London - Galvin Bistrot de Luxe

So it may seem a bit stupid to eat French food in London, but frankly I'm glad we did it.  We went to the Galvin Bistrot de Luxe on our first night.

Our hotel had them send us complimentary glasses of champagne to start off our meal, which was a delight.  It ended up working in their favor though, because it may have been the most delicious champagne I've ever had, and it was "just their house champagne", and so we couldn't resist and had to order a bottle for the table.  Oh gluttony.

Then we had oysters and snails to start.  The shallot vinaigrette was mouth-puckering-ly tart.

 The snails were huge and very full of garlic, though I would have preferred if the garlic and herbs had been roasted for a while longer. 

 I opted for the stake tartar, which came with a bowl of duck fat chips.  The steak tartare was very well seasoned, but they tried way too hard by seasoning it with way too many capers. 

 Michael got the bivette of steak, which was in a beautiful beetroot sauce (I was genuinely impressed by it because beetroot is a tricky vegetable for me and yet this one was undeniably delicious) topped with baby spinach.

Michael's brother's dish: a "haunch" of venison paired with parsnips. For something described as a haunch, this portion size seemed a bit paltry.

 Michael's brother's girlfriend's dish, a line caught John Dory on a bed of lentils paired with a side salad.

 For dessert we had a light passion fruit cheesecake paired with passion fruit ice cream (it was so good!)

 and a generous wedge of apple tart paired with whipped cream and drizzled in caramel sauce (this was disappointing - did not live up at all to the hype that one associates with French apple tartines).

Overall, despite a few minor complaints, it was a great dinner and we had so much fun.  One of life's joys is the ability to share in good food with good company, right?  And getting to do that in a beautiful old city while on vacation was the perfect icing on top.