Harvest Supper with Innis & Gunn at Café St. Honoré

Wednesday 7th September 2011. 7:32pm.

I’m literally moping around the kitchen. The Silver Fox asks ‘what’s for dinner…?’ I’m staring blankly into the fridge. There’s ham. There’s mayo. Loaf of granary on the counter. I debate hacking open the bag of Maltesers instead. My awaiting tastebuds are preparing themselves for massive, crushing disappointment. I can visualise a ‘strongly worded letter of complaint’. ‘Dear Madam. The ham sandwich concept is way below par. Can’t you do something with – oh , we don’t know – maybe some scallops, bacon…?’

Yesterday, you see, the felly and I had been privileged to hands-down awesome dinner at Café St. Honoré.

Tuesday 6th September 2011. 7:32pm.

The Silver Fox and I are sitting in the back room of  Café St. Honoré.  This little bistro is a très authentic tranche of Paris, here in our dear ‘burgh. We’ve just booked a trip to the City of lights, so sitting in the candlelit dining room ambience with mirrored panels, bentwood chairs and linen, we’re getting into mode Française. Tonight’s special event is in conjunction with Scottish Food Fortnight, and the restaurant’s award-winning Chef, Neil Forbes has created a special harvest menu to pair with a selection of Innis & Gunn beers. The remit tonight is Scottish-sourced food and drink, and the restaurant is packed with eager eaters and drinkers alike.

We’re sipping one of I&G’s newest tipples, Melville’s Strawberry beer. The lightly effervescent beer had a scoffable sweetness, but without being at all cloying. A brilliant idea for apéro hour. I wondered what the French would think of that one to replace their beloved Kir. Chef gives a warm introduction and explained how they had worked around the idea of a ‘beer dinner’ and how the menu and pairings had been devised with I&G’s MD Dougal Sharp.

What followed was a truly fantastic evening of good food, inspired beer pairings, informative chat, and friendly company including fellow bloggers and tweeting pals Hilary and Hannah . The perfect night.

Now, on to that ‘it’s-gonna- be-a-while-before-anything-lives-up-to-it’ menu….

Tartare of Peelham Farm organic grass-fed Rose veal. Paired with Innis & Gunn Original 

We’re tucking into crusty sourdough bread. About two minutes before the front of house team started to bring the food out from the kitchen, my wee brain had a panic and wondered if it was gonna be tartare like as as in ‘raw egg’ steak tartare, as opposed to ‘no sign of eggs’ tartare. The plates arrived on the table, tartare of pinker-than-pink Rose veal, sporting a jolly yellow yolk.  The Silver Fox stopped eyeballing the yolk long enough to look up to me, before the ‘when in Paris’ moment happened and we both tucked in heartily. The texture of the veal was like silk, and the seasoning absolutely brilliant with bites of cornichons and bright chopped parsley. The toast which accompanied crisp and munchy. A decree was immediately made – from now on, I ONLY eat organic grass-fed Rose Veal tartare! Borders-based Peelham Farm are one of my favourite local producers (read about BBQ night at Hotel du Vin here) , and I’ll keep an eye out for the veal. The beer’s slight toffee and caramel flavours were great with the sweet meat and savoury seasoning.

West coast hand-dived scallops, home cured bacon. Paired with Innis & Gunn Highland Cask.Having read the menu online ahead of the event, I was always anticipating this course being ‘right up there’ . How the kitchen managed to simultaneously send out 40-odd covers of perfect scallops, I have no idea. Chef Neil explained a bit about their  curing process, and the fat chunk of bacon was one of those eats that you start to get nostalgic about even before you’ve finished it.  The fat was perfectly rendered on the outside, but keeping a  naughty softness inside. The accompanying sauce was just slightly underwhelming, but only due to the kick-ass yumminess of the salty bacon and seared caramelised scallops. The partner beer for this course, having been matured in whisky casks, was a belter at over 7% abv. Amazingly, citrussy flavours were brought out when teamed up with the food; another great flavour experience!

Saddle of Borders roe deer, Stornoway black pudding and potato cake, hedgerow berry sauce. Paired with Innis & Gunn Rum Cask.

As readers will know, we like our meat on the blog, and when this next course arrived, a collective ‘mmmmmmm’ was uttered. For those who think venison is heavy or too gamey, my advice is to book at table here ASAP, as this was a study in tender perfectly cooked meat. The potato cake with crunchy rösti tatties on the top, and the black pudding on the bottom was a really wonderful accompaniment, and the fruity sauce was an absolute delight. Some hints of chocolate in there, along with the dark little berries. Kale with mutard was the only not-quite perfect component. The verdant leaves were cooked to tender point, but an over-enthusiastic quantity of mustard left it a bit too tangy for my palate.

The dark rum cask beer had that rootbeer look, and picked up a wee hint of the chocolate in the sauce.

Bramley apple custard crumble tart with Cuddybridge apple sorbet. Paired with Innis & Gunn Winter Beer 2011.

Before we were served our pud, there was an appropriately seasonal intro to apple varietals by Graham Stoddart of Cuddybridge , who supply juices to some of the country’s top eateries. The dessert itself was a lovely crisp pastry base, filled with a crème Anglaise style custard, chunks of apple and with a buttery crumble topping. I quickly ‘rescued’ away the apple sorbet to keep at the side of my plate as a juicy grand finale.
The final beer, the Winter brew 2011 had an intriguingly short feel on the mouth. By this point, I think we were tipping 40% abv on the beers (kidding, it was about 8%) and I realise the evening had gone raaaather swimmingly. It was great tasting all of these beers, and I left the buidling feeling a lot less tipsy than I have for similar wine dinners. For the sake of clarity, this is definitely a good thing!

This was a great night as it was interesting and delicious in equal measures. As mentioned to Chef Neil at the end of the night; any chance of doing one of these every season? Ahem, my birthday is in January if that’s any help!