The House Husband

If Farelli had told me 20 years ago that I would be sitting in a fantastic restaurant on the edge of Lake Como, enjoying a wonderful Italian white wine and three course feast with my wife of 20 years I’m not sure I’d have believed her. But here we were, exactly as she predicted.

View from the restaurant where we had lunch

And what a glorious day we’ve had to celebrate our 20 years together. A trip on Lake Como to Bellagio and back for starters was excellent. It takes two hours each way but the time just sails by when you’re on a boat. Literally. Except without the sails.

At 10am we boarded the Giglio (after watching the oddly named Bat Spaz clean up the inner harbour for us) along with numerous other Australians (including the four from yesterday who Mirinda overheard discussing the possibility of making the trip) and a few other nationalities.

Bat Spaz dredges the harbour

The morning had started with some pretty threatening clouds but as soon as we hit the water they beat a hasty retreat to be replaced by mountain peak to mountain peak blue with a big shiny sun in the middle. It was just beautiful.

Our destination was a place called Bellagio. It is described as the most beautiful town in Italy, a statement I can’t agree with. Amalfi beats it easily. Even so, it is very lovely and designed specifically for the tourist. There are lots of souvenir shops selling all sorts of tat and a lot of Italian restaurants selling a lot Italian food.

We had decided, as we would be spending all day out and about that we would have our anniversary meal at lunch time so we wandered along the waterfront looking for a likely place. Mirinda found it.

We walked into the reception area of the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni and immediately fell in love. We reserved a table on the terrace and waited for ten minutes before being served to within an inch of our lives. Honestly, the service was fab, the waiters just the right amount of fussy and the food…BRILLIANT. I managed to sneak a photo of my dessert.

Dessert: Strawberry ice cream, raspberries, fruit tartlette

It was delicious but not the highlight. That honour goes to the egg cooked at 65° on a bed of baby leeks and surrounded by long, raisin-like mushrooms (they looked like raisins, they didn’t taste like raisins). This was truly delish. The perfect dish, both simple yet perfectly balanced.

This was offset by the American couple sitting near us who, while married, had nothing to say except on the phone to their daughter Ann. Very sad. Mirinda’s conjecture was that he had had an affair and Ann had discovered it. Her idea, to bring her parents back together was to send them on a romantic holiday in Italy. Well, Ann, it didn’t work.

After our perfect lunch (which was washed down with an equally perfect Tuscan wine from San Gimignano) we strolled around the narrow lanes, dodging the ridiculous traffic that only sometimes managed to fit. The lanes, as well as being very narrow, made possibly for a donkey with pannikins, were full of tourists, making any mode of transport extremely slow and painful. The Romans had it right. Ban the cars during daylight hours!

Still, smelly cars aside, the town is lovely and very Italian. It abounds with steep stairs leading to and from the harbour. Here’s Mirinda about to run up one set.

It's a long way to the top...

We made our way to the Villa Melzi (via a lovely little chapel dedicated to St George) and wandered around the magnificent gardens created for Francesco Melzi between 1808 & 1810 by architect Luigi Canonica and botanist Luigi Villoresi. While we’ve seen some wonderful gardens in our time, few have such an incredible backdrop as the mountains surrounding Lake Como.

The garden is awash with colour from the azaleas blooming everywhere in every conceivable colour. The garden is simply breathtaking. This is one section along the path.

Azaleas at Villa Melzi, Bellagio

The run back to Como was lovely and unhurried, enlivened by the sight of a young girl in red standing on the edge of a stone bridge being photographed by a friend as we docked then left Nesso.

Apart from popping into the market for some typically Italian sweet delights, we returned to the flat for a well earned rest.

Us in Bellagio

Pork belly on red cabbage & smoked potato mash

Ignoring the poor quality of the photograph (because of low light) this was my main course last night. As I wrote yesterday, we finally went to Truffles restaurant in Alton. It has been heralded as the best restaurant in Alton. While I should state that I like Alton very much (we did live there for a bit), saying something is the best in Alton, does not aim very high. However, without this praise, Truffles also has two AA rosettes, a high award indeed. The Auberge in Haslemere had the same. It was because of this that we decided to go. Well, to be fair, Mirinda was the one who really wanted to try it out.

The restaurant is part of a hotel and is lovely. In the car park was a lovely vintage car (I’d say what model it was but I really have no idea) giving the whole place a modicum of class. And very nice it was too.

Vintage car outside Truffles

At this point, everything looked good and expectation was high. We wandered into the bar where a young barman was busy fending off a bunch of women, clearly out for a night of fun and giggles. He was completely professional, making sure we had drinks to take into the lounge while we perused the menu.

