MrsWickieEats: Ego

It appears to be Christmas season now and so our work lottery syndicate members took the £50 winnings from the last year (I’m sure we’d be better just putting a weekly £1 each in a pot and then spending that at Christmas, but then we really would never win the jackpot…) and headed to Ego on Surrey Street. I have been a few times before, the first being for our engagement party with a bunch of our closest friends. After that I was on their mailing list and therefore have never paid full price for their food. On my birthday we got a free 3-course meal. On our engagement anniversary we got a free bottle of prosecco. And in October I got an email saying that if we booked on a Monday during November and ordered from the Christmas menu we could get a free bottle of wine. Each.

Louise and I arrived shortly before 7 so made good use of their ‘2 for 1 bellini’ offer and got ourselves some fizzy to start the evening. 

The rest of our party soon arrived, and orders were taken quickly and efficiently. The Christmas menu had a good variety of food, although not much choice for the vegetarian in our group. Starters were a choice of Soup de Jour (Italian Vegetable), Grilled Goats Cheese, Chicken Liver & Rosemary Paté, Prosciutto and Melon or Smoked Haddock Risotto. Main course choices were Beef Bourguignon, Pan Roasted Turkey Escalope, 8oz Sirloin Steak, Slow Roast Belly Pork, Sautéed Salmon Fillet or Festive Nut Roast. For dessert there was Traditional Christmas Pudding, Tiramisu, Classic Crème Brûlée or Warm Chocolate Brownie.

I chose the Grilled Goats Cheese for a starter, which came on toasted brioche with a beautiful, fruity chutney. The cheese was grilled to perfection and I’m still thinking about that chutney. It was the perfect size for a starter.

For my main course I chose the Slow Roast Belly Pork. There was a short delay between the mains being brought out and getting the (inclusive) vegetables to go with them, but it didn’t really impact on the evening. The pork belly was good, but I have to be honest, I was rather spoilt a couple of weeks ago by some superb belly at Silversmiths, and Ego’s offering didn’t quite measure up. The top wasn’t quite crunchy enough, and the fat wasn’t quite melt-in-your-mouth enough, for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, it was still very good, and came on a bed of black pudding and gorgeous spicy chorizo, just not quite as good as the last version I had.

I had the Christmas Pudding with brandy butter for dessert. The pudding itself had a texture closer to Christmas Cake and was perhaps a bit too dense to really be pudding, but it had all the right flavours and spices in all the right ratios. The brandy butter was more like a white sauce than what I would normally expect, and there was less of a taste of brandy in the sauce than in the pudding itself, but it was still very tasty.

The choice of free wine with our meal was either the house white or house red, and it was perfectly drinkable.

So, once again, Ego didn’t disappoint. The service was efficient and friendly and at no point did we feel rushed, despite half of our party arriving a little late. The food was delicious, the vegetables included in the price (which is how it should be on set menus), and the portion sizes just right. I felt nicely full by the end.

Whether you live in Sheffield, Bramhall, Heswall, Kenilworth, Lichfield, Liverpool, Lytham or Stockton Heath, I recommend getting yourselves on their mailing list… there’s always some deal or other to be taken advantage of. Sadly, they have taken their gambas pil-pil off their main menu. They did the best in Sheffield for a while.

Information about all Ego Restaurants can be found at www.egorestaurants.co.uk

Ego Sheffield
88 Surrey Street
Sheffield
S1 2LH
Tel: 0114 278 2004

Honeymoon Part 3: Stresa, Milan & Bergamo

We travelled 1st class again up to Milan, and then just used a machine to get the tickets up to Stresa. I have to say that public transport in Italy does seem pretty straightforward. We had a bit of time to kill before our train, so we went to a horrible canteen thing and had a slice each of pizza with chips on. Yes, the chips were actually on the pizza. And it was cold. And really unpleasant. Still, you have to have at least one horrific meal, right?

We checked into our hotel, the Hotel Villa Mon Toc, which was 5 minutes from the train station. We then went to explore the town and find some food. We decided to have... burgers! It may not have been the most traditional Italian meal, but it was better than pizza with chips on, and actually they were really good. We had noticed in one of the tourist leaflets the hotel had given us that there was a bar called Willy's Cocktail Bar that had live jazz every Thursday, so we went there but it turned out that we were just out of jazz season and there was no music. We stayed for a drink or two and then popped back to the main bit of town for some food. We chose La Botte randomly, and had a really excellent meal with great service. In fact, Mr. Riley said later that he would quite happily go back there every night for the rest of our stay. Praise indeed. To finish off  the evening we went to a little bar called Caffe Savoy for a nightcap.

