L'Enclume

I was just reading Kottke's blog, and I saw a reference to a piece on Rufus Cartwright's blog about an evening he and his Girlfriend spent at L'Enclume restaurant.

This made my ears prick up, because when I was in the Lake District recently with my friend Paul, he had wanted to visit L'Enclume, and had asked me to check its web site out. As it happened, the restaurant was shut for refurbishments, so we couldn't go, but the restaurant is in Cartmel in the South Lakes.

Rufus describes the night he opted for the Underground menu, where the number of courses can be up to 20, and the dining lasts for 5 hours. Largely experimentl, the chef Simon Rogan has elevated L'Enclume to one of the top 15 eateries in Britain. Read his account of the evening, with excellent photos and descriptions of the courses.

The course pictured is called Sticky Tacky Pudding, and is a variant of the locally produced Sticky Toffee Pudding. You are meant to eat the balls in turn, chewing each without swallowing, until they are all in your mouth. Each is a smll gel-covered ball, some solid, some liquid, containing the constituent flavours in Sticky Toffee Pudding.

If any of my friends fancy sorting out such an evening to this restaurant (they also do rooms from £59 a night overlooking the local Priory), let me know.

Piano Juggler

Check this guy out. He juggles balls while playing the piano. You can watch his act here, it's pretty amazing.

Heaven knows how long he would have to practice this act to get it perfect like that. His name is Dan Menendez, and his own website is here. Thanks to J-Walk.

On the juggling and music theme, I also found this video to FatBoy Slim's song "That Old Pair of Jeans", which is of world-famous juggler Chris Bliss interpreting the song. Just watching his eyes, and how frantic they become, one can only imagine he was knackered by the end of the record.