Christmas hotel

Everybody from the office was heading to the pub about 5pm. A few minutes later, I followed to hop on the Central Line to Holborn. It was a much faster journey than I expected, and as a result, I was seated in the Holborn Dining Rooms with R about 30 minutes before we’d planned to be. It was much busier than when I’d last been there, and we were a bit squashed into a small circular table.

As with our dinner last week, we started with half a dozen Carlingford oysters. We both followed with the French onion soup, which came with a huge helping of Gruyère cheese. My pie selection was chicken, chestnut mushroom, leek fondue, and tarragon pie, which was served with some peas (R went for the braised beef pie). We shared a pecan coffee choux to close. I am being very spoiled for food this week.

To drink, we started with herbal gimlets (Tarquin’s Holborn summer edition gin, champagne, and chamomile cordial). There was a mix-up when we ordered the second, as it was delivered to the wrong table. So we got a second and a third on the house. I was surprised that they went nicely with the food, and I didn’t miss wine.

As we left, I took a picture of the big Christmas tree in the hotel grounds. It looks lovely. As we walked on to High Holborn, R was talking about when she worked around here. And, very quickly, we realised we’d worked in adjacent buildings (235 for her, and 233 for me) at about the same time. We may very well have been neighbours. Small world!