I had a rubbish night's sleep that night so we had a lazy morning. We pottered around a local market and then had some bacon and eggs. Mr. Riley went out to find a boat to play on the lake whilst I had a bit of a sleep, but he came back unsuccessful. After lunch (another burger!) we walked to the Parco della Villa Pallavicino, which is Botanical and Zoological gardens. It was a lovely place, and you actually get in with the animals. Not that they have lions or things that can kill you, but goats and deer and stuff. Walking back to town we stopped for a game of crazy golf, which I won. Of course.

That night we chose one of the many restaurants near the centre and went back to the Caffe Savoy for a drink. As we left we walked past two guys playing old rock 'n' roll tracks on guitars outside a pub, and as we walked past an old guy from the audience had got up and was tap dancing with them. He was ace! I would LOVE to learn how to tap dance. And I would LOVE to have the nerve to get up in front of that many people and just do it. He got a bigger round of applause than the musicians.

More photos and whatnot after the jump...

Honeymoon Part 2: Firenze

We arrived in Florence and walked the short distance from the train station to our hotel, Soggiorno Sogna Firenze on Via Delle Porte Nuove. When we checked in we were thrilled to find that our room was the only one with direct access to a little patio area on the roof. Mr. Riley went out for a bit of an explore whilst I had a siesta. When he got back he was pretty excited about what he had seen, so we wandered into town and had some food in the main square. We had no idea how to get back to the hotel as we had walked a fairly circuitous route into the centre, but kept walking down the road we happened to be on and ended up at the right place, just at the point that I was thinking we should turn round and try a different direction. Sometimes you just have to keep on plodding on and stick to your original decisions I guess.

The next morning when we woke up it was raining heavily. Mr Riley was pretty grumpy and wanted to go home on the basis that we could sit inside in Sheffield, but at least he'd be able to understand the TV. Fortunately for us, my wedding vows had included ignoring his morning grump, so I chose not to pack our bags just yet and instead go for breakfast. By the time we had eaten, showered and left the hotel, the sky was already clearing. We walked along the river, over Ponte Vecchio and then decided to go for ice cream at the Gelateria dei Neri, which had been recommended to us by a uni friend of mine who had spent many years as a tour guide in Europe. I have to say it was pretty damn good. I had stracciatella (kind of like chocolate chip ice cream I guess) and amaretto & peach, which was beautiful.

More photos and whatnot after the jump...

Honeymoon Part 1: Roma

* If you just want our recommendations for places to stay, eat and visit in Rome, scroll down to the bottom of the post... I doubt anyone other than Mr. Riley and me will be interested in what we did each day, I just wanted to record it for posterity's sake. Something to show the grandkids, I guess!

We went on our honeymoon the Tuesday after our wedding. I had a bunch of cheques to pay into the bank in the morning, some in Mr. Riley's name, some in my maiden name, some in my new name, but all into one account. Fortunately it was easier than I expected. I guess people get married quite regularly.

We set off for Manchester airport and probably left it a bit too late. I was entirely unworried until we got to Glossop, and then the queue of traffic did make me have a flicker of doubt about whether we would get to the airport on time. Fortunately, that fear was unfounded and we arrived with plenty of time.

Neither Mr. Riley nor I are happy flyers. He gets really worried from a couple of hours before and then all during take-off. I don't worry about it at all until the plane starts moving, and then I'm pretty terrified until we land again. However, this flight was a particularly smooth one. Mr. Riley pointed out the White Cliffs of Dover, and then we were presented with a bottle of champagne, which had been bought for us as a wedding gift. This meant that we were sipping champagne as we flew over Paris... pretty romantic if you ask me!

We arrived in Rome on time, and organised transport to our hotel, the Hotel Artemide on Via Nazionale. It was a scary-arsed drive into the city, with the driver driving with his knees, whilst sending text messages, on the motorway. We got there incident-free however and checked in to our fancy hotel. I must have mentioned whilst booking that we were there on our honeymoon, as they had upgraded us to a 'superior' room and we had a complimentary bottle of wine with a little note from the hotel staff, and best of all the mini-bar was free for the duration of our stay!

We decided to just eat in the hotel's roof top restaurant that evening. I had MASSIVE prawns and Mr. Riley had steak. We were given a free glass of prosecco each and finished with an ice cream to share. We got back to the hotel room, put Avenger's on the TV and both fell asleep in about 6 seconds flat.

More photos and stuff after the jump...