Black Pepper Restaurant, Hatch End, Pinner, Amaretto Ice Cream and Beames-de-Venise Wine, for a Happy Meeting - And Moving Seats!

Problem
Where can you have a room to yourselves for a happy meeting with a congratulations speech? How do you get to sit near the VIP? How can you not get stuck with somebody who is boring all evening, and meet lots of people?

Answer
Black Pepper Restaurant in Hatch End.

Story
We spent the jolliest evening there in a room at the back. One of the ladies who organised the event brought along a banner saying Congratulations and a balloon.

We were congratulation a member who had become distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) which only goes to about one per cent of members of Toastmasters International Worldwide and involves a project turning around a filling organisation which is losing members, morale or money or all three. (In his case he blew new life into a flagging football club.)

Black Pepper Menu
Black Pepper has a menu with several choices for a set price three course meal. Whilst we waited for everybody to assemble I ordered a Prosecco.

The starter I chose was smoked salmon. Good.

My main course was duck with orange and saute potatoes and spinach. I have to say I was not thrilled with the main course. The duck seemed a bit dry. The orange sauce was tasty, but somehow the meal did not have freshness nor zing.

My companion chose rare for the lamb, then shellfish and had three glasses of wine and got an upset stomach. I'm allergic to shellfish and this is the third time he has been ill after a restaurant meal but I have been fine. I would suggest ordering meat medium rare rather than rare. Is it really worth risking food poisoning? I read that some restaurants won't serve meat rare but insist on it being cooked through.

I sat in the waiting room of the nearby local doctors' Medical Practice for a routine annual blood test and watched their loop of health videos. One of the health messages was to make sure meat is cooked through (especially on a BBQ when have the outside cooked or even blackened does not mean that the centre is cooked). The cancer websites warn you not to eat blackened food. But, back to the food and customer choices, everybody seemed happy with their food and evening at Black Pepper. Just a little blip.

However, the earlier disappointment with the duck was completely eclipsed by the delightful dessert. My dessert with amazing amaretto ice cream was wonderful. Flavourful. Worth going here just for the dessert.

The menu lists chocolate brownie with amaretto ice cream. Very rich. The friend sitting on my right found the combination of ice cream and chocolate brownie too sugary and rich and offered me a taste of both. So I got a double helping of the amaretto ice cream.

I asked for my apple pie to be accompanied by the amaretto ice cream instead of vanilla. I rarely manage to taste vanilla in so called vanilla ice cream. The amaretto is wonderful. But it's better with the apple. The large slice of apple is in a heavily sugared cake also. (Not quite as fresh tasting as the apple strudel from B & K. B & K is great for take away food and small groups, such as 4-6. But Black pepper, with its bar in the front, for a grander more glamorous event and group of 24-30 people in the back room.)

Drinks
At the end of the meal with dessert I ordered Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, (that's the appellation, the name of the drink. I think there's another Beaumes-de-Venise with another grape, not Muscat. Muscat is my favourite, just the right sweetness for me, sweet enough. (From the town of Beaumes (cave) de Venise in France.

More details on the Beaumes-de-Venise wine from the website:
grapedeal.com / May 2106

Moving seats
In addition to having the room to decorate ourselves, and a chance to make congratulatory speeches, the organisers ran my favourite system of seating. After each course you move around (every fourth person changes seats, starting with the person fourth to the right of the standing organiser, who says, "You move (Michael or whoever) and so on clockwise around the table or horseshoe. That way the VIP gets to meet more fans, more fans get to meet the VIP, nobody monopolises the conversation, everybody meets several people, more fun, more new people met, and more business gets done arranging other social or business events.

It also means that husbands and wives who have seen each other all day get a chance to meet new people. You have more to discuss with each other when you get home afterwards.

Tips
1 You can buy banners and balloons in the party shop across the road from Black Pepper in Hatch End if you forget and decided you need anything at the last minute for a celebration. Another party shop is in Stanmore.
2 Look up reviews of the menu in advance to choose your choices.
3 Switch seats two or three times in a large group event.

Black Pepper Restaurant
461 Uxbridge Road
Hatch End
HA5 4JS
Tel: (+44) (0)208 421 4349

Blackpepperrestaurant.co.uk

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer. Please like my posts, follow and share.