Chappy Chanukah! Let’s Fry Up Some Birds’ Nest Latkes!

What do you have to say, little Sunday cartoons? Are you for trading?

De Librije dining room

But anyway, let’s look at pretty pictures of food! Or, wait, this is me – I guess I mean pictures of pretty food! As is expected at places like this, we were given several off-menu plates before the actual courses began. Here, we had a crispy mushroom puff with regular mushroom, greenery, and some kind of cream that I hope wasn’t cream. It was a really good first bite! It’s on a bed of fried bits. No, not joking, like fried bits like when you fry stuff and all the bits are left in the pan? I don’t know man. I ate them. I wasn’t supposed to.    Next, we had what I’m going to guess were lentil crackers with dilly cream (please don’t say crema unless the rest of your words are Italian or Spanish too, such a weird thing to do. Also don’t say ‘with au jus’) and this is one of the things I am iffy about because there are four, which means we all ate the same thing, which seems wrong. Husband seems to recall that the waiter pointed out which one was for me, maybe the one without the peanut that’s not a peanut? I’m not sure but I hope he is right!  Next was a pile of rocks with seaweed hidden all around them! There was also a very good beet chip with assorted unknown sauces and vegetable pieces, but the seaweed was really the main draw for me. I don’t think we were supposed to eat it, but I like to break rules. I’m a rule breaker. I also ate all the seaweed from the others’ plates. They were like what is wrong with this person. Seaweed is really good.      After the plate of rocks came a bowl of baby onions. Cipollini oh nee ons! Who was that guy on that show that said that beautifully? I forget. Anyway, this was like a little birds nest of shaved onions, carrots, beets maybe, all fried together with the tiniest greens on top. Very nice! It came with a banana chip – I got several of these, I’m not sure if they ran out of ideas, really liked this particular idea, or just gave me two of the same dish, but I won’t complain.       Atop another bed of bits I probably wasn’t supposed to eat but really liked, the banana chips were bent into a cool shape with greens and crunchy vegetables and something like baba ganoush in the middle. It probably wasn’t baba ganoush but I’m just saying it was something like it. Hollandaise version. How pretty does it look though? They were experts at presentation here; everything is beautiful.        Next was the funniest part of the meal. This waiter comes over and goes, “I’d like to prepare the next dish on your hands.” We’re like what. So we all warily put our hands out and got crap squeezed on it. This is the course I question the most, because we all got the same green cream squeezed on our hands, and the others’ menu says this was some kind of mayonnaise, which is the grossest foodstuff in the world. Boo urns. Aside from that, it was a cute concept that they nicely gave us wet towels for cleaning after, but still kinda whatever.     Look I got another banana chip dish! It’s a lot better than other banana chips I’ve had. I’ve never really been a fan of dried or chipified fruit but if you’re gonna have one, have it here. I think this one was on a bed of nuts, so I ate a lot of that too. The caviar is a garnish!     Oh then we got four rolls with certain kinds of butter they were really excited about (I got olive oil, thank you for remembering) and they were pretty decent rolls. But then we got entire little loaves of bread, seen at right, which we all way too quickly devoured, so quickly that the staff assumed we didn’t get the bread, so they swiftly brought out another, and then another. By the third loaf of bread, we figured that they all must have been laughing at us in the kitchen, like ‘look at these English speaking fools eating their weight in bread har har har!” so what who cares. Good bread.      Next, this simple but delicious bowl of Brussels sprouts (or as my phone likes to call them, Brussels sports) with microgreens and a great, mild sauce with a tiny bit of lemongrass, I think, was a lovely counterpoint to the four loaves of bread I had just eaten. It wasn’t spectacular, but it tasted good.    One of my favorites was this double-decker cabbage bowl, which had whiskers shooting out the top, beetroot in the middle, and some pomegranate seeds I think. The bottom of the bowl had a delicious puree and it was all very nice. The white stuff, I fear is creme fraiche because that’s what my ‘incorrect’ menu says, and I’m not sure what else it could be, but I’m hoping they had like some soy or cashew creams in the back maybe?     Ah, some deliciously salty greenery was up next. This was a very miso-like sauce with weeds growing out of it and I loved it. Nuts or beans on the bottom? This is getting kind of out of hand. We asked a few times what was happening on our plates but usually the person whose attention we managed to grab (more on that later) wouldn’t know or didn’t really speak English or maybe just pretended not to since we were the youngest patrons and they were probably offended by our presence?       Even more delicious were these tulip bulbs with black garlic puree and barbecued celeriac. Or at least that’s the menu item I’m guessing this is. No I really remember actually, I was eating this and it was soo good and I said, oh so this is what black garlic is. I don’t know if I’ve ever had it before, but I love it. It really is strikingly different from regular garlic. That puree is the stuff dreams are made of. This was probably the best savory dish.      This was great too! It was a cauliflower heart, heavy on the flower part I guess because the shape was much more beautiful than the regular old caulisflower one usually finds, topped with madras curry and currants. All the c words. Well not all. This was really good and I especially liked the fresh cucumber pieces that helped to cut the warmth of the curry. Have we noticed though, that almost every fancy restaurant that isn’t vegan will give me a cauliflower course?      The following course was very dessert-y, but it wasn’t at the dessert stage yet. I remember being like phew, we’re done with the savories, but then look what comes after this! Anyway, this was blackberry ice with ‘water mint’ and what looks like a micro-watermelon but I have no idea what it was, some kind of melon I guess. Very enjoyable.      See, next was another savory dish! My menu says this is ‘first milk chicory’ with spices but I highly doubt that. It was like a rice soup with shaved greens and spring onions. I really like soup so I really enjoyed this. That white blog I think was citrus ice. Wait that can’t be right. Unless it is. This place did play with what was dessert and what was dinner, so whatever, maybe it was both, I don’t know, it was good.

