Delightful Food and BYO Deal At Michelin Restaurant - Cornus

 What was the most memorable dish at the Michelin starred restaurant, Cornus, near Victoria station? The pavlova. Soft and creamy. The perfect end to the Michelin meal.

The starters were pretty good too. In addition to the bread made in house, we had several bites of amuse bouche to keep us constantly entertained.

The main courses were small, after so many mini morsels. In fact, the amuse bouche were better than the main course, which I have forgotten.

At

 Cornus Restaurant, London. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Prices

To enjoy the Michelin star restaurant at lower prices, you have several options.

Go at lunch time.

Have the set meal.

BYO - bring your own wine.

Why Pay Extra For Wine Glasses

You might have to pay extra for hiring wine glasses, for example, if you held a wedding reception, or company Christmas dinner for forty people. You might need eight different wine glasses per person. Who needs that many glasses?

Why Have Many Wine Glasses?

You might need many glasses for a wine tasting. That could involve small servings of many wines. 

Or for a special celebration such as a wedding, ruby wedding anniversary, or 80th birthday party. That might involve extended family and many people over many hours. 

Why not just two glasses? That is done sometimes. But for a seated dinner, you might have a water glass. Two glasses for white and rose Champagnes. Two white wine glasses with fish. Two red wine glasses with meat. A dessert wine glass with dessert. An after dinner port glass. Plus juice glasses. That is ten.  

Useful Websites

https://cornusrestaurant.co.uk/

Please follow my blog and share links to your favourite posts.

Food and drink to try by country, A-D Australia Belgium Canada, from maple syrup to Tim Tams

 Andorra

Food savoury

The national dish in wintertime is a Catalan stew called escudella. It contains either rice or pasta, pulses, vegetables  and meats such as chicken, spicy meatballs containing garlic, or sausages.

A Christmas day escudella has four kinds of meat, and large snail-shape pasta.

In summer goat cheese salad is popular.

Desserts include Crema Catalana, literally Catalan cream, Spanish-style baked custard. (It looks to me like what the French call creme brulee.)

The local variation on what I call French toast is bread or buns soaked in honey or syrup, fried and served with a dollop of jam on top or ice cream

Argentina

Austria

Mozart chocolates.

Australia

Tim tams chocolate biscuits

pavlova meringue (the national dish, also claimed by New Zealand)

Belgium

Food savoury

potato fries

Food sweet

waffles

chocolate

Drink

beer

Belize

Marie Sharpe's sauce

Brazil

Bulgaria

Canada

Food - sweet

Maple syrup.

Ice wine.

Chile

China

Czech Republic

Drink

Pilsner beer from the city of the same name.

Denmark

Danish bacon found in the UK, sliced thicker than in the USA

Danish pastry, found in the UK in pastry shops in London

Useful Websites

https://visitandorra.com/en/eating/andorran-gastronomy/

Platinum Pudding or Platinum Jubilee Pudding, British Summer Pudding, Rhubarb Crumble and Rice Pudding

 

The Union Jack flags are flying in Oxford Street and the streets of London, England, very jolly. To celebrate the Jubilee people all over the world will be making the Jubilee pudding. This follows the tradition of creating dishes for VIP occasions. Victoria sponge was invented for Queen Victoria. Coronation chicken was created for the coronation. Windsor soup is another great British recipe.

Platinum Pudding is shorter and neatly alliterative. The full name is Platinum Jubilee Pudding.

The ingredients include lemon Swiss roll and amaretti biscuits. (Amaretti biscuits are Italian biscuit, small, crunchy, with almonds.)

(More shortly. I'm saving this because some of yesterday's posts have disappeared.)

Summer Pudding

Another great British pudding to look for is summer pudding. It has a casing of white bread turned red by the ingredients. The stuffing is mixed red fruits .

Summer pudding ingredients from Wikipedia.

Apple crumble is an easy pudding. Crumble is so easy. You don't even need to roll out the pastry. Just spread tiny lumps all over the top of the fruit. You might need to stew the fruit first.

