, I am starting to feel decidedly uncomfortable, yet the meals keep coming with frightening regularity.  And I really don't know if I can take my 

altruistic task to term.  I don't know whether I can truly face my last few meals of the bunch, coming up scarily soon.  

I guess this is my own personal self-induced Halloween scare - eating out is now feeling more of a trick than a treat!

A la perchoine.









Friday Night In Da Hood

Friday night out.  Much-deserved after a week of liberating shed clearance and other hard-graft.

So it was nice to have a break from working clothes and golf gear (yes, I sneaked in an early-morning round).  Oh what bliss to slip into something halfway decent.

We fancied going out for a bite to eate but we didn't fancy venturing too far.  We were pretty shattered, so my look was fairly casual.  And layered, as the day had been around the 20c, not the 32c of the previous week :-(.

Woolovers grey cashmere/merino frilled cardi.

Next layered ivory top.

Some much-treasured, beautiful grey/taupe beads given to me by a jeweller friend some years ago.

My taupe heels.  So surprisingly comfy.  I walk like a sassy lady in these!

So you'd think this would be layer enough for a July evening.

But no!  The Photographer wanted me to take a pash "in case it was cold on the way back"!

 

But needless to say, I did not wear this grey/cream patterned pash!  It was far too warm an evening.

So, keeping my pash stowed away in a capacious bag "just in case", I went here ...

Hotel Hougue du Pommier.

It's an old granite farmhouse building and is surrounded by lovely gardens to wander through.

It's just round the corner, a 5-6 minute walk.  It's in my hood.

So it should be on our list of local eatery stops.  It is now!

We experienced some disappointing service about 5 years ago, let's call it Lobstergate.  A rogue piece of chicken found in a lobster thermidor - the maitre d didn't handle the situation well, and neither did the chef.  So we had stopped frequenting the place.  Which is a real shame, being so close. 

We felt that we had distanced ourselves enough from the event for there to have been a full staff turnover.  And, we discovered, it was also now under new management and boy, could we mark the difference .  For last night's meal couldn't be faulted, it was pretty superb.  

The restaurant was packed, that really says it all. eh? 

We will be going back there again very soon.

A nice chilled Pinot Grigio to check out.



Yup.  That hits the spot.

The Photographer had what was listed on the menu as plain old scampi.  In reality it was full-sized firm prawns cooked in a tempura batter.  The Photographer declared it the best scampi he'd had in years.  And that's coming from one who is frugal with superlatives, so "best" is pretty big in his world!

I had the chicken breast burger served with a little red cabbage coleslaw.  And some cheeky onion rings were thrown in to the mix.  I was not unhappy with that!

The breast was beautifully cooked, tender, with a super salsa topping.  Simple food, cooked yummily.



A double espresso to round off a truly lovely meal.

Hotel Hougue du Pommier.

Location - brilliant.

Food - the best (The Photographer's words).

Service - superb!

And, as often happens, we met Henry the neighbourhood patrol cat on the walk home. 

I hope you note that after last Friday's Blistergate, I had packed Birkies in my capacious bag for the return journey through the ruettes tranquilles.

I paused to snap our neighbour's fine display of Michaelmas Daisies.  He is so good with this flower and his garden proudly boasts this superb daisy hedge each year.

Cosy-Fridayness is what was on my menu yesterday evening.  Hope it was on yours too.

Wishing you a lovely rest-of-weekend, peeps.  Thanks for popping in.

A la perchoine.