Thursday 22 September 2011

Thursday September 8th: No.1 High Street Launch

A shot of pumpkin soup
Ever since I can remember, there has been on-going construction work happening at what formally was known as Met Bar. And after about 2 years of listening to constant drilling and hammering, they finally re-opened their doors as a bar and restaurant called No.1 High Street.

To say thank you for putting up with the persistent noise coming from the construction, many of the tenants of the surrounding buildings were invited to their opening launch. And due to the close vicinity of the bar, a few of us from the office decided to go check it out.

Upon entering, we could tell that a lot of money had been put into the place, the place had totally transformed from what use to be a seedy club to something that looked pretty good.

For the night, there was a selection of wines and Heineken beer on offer. And after securing a table, we kicked off the drinking. The waiting staff were pretty good at encouraging us to sample their nibbles on offer, which was pretty good as I had built up an appetite. The first bite sized morsel that I had was a fried gnocchi with some sort of tangy plum relish on top. It was ok, but had a weird chewy texture. That however, didn’t stop me from having a few more when another round of them came by. Next was a pâté on toasted bread. This was a little intense for me, the pâté to bread ratio was way out of proportion. I needed a top of beer after I had that mouthful of liver. After a round or two of the regular meatballs on a stick came a tray of shot glasses filled with pumpkin soup. This was a little unexpected, and I wondered if they took a cue from the soup in shot glasses from the Engine Room marquee at Design Day. The soup was pretty ordinary but was good to wash down the after taste of pâté.
The Gnochi


The pate and bread ratio = bad 
At around 8pm, we had noticed that the room was starting to clear out, I thought it was probably a good time to leave, but then a colleague of mine decided it was actually time for a another round of drinks. So naturally I had to stay and keep them company. I was starting to feel the effects of alcohol kicking, which was great as it enhanced my taste buds making the next round of canapés extra tasty.

Chorizo sausage with date came next, and chorizo being my favourite sausage (coupled with drunken taste buds) made this toothpick meal super good. I had to have two of those, and being semi-drunk I didn’t feel embarrassed about. Then they started to get fancy. Next was shrimp salad with cantaloupe and cous lettuce…pretty hard out, but kinda hard to eat without cutlery. Unsurprisingly, I made a mess of myself. And then as a final dish before I departed, mini portions of chunky fries with a homemade aioli.

Chunky fries
The spread was defiantly impressive, but due to how close the restaurant is to my work, I’m probably unlikely to ever have lunch there.  I would probably pick the shrimp salad as a pretty notable  canapé to serve up on a free function like this.  

The shrimp salad
Chorizo and date combo