clipped wings I was a broken thing had a voice had a voice but I could not sing you would wind me down I struggled on the ground so lost the line had been crossed had a voice had a voice but I could not talk you held me down I struggle to fly now but there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide we hold on so tight we cannot deny eats us alive oh it eats us alive yes there’s a scream inside that we all try to hide we hold on so tight but I don’t wanna die no I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, yeahhh

and I don’t caaare if I sing off key

I find myself in my melodies

I sing for love, I sing for me

Oh yes, that is on yet another ice pack. They love using their ice packs instead of plates here. Pretty smart for ice cream though, I kind of love it.

I shout it out like a bird set free

For our recent anniversary (aw thanks), Husbo and I returned to one of our favorite fancy restaurants in London, The Clove Club. We celebrated our anniversary there two years ago, and this year we decided to shake our shoulders like Danny Burstein’s adorable Tevye and make a tradition of it. You might recall that last year, we were on a train to Chengdu for our anniversary, which was prettay prettay disgusting. To make up for that (plus 98% of all our train experiences last year), we splurged on this super extravagant dinner again. The Clove Club is one of the few Michelin-starred restaurants in London that will offer a worthwhile vegan tasting menu, so it always comes to mind first when we are considering super swanky restaurants. 

One of the first UK restaurants to use the ticketing system, where you pay when you make the reservation, The Clove Club is a ritzy Shoreditch restaurant with an exclusive club-like vibe, located in Shoreditch Town Hall. It has one Michelin star and it’s the UK’s highest ranked restaurant on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, at #33. (Last year it was #26, just saying.) (Alinea is #34 so take this list, like all lists/awards, with a dangerous-for-your-blood-pressure amount of salt since that restaurant is extraordinarily better than most of the places ahead of it.)

