a weekend snack

I would have posted this yesterday, but Flickr seemed to be having 'issues'...

Anyway, continuing on the eating out theme from my last post, this is what I had for a light lunch at the weekend, while out with friends.

First up, some of this:

That was chicken and truffle pate crostini, in case you're wondering. My, were they good...

Then I had these two salads:

The one at the front is pretty much what it looks like: French beans with sunblush tomatoes, red onion, olives, pine nuts, and Mont Enebro cheese. The other, in case you want to zoom in...

... is again what it looks like - tomato and marinated bonconcini salad with basil. It might not sound particularly spectacular, but it was the best of its kind - the tomatoes were amongst the sweetest I've ever tasted, and the bonconcini was meltingly wonderful and delicious.

And no, I didn't stop there. Next up was this dish:

Shall we zoom in again?

There we go - a dish piled high with big, fat juicy clams, cooked with sherry and jamon, not to mention plenty of garlic. Lip-smackingly good. (Sorry about photo quality. The lighting - or lack thereof - pushed my li'l camera to its very limits.)

I also devoured (I was sharing these things, in case you're a bit aghast) some roast squash with chestnuts and roasted onions with rosemary, but the photo didn't turn out so well. You'll just have to imagine...

Oh, and because we really felt the need to finish on a high note, we rounded all this off with a big fat slice of this...

... lemon polenta cake - complete with cream very unpicturesquely poured over by me. Still, the cake didn't suffer for it. In fact, it had all disappeared within about 30 seconds of the photo being taken... Moist but light, hinting of lemon all the way through without being dominated by it, and with that texture that only polenta can give. Fabulous.

Where did we have this little ensemble? Fortunately for me, at a place 'in my manor' (as David Beckham would say), called The Fat Delicatessen.

Run by two of the nicest guys around, Simon and Lee, it's fast become the place to eat around here (they opened just over a year ago) if you like good food. Both of the boys are fantastically adept in the kitchen, and turn out great, robust dishes with a deceptively light touch. You won't be surprised to learn that they're both old hands in the industry, having done stints at some of the most well-known restaurants in the country. They really know what they're doing, and it shows in every mouthful of food they serve.

Am I lucky, or what? Happy as a clam, even...