Restaurant Review : Bar Boulud, London

After a fantastic holiday in Portugal with Jane & Clive (several seperate blogs to follow), we're now in London at Jim's.  I thought I'd start throwing out a few restaurant reviews as a howdy to my chef readers (hello Mel, Georgie, Shane and B's Matt), so here's a few notes from dinner last night at Bar Boulud in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park with Jim.

Bar Boulud, London - you can sit at tables or the bar

We had eaten before at Daniel Boulud's restaurant in the Wynn in Las Vegas and, whilst it was nice, we weren't blown away by it.  The Vegas restaurant has now closed, so I'm guessing we weren't the only ones!

The London restaurant had a very comfortable, friendly atmosphere, which I wasn't expecting from such a fancy hotel.  We each had the much talked about Piggie Burger - a grilled beef burger, topped with pulled pork, bibb lettuce and green chilli mayo on a cheddar bun.  I couldn't go past the side of truffle mash (swoon), and hubby had the peas and bacon, whilst Jim had the sauteed mushrooms.

Piggie Burger - YUM!

When the burgers came out, we were a little disappointed in their size - midway between a slider and a normal sized burger - but they turned out to be absolutely perfect and we were all stuffed full afterwards.

I thought I'd paced myself well enough to fit in a dessert, but yet again, my eyes were bigger than my tum, and all I managed was one scoop of incredibly yummy coconut passionfruit sorbet whilst the boys were enjoying their coffees.

After our meal we moved through to the bar at the front of the restaurant where the very friendly bar staff helped us with a drink (virgin Mojito for me), and gave us some samples of Aperol, which I'd been told was a rhubarb liqueur, but turned out to be an orange liqueur.  Then we jumped a taxi home down Park Lane, dodging huge rain showers - a great night out!

So, now I'm a lover of the Piggie Burger (even though it didn't have beetroot - yum!) - what's your favourite burger?