Also, I believe it’s the only restaurant I’ve ever been to that offers a soft pairing instead of just a wine pairing with your menu. They even say on the website that they do that; it’s not like some secret you have to ask for. Especially in London, where most of the social activity for a non-drinker involves watching everyone else drink till they’re pissed (UK has a serious alcoholism problem but it’s part of the culture so it will remain ignored), it’s great for a non-drinker to have a nice option. In fact, on this visit our waiter told me that not only were they offering a soft pairing, they had two soft pairings available! I could choose between juice and tea, and obviously I chose juice. There were a few missteps in there, but I’ll talk more about that below.

Soon after we were seated, we were asked about our beverages – the wine and the soft pairings, yes, but also whether we wanted still or sparkling water. You know I appreciated getting right to the most important issue – water – without making me take out my big reusable bottle from my bag in a place like this. As usual, I chose still and Z chose sparkling, and the server assigned to our water needs (lol the dream) got confused and gave both of us sparkling for much of the meal. Luckily our main server took over at some point and gave me still. It is hard to chug sparkling and I like to chug! 

We were getting the tasting menu, and so the first few dishes sent out were little off-menu ‘gifts’ from the kitchen to amuse our bouches, which are always some of the most interesting bites. I received an adorable tiny crispy cup of green beans and edible flowers that tasted of dill, and even though I tend not to like dill because of food poisoning memories, I loved this. Next up was a little turnip roll, looking like a sushi roll or a baby burrito or something but it was rolled up turnip. Sounds whack, tasted amazing.

My last amuse was a chickpea panisse, and I almost high-fived the waiter who brought it. I was psyched for some acknowledge that vegan proteins exist, and also I just forking love everything made with chickpea flour, like socca, and this was a little bite of socca. 

To follow up/erase the little treats, they next brought me melon gazpacho granita as a palate cleanser, though a more interesting one than usual. 

At this point in my notes, I wrote ‘Almost a potato but watery’ and I have zero clue what I meant by that or what point in the meal it was supposed to correspond to, if it was related to this meal at all. Recent-past me was very wise though, so I will use the phrase as much as I can.

Next, I was brought one warm tomato. I kind of thought ho boy, is this how it’s gonna be? After that promising chickpea panisse? But it was one warm good tomato, doused with soy sauce, almost a potato but watery, and even though it was hard to eat, I remembered that it’s all about the meal at large at a place like this, not each individual dish. It was served with a fresh cucumber juice, tinged with a little apple and some other subtle hints of this and that to make a really lovely, refreshing cucumber juice. A soft pairing win! 

My next course needs no introduction. It was BEANS! I love beans oh how I love beans, especially in fancy restaurants who would love to only give me single tomatoes and no protein. The white beans (the server said cocoa beans?? but no) (I googled and apparently Coco de Paimpol beans are a thing and are whitish so that is probably it; shortening it to ‘coco’ is misleading guys!) were served with impeccably cooked and flavored mushrooms, so it was a dish I often cook myself but made delicious and wonderful. My drink of the moment was a buckwheat iced tea, which I loved because I love buckwheat and really got into buckwheat teas in China last year. It was Bucks County up in here! Calling it another Soft Pairing Win even though it was a tea and not a juice and I thought they were two different routes to take but I guess sometimes they share the path? 

The next course was my absolute favorite and brought the whole shibang to another level. I got a little bowl of the freshest herb broth that was like if everything green and fresh and herby was reduced to their strongest, most sublime levels of green and fresh and herby taste concentration and probably mixed with a little magic. It was INCREDIBLE. I mean yeah it was broth, but incredible forking broth. There was a baby potato and a single strand of samphire in the bowl, which was fun to try to get when you were drinking directly from the bowl. I would say the potato in the broth was almost a potato but watery, but it really was a potato. It was served with the greatest piece of solid food ever, too – a cracker of crispy potato topped with white bean puree and amazing grilled mushrooms (but grilled differently from the previous course, I believe). Everything about this course was perfection and I really wanted to shout ‘just give me a million of these, please’ which really should be an option when you are paying this much but alas, I behaved. 

