Christmas Day Lunch

Aline writes: as you can see from our earlier Merry Christmas picture, we had a delightful Christmas meal at a local restaurant. Since all public transportation is shut down on Christmas, we needed to find a restaurant that was open and within walking distance. A wonderful restaurant just down the street, the Formosa Dining Room, fit the bill. They served Christmas lunch until 4:00 – lunch seems to be the traditional holiday meal here, probably related to the traditional Sunday lunch everyone seems to eat. As you can see from the picture, the restaurant is on the ground floor of a lovely old Victorian building.


So we had a delicious meal off the Christmas set menu. I chose to celebrate with cider, while Bill opted for beer since the dining room is attached to a great pub, the Prince Alfred. We popped our Christmas crackers and put on our paper crowns. We got quite nice prizes in them: playing cards for me, and a mini-screwdriver set for Bill. Our meal started with a pear sorbet, and then we had a watercress, Stilton, and walnut salad. For our “mains”, I had sea bass with greens and gnocchi, while Bill had a traditional turkey meal with stuffing, roasted potatoes and the ubiquitous brussel sprouts (England’s favorite winter veg). Then we opted for Christmas pudding. It was a yummy steamed pudding with dried fruit and nuts. We resisted the mince pies at the end, and went for a nice chilly walk along the Regent’s Canal afterwards to recover. And then home – and no dishes to do!

But we did do more than eat on Christmas - as you saw earlier, Grommet played in his own way with the Christmas tree while we were out, and we exchanged our Christmas stockings and had fun playing with our presents (the rules for our stocking stuffers - they have to be small, edible, readable, and/or disposable.) It was a great relaxing day.