It’s been a week of many ‘meals out’, and I’m starting to feel the strain.  Today was Pizza Express with my parents and the niece and nephew (my initial thoughts of salad obviously falling by the wayside).  Last night was another good meal at Chilli Banana with friends, who shockingly had never been, so that pitiful situation has now been rectified successfully.  And earlier in the week we had what has become a semi-regular girls meal out - a gossip/catch-up over dinner with ‘the girls’ – and also what is turning into an opportunity to gradually eat our way round Wilmslow.

This week was the turn of Strada, located where McDonalds once stood, which can only be an improvement.  So instead of plastic chairs and plastic food, we have what feels like a huge space with warm wooden floors and panelled walls, and a tasty Italian menu.  The relaxed atmosphere allowed us to chat to our hearts content, with a few of us swapping seats between courses without being in anyone’s way or causing disruption to other diners or the staff.

And the menu was pretty good.  The only thing that let it down was presentation, and attention to detail.  I had some lovely fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil salad to start with.  But the slices of the cheese and tomato were plonked on the plate with little thought of how it looked, with a couple of basil leaves chucked on top.  It had the tiniest speck of olive oil on, as if someone had started to drizzle and then thought they’d made a mistake.  A shame because it would have benefited from that extra mellow layer the oil can give. 

One of the girls tried a very tasty starter of parmesan polenta with a sauce of mushrooms, mascarpone, madeira and garlic – extremely tasty, but also too rich to finish.  The other start which went down well was a salad of spinach, avocado, pancetta and parmesan.

The main courses split the camp into two – those who had the seafood linguine (apparently good but not as good as Osteria Mauro!), and those like me who chose the Risotto Verdure.  And ‘verdure’ it certainly was, piled high with asparagus, peas, broad beans, spinach, green beans and courgette.  It was almost too green – I started to pine for a bit of red or brown to balance it!  It tasted great, but it was just too huge a portion – even I couldn’t finish it.  So I guess that’s value for money at £8.95.  Having looked at the menu, it seems it also had mint, but I couldn’t taste it – probably drowned under the huge spoon of fresh parmesan the waiter sprinkled over it!

Dessert was hit and miss.  Of two ‘melting’ chocolate puds with ice cream, one came out uncooked and solid.  It was sent back, and a new suitably melting pud was brought with an apology.  And I struggled to see how my ice cream, nice though it was, could possibly be worth nearly £4.  Of the two not very big scoops, the vanilla was fine but the pistachio crumbled from having too much ice in it, it had lost its creamy texture and was an unpleasant shade of green (I know I’ve never seen pistachios that colour). 

So, on the whole, a vast improvement on McDonalds (which ain’t hard let’s face it) despite the minor quibbles, and one more for us to tick off the list in Wilmslow.  The girls have ‘been there, eaten that’ and will no doubt lay waste to the next venue in a month or two. 

*I couldn’t think of a clever title, sorry, it’s the end of the week and I’m full of food.  I think it’s affected my brain.

1. Howie
   Jul 14th 2008

   You forgot to mention that Chilli Banana added a 50 pence charge to the bill for some soy sauce I asked for to accompany my Pad Thai. Cheeky buggers!

   And as for the green pistachio.. Green is good!

   “The color of the kernel varies from yellowish through shades of green, which extends throughout the kernel. In general the deeper the shade of green, the more the nuts are esteemed”

   http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/pistachio.html

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