Next up to bat, we have a wonderful white beet dish. The beets were sliced super thin and I guess the whiteness instead of the redness means there is no trace of any dirt taste that regular beets often have, and they were topped with slivered almonds. The waiter poured a Greek yogurt (made from almonds) sauce over the whole thing, and it was splendid. It looks like a mess because I didn’t get the picture until after the pouring happened, but whatevs. So good! And I appreciate the perfectly smooth almond yogurt sauce that I like to think they made just for me that night. 

While this course was great, the soft pairing was…not. You may remember from my previous Clove Club review that I was given a red pepper juice to accompany a corn-based dish, and the match of red pepper and corn was highly praised. However, I also mentioned that too much juiced red pepper is a lot to ask someone to drink. At this latest meal, the red pepper juice was a weird match for white beet and yogurt, and the giant glass was way too much to ask. I could barely finish two sips before I wanted to barfalomew. Soft Pairing Fail.

Luckily, this was about the time they brought out their superb sourdough bread, so I could get rid of the taste. Their bread is so good we would have happily filled up on it even though everyone always says not to do that, for some dumb reason.

The more substantial ‘main’ dish section of the menu came out now, and my first of these was a grilled baby eggplant with cumin sauce and eggplant caviar. So, not the most interesting or inventive dish, but it tasted great and was well made. Still, given the setting, you’d hope for something more imaginative. I LOVED my soft pairing, though: a steaming hot pot full to the brim of mushroom tea. I drank the whole pot and loved it. The taste was very subtle, almost bland, but that’s okay for tea, and the smell was sensational (just like MUSHROOM and SO STRONG).

The last of the savory courses was one of my favorite parts of the dinner: a plate of maitake mushrooms and broccoli and other greens and leaves served with a courgette (zucchini) puree and a Jura foam. Jura, I learned, is a region of France where they make their own kind of French wine and so this foam was made from that, I guess, but was cooked and foamified so it didn’t taste like or have alcohol. So fancy, so delicious! They really based my meal around cooking mushrooms impeccably and I am down with that. 

Unfortunately, my soft pairing for this wonderful course was a big bummer: They brought me a non-alcoholic beer. Okay there’s a lot to go over here. First of all, I said juice pairing. JUICE. Second, you’re assuming that the people not drinking alcohol still like the taste of alcohol. That’s a very bold assumption to make, and one that I don’t think will ever prove true in any situation. Third, you don’t know why I’m not drinking. What if I was an alcoholic and the taste of beer, even without the alcohol, was a big trigger? Fourth, WHO LIKES NON-ALCHOLIC BEER? Literally NO ONE on the planet. Lastly, and most offensive to me personally, this felt exceedingly lazy. We’re paying more than we’ve ever paid for any meal up in here, and someone back there is like ‘hmm, we need a drink for this dish that isn’t alcohol, oh I know, how about just this beer that the alcohol pairing is getting but the non-alcoholic kind! Great! Except not great. Beer is disgusting and non-alcoholic beer is bullshit. SOFT PAIRING FAIL. Ugh thank goodness most of this meal was wonderful because this aspect of it feels really like a slap in the face. 

Luckily dessert came next to distract me from my OVERWHELMING RAGE. 

And dessert was epic. You know from my past reviews of fancy places that don’t primarily cater to vegans that they often just can’t do dessert. They either buckle under the pressure or they never give a shit in the first place and they go ‘oh here’s a plate of fruit and, if we feel like trying a little, that same fruit made into a syrup or a sorbet ENJOY THAT WILL BE $100!’ But my two desserts (actually, three sort of) from Clove Club this evening were remarkable. Not only were they both interesting and creative, but they were also delicious.