If you want to buy from supermarkets in the UK, popular summer puddings are apple crumble, rhubarb crumble, and rice pudding.

Rhubarb crumble from Tesco. Two pounds ninety.

Perfect Puddings

To sum up, for a celebratory meal you could have Windsor soup, coronation chicken, and Platinum pudding. Alternative British desserts are Summer pudding, rice pudding, bread and butter pudding, rhubarb crumble, apple and blackberry crumble, from supermarkets. A simple old favourite you can make is trifle. For something more unusual, my family's favourite, Queen of puddings, which has meringue on top. 

For tea time, the Australian and New Zealand favourite is Pavlova. Named after the dancer who visited Australasia, this dessert is a hard circular plate size white meringue with a raised edge and sunken centre making a base or bowl for summer fruit such as red strawberries. 

By the way, the Marks and Spencers strawberries in London, England are at their best already. Red, juicy, flavoursome. The traditional English way of serving strawberries is with cream. 

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_Pudding

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:British_puddings

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/fresh-food/chilled-desserts/puddings-crumbles-and-pies

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Queen_of_Puddings

Mexican Hat Dance (El Jarabe Tapatio) - André Rieu made popular by Anna Pavlova. Eat pavlova while listening

The Mexican hat dance is the national dance of Mexico. And very jolly it is too.

I came across the jolly video of the delightful Mexican hat dance when I searched after I saw that the Russian dancer, Pavlova, who lived in London, England, had made the dance popular. 

She was famous for performing in Swan lake and she kept swans as pets in her home in London. 

Go to Australia and New Zealand and you will find the white pavlova in summer, the circular hard meringue used as a base for summer fruit. One story goes that the chef who invented it, said, or was told, that the meringue was as light as Pavlova.  

Visit London and you can see the plaque to Pavlova on her former home in Golders Green and the left side of the road as you drive downhill into Golders Green from Hampstead.

On Youtube you can see the Mexican hat dance whose music you will probably recognize. If you want to make and eat a pavlova whilst watching the dance she made popular, here's one recipe. I used to be afraid of making a meringue. But it is easier than cooking a cake. It is basically sugar and eggwhites whipped up. If you are making it as a base for fruit, any mistakes can be hidden by strategically spaced pieces of fruit. And cream can be used to sandwich together any broken pieces.

Ingredients[edit | edit source]

• 3 egg whites
• 3 tablespoons water
• 250g (9 oz.) caster sugar
• pinch of salt
• 5 ml or 1 tsp vinegar
• 5 ml or 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. cornstarch (optional)

Procedure[edit | edit source]

1. Beat the egg whites and salt to a very stiff consistency. Add water and beat again before folding in caster sugar, vanilla and vinegar. Beat until the mixture holds its shape and stands in sharp peaks.
2. Pour the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Slow-bake the mixture at 150°C (300°F) to dry all the moisture and create the meringue, approximately 45 minutes. This leaves the outside of the pavlova a crisp crunchy shell, while the interior remains soft and moist.
3. A top tip (but not traditional) is to turn the pavlova upside down before decorating with cream and fruit because the bottom is less crispy than the top after cooking and unless you serve it immediately after decorating the "top" absorbs moisture from the cream. Another tip is to leave the pavlova in the oven after turning off the heat - this helps to prevent the middle of the pavlova from collapsing (although if it does collapse, generous application of cream can hide any mistakes!)

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarabe_Tapat%C3%ADo

About the Author

Angela Lansbury was born and brought up in London. When she visited Australia she made a point of visiting the hotel where the pavlova was supposed to have been invented.

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, is a semi-retired travel writer still researching bucket list countries and seeking out the special, unusual, people, places,  landmarks, hotels, museums and trails, fabulous foods, recipes, clothes and online souvenir shopping.

Angela Lansbury is a member of Toastmasters International.

About the Author Angela Lansbury

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers, plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President, Public Relations, Immediate Past President. VPPR

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

BHA

Past meetings have included Garen Tee on using story-telling in business, on 

bha.learncool.sg/meet/bha . 

