Pecheresse

Peach beer, very tasty but a paltry 2.8%! I made amends by my second beer being a Kwak at 8.5%.

WEnt out after work this evening what with it being payday an' all. Met Jen at Soba on Hanover street for a cocktail at 5pm (well 5:20pm for Jen). I had a strange version of a whisky sour featuring cointreau and a splash of Blue Moon beer on top. I wouldn't drink Blue Moon, it's not really my cup of tea but it went well in a sour cocktail. Jen had something whose name I forget but I believe was an espresso martini variant. Both were pleasant but not particularly well executed.

After that we went to Absolutely, a new cocktail bar on Hanover street owned by one of Jen's ex-colleagues. These were very well executed, my minty bourbon drink with maraschino was a bit like having a Manhattan served old-fashioned style whilst Jen's was an old-fashioned with brandy instead of whisky (I think). Both were very tasty and whilst the bar is very nicely decorated the music was truly awful bland mush, which rather spoilt it.

After a couple of beers at Brauhaus we went on to El Quijote for dinner. This would be our second vist and we had some tough choices to make as to what of the delicious things we had last time we wanted again and what new things we were going to try. In the end we had some Queso Cabrales, an extremely strong blue cheese, and we like strong cheese! That was accompanied by some Jamon Serrano, we considered the Cana de lomo which we were being recommended but I was pretty set on the Serrano as we don't get much chance to get high quality Serrano in Edinburgh and I wanted to try theirs. It was nice and fatty and not too thinly sliced, a world away from the stuff in packs of 5 slices with plastic to keep them separated we normally eat. A medium Salmorejo completed the 'starter' portion of the meal, a thick gazpacho like cold soup.

As we drifted in to the mains portion of the meal (though there was no clear delimitation timewise, things seemed to come as they were ready) we had some Gambas al Ajo, garlic prawns in butter, lots of buttery sauce and heaps of sliced garlic. Finally was another Carrillada Iberica, same as last time. Slow cooked pork cheek stew with fried potatoes. Heavenly is the only way to describe this dish, especially on a cold winter night.

Afterwards our 'postres' were a Spanish hot chocolate that was basically a hot mousse, no chance you could drink it so thick was it! The provided spoon was a must. Jen picked a coffee that was made with condensed milk which rather strangely came with the coffee floating on top of the milk.

After staying up rather later than expected watching youtube videos of classic film moments amongst other things I'm guessing tomorrow is going to be a tough day...