So it appears that I’ve fallen a tiny bit behind on my posting, because yes, for a control freak like myself, a week in the behind is a lot in the behind. I had grandiose plans to catch up on my blogging over the weekend but instead, I went and learned a new word.

Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day email is hands down the best thing to land in my inbox because it teaches me a new word almost every day. I say almost because I mean, you can’t expect it to feed me new words every day given that my big fat brain already contains a squizillion nouns, verbs and adjectives. Or something.

But yesterday’s word was indeed a new one.

Slugabed [sluhg-uh-bed]
noun: a lazy person who stays in bed long after the usual time for arising.

Slugabed. Sluhhhh-gahbed. Sluhgah-bedddd. Let it absorb, settle, roll off your tongue, slugabed. What an intrinsically beautiful word!

I feel an unusual connection to this word, not in the least because it is kinda sorta really cute and makes me visualise a Gloworm wiggling in bed, but honestly? Because They’ve Made A Word To Describe Me.

Amen, sistah.

Anyway, yesterday was all about catching up with my blog, but as you can imagine, slugabed me, I didn’t wiggle my little butt out of bed til close to midday. And then I was hungry and there’s no food in the house so we had to go out… and you can imagine how the rest of the day went down.

So now, a week late, I’m finally getting around to blogging about my final London Restaurant Festival meal at Criterion Restaurant, very graciously sponsored by American Express.

American Express, the key sponsors of the festival, have done a phenomenal job with organising festival menus across dozens of restaurants and offered a number of bloggers the opportunity to share the festival love with our readers. My reader who won dinner for two at Criterion came back and told me how amazing it all was, and this my friends, makes blogging all worth while.

Ok, collective *awwwwwwwwwww*

Anyway, back to my meal. Me me me.

Panu and I had dinner at Criterion last Saturday night. Despite its disgustingly prime location Right In The Middle of Piccadilly Circus, upon entering the restaurant, you’re immediately whisked away into another place, another time.

The interior decor is grande to say the least ~ high ceilings, lavish couches, even a live piano musician, belting out tunes from from Nat King Cole to Snow Patrol.

After settling in with a glass of champagne, bread and butter is brought to the table, and hot-damn, isn’t this just the most lemony looking butter you’ve ever seen?

Well, lemon it wasn’t but instead the slickest, richest butter I’d had in a while. And it’s not like I talk about butter a lot, so you know this one’s good.

And the rest of the food did not disappoint. I ordered the crab bisque to start, made with Cornish brown crab and cream fraiche. It was richly, odouressly, stenchfully crab, full of hepatopancreas goodness. I couldn’t get enough.

Panu had the ‘head to toe’ pig’s terrine with homemade piccalilli, and from what I could tell, the dish was more than a little bit enjoyable.

For mains, Panu ordered the pan fried Gressingham duck breast, served with creamed cabbage, orange and beetroot. Not normally a duck fan, I honestly didn’t think he’d love it, but hey look! The one in a thousand times I’m wrong! The duck was tender with a thin strip of fat and cooked to a perfect medium rare, which explains why I was wrong because on those rare occasions, you’d better believe there is a damn good reason.

My main. Sometimes it’s the simplest things in life. I had the leek & potato ravioli served with baby leek, braised leek and leek puree. Sounds simple right? It was utterly frackingly scrumptious. I mean, it was leek and potato dammit! Match made in heaven 😀

Dessert time. My choice, the walnut crème brulee with blackberry compote. A delicious nutty crème brulee. What can I say except that it was too small.

And Panu’s indulgence: a dark chocolate and Cointreau brownie, brandy snap, served with peach and rooibos tea ice cream. Luscious and rich though lacking in Cointreau. Or so we thought, although… we had had a couple of champagnes and wines so…

And that there was our festival meal at Criterion Restaurant. The festival menu priced this meal up at £25 per person for a set three course dinner. I mean, really, if that isn’t good value… I’ll  uhhh… never be a slugabed again. Big call!

Anyway, don’t take me too seriously, I’ll always be a slugabed.

Happy Monday y’all xx

Criterion Restaurant
224 Piccadilly,
London, W1J 9HP
0207 930 0488
website

Criterion Restaurant on Urbanspoon

14 Thoughts on “rounding up London Restaurant Festival at Criterion Restaurant and me, the slugabed!

  1. Sluggy… With the Northern hemisphere temperatures it would be rude not to!

  2. Hehe I love the start to this post 🙂 I used to have a gloworm when I was a kid too, they are cute, aren’t they?

  3. LOL great post Catty! I love that term slugabed because that’s what I felt like yesterday! 😛

  4. I am a slugabed too… but love it.

  5. Slugabed? That’s what I want to be when I grow up. A geeeteelman of les-u-ire. Yessir. And now I know what to call that particular occupation. Good word.

    Now, if you could find someway for them to bring all that good looking food to your bedside, you would truly be a slugabed.

    That pasta looks very good – and sometimes it’s the simple things when done well) that really make a meal. Just one question – is that a small leak, or just very very big ravioli?

  6. Sasa: Hey sluggeh! I agree, tis a crime not to slug around for a little (or all day) in this cold weather.

    jenny: I KNOW! They are sooooo cute 😀

    Lorraine: I think we all feel like that but what’s your excuse, you’re in the midst of a beautiful Australian spring!

    penny: Hehe love it. Uncovering many a slugabeds!

    Grubworm: Hehe, I think when a grubworm grows up, it most certainly becomes a slugabed! And in that form it hibernates for another decade or two, only coming out to feed 🙂 And those were rather large ravioli’s 🙂

  7. Ugh I hate slugabedding! But that probably doesn’t come to you as a surprise… I seriously can’t stay in bed for longer than 10 minutes (if even that) after waking up!

    On a side note. That BUTTER looks so bright and yellow! I thought it was lemon sorbet or something when I first saw it!

  8. You had me at dark chocolate and contrieau brownie – amazing!

  9. Linda at Pink Elephants coffee,LLC on October 26, 2010 at 6:49 am said:

    Does anyone notice how, at-and-awhile-after Autumnal Equinox, EVERYBODY
    talks of how tired they are and how they just want to sleep. It gets me every year.
    Sleep is wonderful. Bed is cozy. The world goes on, none the wiser.
    Slugabed? Never heard it before. Guess I slept through it.

  10. Gourmet Chick: It was VERY luscious indeed! Although, p’raps a dabble more cointreau would have been nice 😉

    Linda: Yes, the autumn (although it feels like we’ve gone straight into winter here!) does make for good slugabed weather… I wish I never had to get out of bed!

  11. I am also a subscriber for the word of the day – one of my recent favourite ones was Brobdingnagian. I should start using these words in my posts, people would think I am so clever! 🙂
    Criterion looks good, should go there for pre-theatre!

    • Hehe yeah I remember that word too! 🙂 And yes, just occurred to me that Criterion probably has a pre-theatre menu that is very similar to the festival menu. Enjoy!

  12. richard Hanna on November 21, 2010 at 6:34 am said:

    My Favourite restaurant in the whole world, made a spectacular comeback about 10 years ago.

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