Recent meetings of BHA included an educational session on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, always first Wednesday evening, 7 pm Singapore time. Next meeting is  the third Saturday afternoon, June 19th 2pm Singapore time.  Inauguration of the new committee was by the incoming Director of S, plus a lively speech on teamwork.

Next meetings will be on these dates (unless a national holiday in Singapore or worldwide)

Themes and word of the day are tentative

2021

JULY - JUBILANT JULY

Theme/WOD Jubilant

WORKSHOPS & EDUCATIONAL SESSIONS (based on level one of Pathways)

1 Your first speech or role EASY ENGLISH LANGUAGE (Articles A and The, Plurals, Tenses, Pronunciation, Singlish)

2 CHOOSE YOUR PATH

Wed July 7th What Your Committee Can Do For You

Saturday 17th

July 4th American Independence Day.

2021 AUGUST - AWESOME AUGUST

1 Pathway Level 1 Introductory Speeches

2 Evaluations

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2021 SEPT - SUPER SEPTEMBER

Wed 1st

Sat 18th SPEECH CONTESTS

Humorous Speech Contest

Table Topics Contest

2021 OCT - ODD OCTOBER

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

2021 NOV - NOVELTY NOVEMBER

Wed 3rd

Sat 20th Wed

Diwali Hindu Festival of lights Nov 4th.

Nov 25th American Thanksgiving.

Hanukah starts 28 Dec 8 days until Dec 6. Jewish Festival of lights, celebrated by Jesus.

2021 DEC - DARLING DECEMBER

Wed  1st (Hanukah if not previous month. Festival foods.)

Sat 18th

Speech on 

JAN 2022 - JOYFUL JANUARY

Wed Jan 5th New beginning - forget the past

Sat 15 Long-term plans = for the future/Chinese New Year (CNY for short)

2022 FEB FUN FEBRUARY

Theme Love and romance - Chinese New Year

Feb 1st and 2nd are holidays - do we move this Feb 2nd meeting date?)

Wed 2nd (Valentine's Day Mon Feb 14)

Sat 19th

2022 MAR - MARVELLOUS MARCH

Theme

Wed 2nd

Sat 19

March 1st is Christian Pancake day. 

2022 APR - APRIL'S AIMS

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

Muslim Ramadan 1-30 April.

Jewish Passover (Seder meal=Last supper) April

 16

2022 MAY - MODERNISING MAY

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2022 JUN - JUBILANT JUNE

Wed 1st

Sat 18th

Jul 6, Jul 16, Aug 3, Aug 20, Sept 7, Sept 17, Oct 5, Oct 15, Nov 2, Nov 19, Dec 7, Dec 17.

Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See many varied posts such as the post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

TCA (A for Advanced club) is another advanced speakers' club which meets both online for visitors from worldwide and physically for walks, meals and socials in the Tampines area. Meetings are in the TC Community Club when Covid-19 regulations in Singapore allow it, but meanwhile come along to meetings online.

TCA meetings are on the fourth Tuesday evening of each month at 7 p.m Zoom room open to check your sound and online appearance and chit-chat, ready for a 7.15 pm start. I usually manage to attend meetings whether I am in Singapore or the UK.

Another club, totally online, is Singapore Online Dynamic, meeting 9 pm Singapore time on Fridays. I am a member of this club.

I am also a member of Senja-Cashew. When it meets physically it is in a convenient large complex containing a swimming pool beside a landmark lake next to a shopping complex. Right now it is online.

Once you join a club, your club's president will give you the opportunity to be informed of Toastmasters club meetings worldwide, especially those which have interesting workshops.cAbout the Author

Angela Lansbury, is a semi-retired travel writer still researching bucket list countries and seeking out the special, unusual, people, places,  landmarks, hotels, museums and trails, fabulous foods, recipes, clothes and online souvenir shopping.

Angela Lansbury is a member of Toastmasters International.

About the Author Angela Lansbury

The Author - Quick Quotations

Angela Lansbury B A Hons  is the author of ten books by regular publishers, plus another ten self-published books. 

About Angela The Speaker & Trainer

Angela Lansbury is a teacher of English and other languages to Toastmasters clubs and businesses.

Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters Speakers Vice President,  Public Relations, Immediate Past President. VPPR

Former Area Director S3. Club Coach for Nee Soon South Toastmasters Club.

Also Member of: TCA Toastmasters Club; Singapore Online Dynamic; Harrovians UK

BHA

Past meetings have included Garen Tee on using story-telling in business, on 

bha.learncool.sg/meet/bha . 

Recent meetings of BHA included an educational session on using Powerpoint for posters.

Next BHA meetings, always first Wednesday evening, 7 pm Singapore time. Next meeting is  the third Saturday afternoon, June 19th 2pm Singapore time.  Inauguration of the new committee was by the incoming Director of S, plus a lively speech on teamwork.

Next meetings will be on these dates (unless a national holiday in Singapore or worldwide)

Themes and word of the day are tentative

2021

JULY - JUBILANT JULY

Theme/WOD Jubilant

WORKSHOPS & EDUCATIONAL SESSIONS (based on level one of Pathways)

1 Your first speech or role EASY ENGLISH LANGUAGE (Articles A and The, Plurals, Tenses, Pronunciation, Singlish)

2 CHOOSE YOUR PATH

Wed July 7th What Your Committee Can Do For You

Saturday 17th

July 4th American Independence Day.

2021 AUGUST - AWESOME AUGUST

1 Pathway Level 1 Introductory Speeches

2 Evaluations

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2021 SEPT - SUPER SEPTEMBER

Wed 1st

Sat 18th SPEECH CONTESTS

Humorous Speech Contest

Table Topics Contest

2021 OCT - ODD OCTOBER

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

2021 NOV - NOVELTY NOVEMBER

Wed 3rd

Sat 20th Wed

Diwali Hindu Festival of lights Nov 4th.

Nov 25th American Thanksgiving.

Hanukah starts 28 Dec 8 days until Dec 6. Jewish Festival of lights, celebrated by Jesus.

2021 DEC - DARLING DECEMBER

Wed  1st (Hanukah if not previous month. Festival foods.)

Sat 18th

Speech on 

JAN 2022 - JOYFUL JANUARY

Wed Jan 5th New beginning - forget the past

Sat 15 Long-term plans = for the future/Chinese New Year (CNY for short)

2022 FEB FUN FEBRUARY

Theme Love and romance - Chinese New Year

Feb 1st and 2nd are holidays - do we move this Feb 2nd meeting date?)

Wed 2nd (Valentine's Day Mon Feb 14)

Sat 19th

2022 MAR - MARVELLOUS MARCH

Theme

Wed 2nd

Sat 19

March 1st is Christian Pancake day. 

2022 APR - APRIL'S AIMS

Wed 6th

Sat 16th

Muslim Ramadan 1-30 April.

Jewish Passover (Seder meal=Last supper) April

 16

2022 MAY - MODERNISING MAY

Wed 4th

Sat 21

2022 JUN - JUBILANT JUNE

Wed 1st

Sat 18th

Jul 6, Jul 16, Aug 3, Aug 20, Sept 7, Sept 17, Oct 5, Oct 15, Nov 2, Nov 19, Dec 7, Dec 17.

Angela The Blogger 

Angela has several blogs speeches, comedy and song writing and organizing, writing intermittently, but writes almost daily on these three:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

See many varied posts such as the post on sculptor Tom Harvey.

Please share links to your favourite posts. 

You also get access to the online magazine. And the club will appoint a mentor to guide you through your first three speeches and plan your year so you can complete a Pathway suited to your personal interests. I chose the basic Presentation mastery path to start. Next I did the Engaging Humor path. Now I am onto the leadership paths such as Visionary Communication.

I am also a coach for Nee Soon South.

All the clubs worldwide have just handed over to the new team from July 1st, all full of enthusiasm, seeking new members, sometimes with a space for a committee member if you are job-hunting, or climbing the corporate ladder, just the thing to add to your c.v.

Toastmasters has made links with the Rotary club organization. So if you are interested in Rotary clubs, you might investigate both.