What an amazing selection! I’m afraid I had pork for both starter and main course but it was very hard to go passed the ham hock with the fried egg. I love eggs and try and have at least one with every meal. The ham hock is the ankle joint of the pig, usually from the front leg – I know because I just looked it up. My only previous knowledge of the ham hock came from a psychedelic song recorded by the band Funkadelic, in which they discussed them in connection with a bowl of cereal. And for my main, the pork belly (a personal favourite) and smoky mash just jumped off the page and held me transfixed.

It was while we were looking at the menu that our suspicions were first aroused. The prices seemed awfully low for a double rosette restaurant. The wine list was similar until I turned a few pages and managed to find the sancere which was a more ‘reasonable’ price. We ordered and hoped for the best.

As we left the lounge on our way to table 42 (the barman was amazed I remembered it and when I tried to explain how it’s the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything, he just switched off) another group of diners were looking at the menu. One of them called the waitress over asking for some clarification of some of the words on it. They wanted to know if they could have mashed potato with puy lentils (pronounced ‘poo-ey’ lentils by the oldest chap) until the waitress explained that the lentils were the protein and having potato would double it up. I’m not sure what the result of this was as we were out of earshot sitting at our table.

The restaurant area was very atmospheric. Low lighting, flickering candles, the usual sort of thing. The room has a hint of art deco about it with those multi colour glass lamps dotted about the room. It was very conducive to a good night’s eating. Through the arch behind us, the group of women were getting stuck into the wine and were strating to take far too many photographs and getting rowdy. This concerned me for a bit but they all quietened down and didn’t really bother us. Though the barman had a hard time most of the night. Apparently his name was not Darren although that’s what was printed on the bill roll – or so one of the women said.

Our wine arrived to coincide with the other group of diners (the lentil people) who immediately complained that it was too dark. I’m not sure why this should be a problem. They had already ordered, all they had to do was talk and eat but, apparently, they needed excessive light for these task. I guess it’s important to make sure you’re not talking to the wrong person.

Anyway, the waitress suggested another table which was a bit closer to a light but, instead of following through on this preferable course of action, she turned the lights up. Suddenly any atmosphere in the room was removed and it all just looked like someone’s over sized dining room with too many dining tables in it. To be completely honest, we couldn’t believe it had just happened. Not what you expect…etc, etc.

Still, we ignored it and enjoyed our meal. My starter was delicious, although it was a bit undecided what temperature it should be. Unless indicated otherwise, I expect my meals to be equal, temperature-wise. The ham hock wasn’t the same temp as the egg and the pineapple relish wasn’t any temp at all. This makes it out to be not very nice but it was really delicious. The flavours were delicate and complementary. I excused the temperature thing and just enjoyed it. Mirinda’s rabbit was also delicious and I don’t think there was any discrepancy with the temperature.

The wine was lovely, though a few years younger than I was expecting. This wasn’t a problem, it was lovely. My main arrived looking like the photograph above. And I have to say, it was superb. I’m not sure how they smoke potato mash but it was very effective. It had a slight scent of wood smoke and tasted a bit smoky. The pork belly was perfect melt in the mouth as it should be and the red cabbage an excellent accompaniment. Mirinda’s lamb was lovely as well but she needed to add salt.

Actually, that was another thing. At these sort of restaurants, adding things like salt and pepper should not be necessary. The chef has prepared a meal to a certain degree of taste and adding anything extra will spoil the balance of flavour. However, as the barman put the meals down, he asked if we’d like black pepper. I was shocked. I didn’t let it show. And then, having tasted her lamb, Mirinda needed salt.

Mine needed nothing and was a delight all the way down. Even the fresh veg was steamed perfectly with lots of lovely broccoli and carrot.

For dessert I had a treacle cake thing in a nutmeg custard with mandarin cream, while Mirinda had the rice pudding. Both were delicious. We ended up with coffee & peppermint tea (and a sneaky glass of amaretto) in the lounge before we paid and left.

On the way home we chatted about why we wouldn’t be going back. Our main problem was the price which affected the ambience and the size of the meals. The meals were too big, the prices too low and there was no appetizer. A shame because I think the chef is excellent but slightly wasted at the best restaurant in Alton.

I have just looked up the Truffles website and, apparently we were supposed to be served an appetizer and petit fours with our coffee. We missed out on both. Also the AA rosettes were awarded in 2007-2008. I think things may have slipped a bit!

