Dinner with Paul Day.........Sansho to take off shortly

Not able to try Dinner with Heston Blumenthal in London this week, I was still feeling miserable from Valentine's Dinner at Amici Miei, that only memorable for their outrageous bill, as commented below. However, a saviour was at hand. A call out of the blue from Paul Day, to invite me to sample the fare at his new lair in Prague, shortly to officially open its doors.

With blonde in tow, I duly turned up on Saturday evening to be warmly greeted by our host and his small collection of charming young staff. I left the food to Paul to select and he duly obliged with a degustation of numerous small courses. Outstanding were the pork ribs, cooked slowly and derived from some ancient breed that melted in the mouth; the surf and turf of stone fish and some very spicy thai style beef.

The house wines were worthy of a more distinguished title; a Cremant sparkling white that could have been mistaken for Champagne and very smooth red from the Languedoc Cote D'Or region. Restaurants in Prague so rarely get their house wines right, perhaps to encourage diners to go for the more expensive options. Not in this case, where I would have been happy to serve these two, at a private dinner party at home ( unless it included wine snobs ! ).

I look forward to the doors opening officially and revisiting some amazing dishes.