A beautiful hot summer’s day meant a lovely day to be dining al fresco. The outdoor area at this restaurant was enclosed by hedges, so it really did not feel like we were close to the main road.
The menu at The Brasserie showcases mainly seafood but there are a couple of meat and vegetarian options as well. There wasn’t anything that really caught my eye for the starters. But on the main dishes, there was a spring vegetable and parmesan risotto. I asked the waiter if it was possible that I could have a starter portion of this dish and he said that was absolutely fine.
The risotto was perfect in size, presentation and taste. It was jam packed with vegetables including peas, green beans, baby corn and carrots. It was topped with slices of parmesan cheese. We were also given some bread to go with our meal.
It was a tough decision whether to go for the fish and chips or the sea bass for the main dish. As it was such a summery day, I thought that the fish and chips may be too heavy a meal.
The actual dish was sea bass fillet with sweet parsnip puree and vanilla saffron sauce. I love sea bass but I wasn’t sure how well the parsnip puree and the vanilla saffron sauce would go with it. The two fillets of sea bass were cooked just right with crispy skins and soft flesh. These were on top of the parsnip puree with the sauce surrounding it. I was thinking that it may be too sweet with the parsnip and the vanilla saffron sauce, but it wasn’t. The flavours were well balanced.
My friend had the crab cake for the starter and the grilled large prawns with green salad for the main. The crab cake was of a good size and came with salad. Juicy big pink prawns, cooked perfectly, were very satisfying.
As we were at this restaurant for the whole afternoon, we had time and space for some dessert. Even though I mostly think as crumble being a winter’s day dessert, it took my fancy. The spiced apple and plum crumble came in a big shot glass with a scoop of ice cream. Big slices of apple and chunks of plum were topped with crunchy crumble. Again, another dish done well.
The service was great and our waiter was really friendly. He let us take our time with deciding on our order. When he realised that we were not in any sort of a hurry, he said that we should just call him when we were ready to order. It made us feel that we could just relax and enjoy our time dining at this restaurant.
All of the food at The Brasserie was of a high quality, fresh and delicious. It is a fantastic restaurant to dine at and together with the service, it is a great place to go to.
The Brasserie on St John St, 360-362 St John Street, London, EC1V 4NR
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