It's a Date!

You know.. I've heard of starting things off with a bang.. or even with a kiss, but I decided to do things a little differently by starting things off with a fall. More like a crash, an asteroid crashing into the earth! That's right. I crashed into the ground.. head bloody first upon arriving in Lund for what was meant to be a lovely and funny evening.. well, I guess that is a funny way to start things off! My ankle, yes.. it's still giving me shit from time to time and well.. on cobblestone (get with the era Lund, gosh!) I ended up plummeting head first into the hard cold cobblestone. No blood was shed. No tears were shed. A lot of shock happened, mainly by bystanders and Emma. Me, I just knew I was due for a good tumble.. it has been a while. I picked myself up, shook it all off and we toddled off to catch our first show at the Comedy Festival..

Chastity (like the belt) Butterworth & the Spanish Hamster. However, there were no cute little hamsters.. but there was Henry. A character from her show who had never been picked before.. and he was a little bit of the awesome. Much like Chastity. Also, there was a very good dancing audience member who stepped up to the occasion when called upon on the stage.. which was apparently also a first. No one has ever danced before. It was all about the firsts. All in all, it was a pretty great show and definitely a good way to start the evening.. after the epic fall that is. I won't lie, it was nice to have a seat and have a seat that was actually pretty comfortable. 

With the show finished, we headed off to have a wander around and then grab a coffee before it was time for our dinner reservation at Bantorget 9.

With a little teasing of the tastebuds, we were served a few little mouthfuls.. which I now regret not noting down coz I can't remember exactly what was in what but they were all very delicious. The middle one however, was a chicken pate on crispy duck skin and Emma gobbled it up without even the slightest hesitation. Pretty impressive considering she isn't a fan of chicken or probably pate or even duck for that matter.

Emma had gone with the green menu.. which is mostly vegetarian and I went with the meat menu. An assortment of breads were also served with a really damn delicious caramelised onion butter.. I mean, just look how good that butter looks?! The breads were all pretty damn good too and of course Emma was in heaven with bread.

The first course was then served.. Emma was served radishes with horseradish emulsion, watercress and roe.. it also had, as you can see little tiny shrimp. Deliciousness! I tried hers of course. Mine was also deliciousness, however Emma did not try it. She is more game to try things these days but raw meat was pushing it just a tad. I had a steak tartare with daikon, sea buckthorn (still loving that stuff since I was introduced to it last year), cheese and chive emulsion.

Followed by, which was the same on both.. all menus.. bouquet garni of beans and wild leaves, tarragon butter and sourdough. 

We were told we could eat everything.. but the string. Which made me think perhaps people had tried to eat the thick gnarley piece of string holding it together. It was all super delicious, and you couldn't actually help getting some of the string fibres in your mouth as they were a little whispy and fell off the actual string.. but they were well buttered so tasty as!

Next up for the meat was beef heart with cherries, warm broad bean porridge and chanterelles. I really enjoyed this, I had never had beef heart before (that I know of) and who knew it would go so well with cherries. The porridge however, was so yummy that I could have eaten it for days! Emma was served butter bread with cream fried chanterelles, rowan berries and dill. Oh and there was some butter fried pine-cone! It was all a little too buttery for Emma's liking and while it was nice, she said I did a nicer chanterelle toast.. nawwww, she knows how to help a gal feel better about falling head first!

A little pre-dessert was then served, a nice little quenelle of cherry ice cream sitting atop a wooden stump. I expected something a little fresher, maybe more of a palette cleanser.. but it was very soft and sweet. Very yummy, but I was expecting something more on sharp side.

Then dessert came! Emma got a cream bun "gräbbla 4.0" with white chocolate and dried berries. It was a little difficult to get into.. at one point some of it flew off the table and on to Emma! Can't take us anywhere! I did a little switch with the fish menu and got some Skåne berries with hay cooked cream and black marshmallow. I had never had black marshmallow before and it was quite delightful, but the hay cooked cream is what really topped it off for me.. who knew something as simple as cooking with hay could make things taste so good and that hay itself tasted so good.. the animals did! That's who! oh and I have actually had a couple of hay cooked things in my years and enjoyed them every time.

After dinner, we waited an exceptionally long time for coffee to be served before we then had to don the umbrellas and head out into the torrential rain. Our next show was due to start and we wanted to get there with the least amount of water upon us.. that didn't work out so well.. while not so completely wet that I had to buy a new t-shirt, unlike one of the dudes who got called up on stage, I was just wet enough that it made for a cold walk after the show.. as I didn't dry during it. I thought laughter generated much more heat! Gosh!

Anyways, we got seated.. right at the front but off to the side (phew) and waited for Nina Conti and Monkey to come out and grace the stage. If you ever get the chance to see this very awesome lady, you should. She is freaken hilarious. I could watch her every damn night.. seriously.

A fantastic night was had, you could say date night was a win.. and only having to wait a few minutes for the train instead of an hour was the perfect way to end it. Also, it turned out it was perfect that we didn't get stranded as Malmö started flooding coz of the rain! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?! Those weather gods sure do like to throw curve balls.