Alphabetic Dinner Club – The Honey Pot
Last night was the first Alphabetic Dinner Club meet of 2011 and because we had skipped December due to everyone having too many parties and functions to attend it was our first get together since the beginning of November.
Although a number of people had been unable to make it, there was a surprise visit from one of our friends who was over from New York for the week, a new gang member and the long-awaited return of an old face which brought the numbers up to 8, a good size crowd.
The venue we’d chosen was the newly opened (in December) tapas restaurant Honey Pot in Marylebone. Although the restaurant is new, the location was already known to a number of us as we used to work just around the corner and would frequent it when it was called Occo’s.
While we waited for everyone to arrive, we had a couple of drinks (I was on the fruit juice as part of my detox!) and perused the menu to see what was on offer. There was a huge selection of foods, including fillet steak, and it was difficult to narrow it down. Luckily, as we knew the owner he said that he would just bring out a wide selection for us all to try.
I sometimes find that tapas can be a bit hit and miss and the number of good dishes is usually outweighed by the mediocre and rubbish ones. However, I needn’t have worried as everything that came out was superb. Among the wide array of dishes there was some chorizo, padron chillis, shredded chicken, pork belly as well as some octopus and stuffed squid. But it was the two steak dishes that were the best, they came out cooked to perfection, really tender. I may have lost count of the number of pieces I had 😉
The conversation flowed all night as we caught up with each other’s doings over Christmas and New Year, and for those who we hadn’t seen for a while, finding out what they’d been up to since we’d last seen them. It was a cracking night, but soon it was time for people to make their way home. We popped to a nearby pub for one last nightcap before heading to whichever bus stop, tube station or train station would take each of us home.
