9 courses -- but only room for about 6

Last night Ashley surprised me with 5-year-living-together-anniversary dinner out, complete with friendly neighbourhood babysitter (thanks Amber!)

And the surprise venue was a newish Kew restaurant called A Taste of McClements which, as the name suggests, has a tasting-menu style approach. Although I think they will make substitutions (the waiter asked us if everything on the menu looked ok), the basic plan is take what you get on the night. Our 9-course, 17-dish meal included foie gras (twice, in 2 different formats), game, tuna, lamb, pigs' trotters (presuming they came from multiple pigs), bouillabaise (also in 2 formats: one the typical soup; one just, well, chunks of fish), something called a chicken quenelle in a roquefort sauce, lobster, crab, scallops, chocolate cake, violet ice cream... Not so good for the vegetarian or kosher diet. Or anything but the see-food diet...

And how was it? Aside from a bit overwhelming, not bad. I was a little apprehensive before going, because while I'd wanted to try it out, I'd also read a not particularly appealing review (one of the nicer things they said was that everything was overly salty... at least that meant some flavour). The chef had clearly read that review -- most of the food was pleasantly not overly seasoned -- and there were some interesting combinations. I especially liked that unheard-of-before quenelle (yup, a delicate dumpling), and also the herb-encrusted lamb (accompanied by delicious dauphinoise potatoes, my fave). Unfortunately, however, the portions kept getting bigger and bigger as the meal went on. I wouldn't normally complain about getting an entire lamb chop with a meal... however after the 6 previous courses, it was a bit much. The tiny amuse-bouche and half-inch quenelle that started our dinner were misleading, to say the least -- I thought for sure I'd finish the entire thing, but had to throw in the towel pre-dessert, as interesting as they sounded.

A dining experience, to be sure, though I think it's one of those once-is-enough kind of places. And  with only 14 diners on a Saturday night, we may only have a limited time to experience it in any case. So I'm definitely glad we did - though wish I wasn't hungry again the next day!