Join the supper club: The Boateng House fine dining experience!

My mom won a contest offered by the Langford community bimonthly magazine, ‘GoWest Langford’ for a long-table format five-course fine dining extravaganza. She invited me and we went on Friday.

In short: It was INCREDIBLE~ The food was amazing, the community atmosphere, and chef Castro and his fellow chef were friendly and outgoing. We had a lovely time.

Without further ado, on to the food:

African pulled pork.

We had a few appetizers, consisting of Beef Wellington (delicious!), salmon tartare in a cone, melt-in-your-mouth, a soup spoon of smoked eggplant ratatouille, tasted just like baba ghanouj, and ‘African sushi’ that was lighly spiced pulled pork in a sushi wrapping. Divine!

Mini Beef Wellingtons

Next up was our bread-and-butter course. The butters were spruce tip, plain butter and orange butter- sooooo good. Fresh bread too, yummm! We didn’t want to eat too much of it, because the salad course was up! Salad was lovely, fresh spring greens (mesclun maybe?) with a large beet slice and a generous dollop of goat cheese. Divine!

A very nice salad.

And then we were on to the soup course, and it was a showstopper- lobster bisque with two very healthy-sized scallops and shaved radish on top. It was amazing.

Lobster bisque…And you can see the scallop I took a bite out of! 

Next was the main- rack of lamb (perfectly done, meaty and well rounded flavours) resting on a bed of large pearled couscous, accompanied by roasted root vegetables. It was a delight!

Rack of lamb with pearled couscous, root vegetables.

Finally for dessert, we had chocolate mousse with a caramelized sugar curl on top and cooked pear shavings and minted whipping cream. Divine! We had an amazing time, and the food, company and chef were a true delight. I would recommend this style of eating- and chef- to anyone for a luxurious and amazing evening out.

Chocolate mousse, with pear and minted cream.

When I was a God

From watching Futurama last night, and it was a surprisingly introspective episode. I know, right?

Dad, daughter and horse.

My family has come and gone (not for good though, they will be back forever in a few months!) and I tried fairly hard to be reasonable and not too snappy, though you always hurt the ones you love, the hardest…Oh well, I was better this time than others, and maybe in the future I will be better and more understanding.

We did a ton of activities, so many activities! From walking in Witty’s Lagoon, to hiking Mt. Doug in a dangerous windstorm with my mom, visiting the farm, to happy hour with my parents, to watch a winning Royals Game this past weekend, swimming, seafood feast, Mexican food, Beer & Fish night, live music, riding my horse (just me this time since my mom broke her arm really badly last time!), to looking at houses and them eventually buying one! I was exhausted!

Maybe all of that was why the half marathon wasn’t the ‘winningest’ of my races, but hey, you gotta live your life, right?

And I try to make sure I live EVERY MOMENT OF IT/

But yes today my legs finally feel like they belong to me, and not some sad broken wooden puppet! I have been a bit burned out, a bit tired but not as strangely tired as last week, so that is a win for me.

And how is Mr. Oaty? He is going great, I’m the one that is moving stiffly and hobbling! We had some really excellent lessons last week in both dressage and jumping, and then Saturday my parents came to watch him go- he was lovely.

Monday I rode, after we had the race on Sunday and wowww….It was pretty awful. I was moving stiffly and barely managed a 10-15 minute ride. To be fair, the hardest part of the ride was tacking up, bending down and walking to the arena.

Tuesday I tried again and was a bit more successful- we worked on two jumps on the diagonals, and I was quite strict with myself about straightness. We halted after the one diagonal line on and off, trying to keep Oats working with me and not anticipating the turn, as I LOVE to.

Today, time off from riding and give my legs a chance to rest up for tomorrow!