First up was a blackcurrant granita with soy foam and berries. The soy foam was more of a substantial cream and there was more of it than there was granita, so that really saved this from being one of the aforementioned kinds of lazy vegan desserts, as did the fact that it tasted great. The granita was a little too melted underneath the cream, like it was ready in the kitchen before the server fetched it for us, but things happen. There was also a shot of olive oil poured across it, which seems fancy and whimsical but I couldn’t really taste it so that’s just like unnecessary fat but whatever. Oh so for my American readers, blackcurrant is like the most popular fruit flavor in the UK. Husbo keenly observed (he’s so keen) that it’s used as commonly here as grape flavor is in the USA. It’s pretty strange to UK friends that blackcurrant juice et al. is just not a thing in the states. Anyway great dessert. BUT, the real treat of this course was the soft pairing! Thank god they returned with such a strong followup to the Biggest Fail in Soft Pairing History because this blackcurrant and beetroot soda was so incredible, so perfect and delicious with both flavors balanced, that it almost made up for everything. I wish I could buy this soda from them to have at home. And I don’t even drink soda! 

But the last dessert was the winner, maybe of the whole meal, maybe at least tied with that herby broth and potato thing. This is the kind of dessert I want to share with all future omnivore restaurants who claim to be able to make me something good. It was a caramel ice cream (WIN) on top of a coffee meringue foam (WIN) on top of potato sticks (WHAT SURPRISE WIN). The potato sticks were exactly like those things we’d get at a Wawa as kids, which I completely forget the name of but could NEVER forget the taste. YOU KNOW like those superskinny shoestring potato sticks (the name was probably Potato Stix lol) and they were so greasy and salty and amazing. Well whoever had the idea of putting them with caramel ice cream and meringue deserves a medal. This dessert was REMARKABLE. And I don’t even like coffee, well I don’t drink it, but in dessert form it was great, especially mixed with caramel. And potato stix. The soft pairing was a pear juice with coffee syrup and it was delicious. Another SP Win.  

As is the case with these fancy super long tasting menus, when you think you are finished and you can’t possibly eat another bite of anything, they bring you petit fours with your coffee or bill as supposedly a little treat but at this point it’s like a mockery of your stomach. Unforch, Husbo got the petit fours because they didn’t have vegan versions. However, they gave me a house-made dark chocolate bar, as they did last time, and it’s good chocolate. And since the guy who brought it to me felt bad that I didn’t get the petit fours/knew I was going to mention this on the internet/saw how much I loved chocolate by my face tattoo that says I Love Chocolate, he brought me a second one! So I brought 1.5 very nice dark chocolate bars home.

All in all, this was a spectacular meal that lived up to our expectations and memories of last time. Even though there were a few missteps and a few things that are making my veins pop and not in my forearms like I like, overall it was wonderful. But it is incredibly expensive, and even though it was a special occasion, it feels very strange to spend that much money on a meal. That guilty feeling is stronger than usual now that it’s like end-of-days time and everything is going to shit, so it might have to be the last fancy meal for a while. Or, if it really is end-of-days there is no reason to save our money soooo maybe not. WEIRD ENDING. 

CLOVE CLUB, SHOREDITCH, LONDON, UK, EUROPE FOR NOW
Water speed: Pretty good, though not as good as last time and I got a lot of sparkling by accident. I know that sounds like theeeee most entitled bullshit to complain about but that kind of detail is what Michelin stars are given for.
Service: Very nice.
Bathrooms: The bathrooms are downstairs, dark and reminiscent of like a brothel in 1800’s New Orleans. You know what I mean? The lighting was dim, the colors were dark reds and browns, and random cosmetics were scattered on display. A very strange mood going on but it was nice and clean, so whatever! Also I liked that the stall was separated from the sink area, despite being a single serve bathroom. People don’t have to wait outside that way, avoiding the awkwardness that comes from that. Oh the toilet seat was hysterically big and weird! That’s enough. (copied from previous review because it’s the same.)
Food: Splendid! I read over my previous review, and all my food-based complaints seem to have been addressed: the lack of protein was fixed (they could still do more, especially in the two mains, but still, an improvement), the desserts were improved by extraordinary leaps and bounds.
Bonus: Great to have a fancypants restaurant for special occasions/profligate spending when you have no need for money anymore.