Mirinda at Truffles before the lights were raised

I missed my one year of blogging! Dammit. I’ve decided to celebrate it posthumously with a very short post and a link to the beginning.

This one.

So I was enjoying a little afternoon snooze in front of my Netbook, pretending to absorb information about eBooks while Mirinda happily gazed at the words on her Sony eReader when I was suddenly whipped back into full consciousness. In the frenzy to remember what to pack from the flat for the trip to Bath tomorrow, she’d forgotten the power adapter for her laptop. It may have been a little amusing, watching her panic grow as she realised it was nowhere to be found in the house. My concern was that she had left it either in Dublin or on the train returning from Dublin. She assured me she hadn’t.

It was 3:20. We were due to go to the Spotted Cow for 7:30 for our anniversary dinner so I had to make tracks if I was to get to the flat and back in time. With all haste, I grabbed the essentials and was out of the door in five minutes. I would like to note at this stage that we both forgot our anniversary this year. As it was, Mirinda was in Dublin. It was Fiona who alerted Mirinda to the fact. Good job neither of us are particularly date focussed!

Anyway, back to the journey. The 3:58 train to Waterloo was strangely busy but I managed to get a modicum of work done on my hastily grabbed Netbook. I also managed to stay awake. No mean feat given the sleepy state of my brain.

Carmen has taken to waking me up by whacking me with her paw. This would be all well and good except she keeps doing it earlier and earlier. This is perhaps my own fault as I let the poodles sleep with me while Mirinda is in town. It’s actually very funny when they don’t wake up before the alarm. When it goes off they just go insane, wondering what it means. Such jolly fun!

The train, meanwhile, filled up by the time we arrived at Woking and I had a rather full trip into Waterloo but, strangely, it was quiet enough for me to work. It was a lot easier when the young Goth with the hair over her face stopped ripping lengths of stick tape off a roll. At least, I think that’s what she was doing. It sounded like she was but I couldn’t see her.

From the station, I made a hurried, dodging dash for the bus stop and almost immediately climbed aboard a number 4 bus. Things were going well. Even the diversion around St Paul’s wasn’t a problem. I arrived at the flat, ran in, grabbed the lead, which sat with all the élan of a panther in a tree, on the dining table amid the wreckage of DVDs and stuff I didn’t really look at, and was back on the street in about five minutes.

I stood at the bus stop, weighing up my options. I decided I would wait a maximum of ten minutes for a bus. If one hadn’t arrived by then, I’d grab a taxi. After about two minutes, I flagged down taxi. The driver managed to get me to Waterloo with enough time to buy a coffee at Nero’s before walking swiftly to platform 10 and boarding the 5:53 to Alton.

All was well in my safe little end of the carriage. A few people dotted around meant I could spread out over the two seats. My Netbook, my book, my coffee, all of it, comfy and handy. At the last minute, just before the train doors slammed guillotine-like shut, a sudden influx of puffing, running passengers meant I had to quickly gather all my bits together and share my space. All the way to Aldershot, I had to share my space!

Mirinda sent me a text to suggest she meet me at Farnham and we would drive straight to the Spotted Cow, alleviating the need for me to walk home. Sounded good to me.

And there she was. Actually waiting for me. We drove up to the Spotted Cow and had a lovely (and quite large) anniversary dinner before going home for an anniversary viewing of the latest Midsomer Murders, which was as hilarious as usual. Joyce really does make me laugh. And she was on fine form in this episode.

On February 19, 1998, Mirinda and I boarded a plane, leaving Sydney and flying to London. I can’t remember what the weather was like, but we arrived in England on February 20 and took off for Somerset. And now, every year, around this time, we go out for an anniversary dinner. This year is no different. We are off to St John’s, our favourite local restaurant to celebrate our 12th year.

To otherwise celebrate, we went for a long ramble over Hankley Common. While we generally do this, it is a nice way to remind us why we love living here. Today it was pretty much deserted, giving us that great feeling of isolation we so rarely find. Mirinda noted how brown it all looked, the heather preparing for the spring. The gloriously sunny morning had also turned a dismal grey but, even so, Hankley looked beautiful.

Later, sitting at home, working feverishly on my presentation for next Wednesday and playing Mirinda the CD of my newspaper reading, we were treated to a sudden, delicate hail storm, which left the road all white and the puppies a bit wetter.

By the way, Mirinda’s sister rang last night.

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The meal was delicious, as usual. We arrived home in time for me to see Match of the Day. To round off a wonderful day, Chelsea won but, more importantly, Man U lost!!!!