...as a Free Lunch

Don't you just love it when two posts in a row can just have continuation titles?

Anyway, we had a work conference, so I didn't have to come in to the office. Well, I did have to come in to the office to pick up materials anyway, and made my way to the hotel with a couple other colleagues. It was a really good set-up, and the staff were all very polite, friendly and helpful.

The highlights of the day had to be, of course, the food.

Mid-morning coffee break, with egg mayonnaise croissants with caviar, apple danishes, wanton with chilli dip (but I gave that one a miss) and lovely, moist, mini-cranberry muffins, with fresh raspberries on the side. And of course, coffee!

Then...a couple hours later, we broke for lunch. I got to make sure everyone had gotten to the restaurant, waited for the two other colleagues I mentioned earlier, then finally got to eat.
Well worth the wait!

I didn't partake in any of the beef, although it all looked really good. I skipped the potatoes and pizza and pasta too. Come to think of it, I kinda filled up on seafood. Started off with lobster bisque, moved on to raw oysters, fresh scallops, tuna sashimi, salmon sashimi, smoked salmon, and some sushi. A cheese plate all to myself. And then...I considered the wagyu beef, but decided to move straight on to dessert instead. A decision I'm quite comfortable with! Several pieces of delicious, melt-in-your-mouth pralines and truffle chocolates, a piece of rum chocolate (which had a rather high concentration of rum!), a scoop of honeycomb ice-cream, and the most divine lemongrass crème brûlée. I struggled to stay awake after that, I can tell you!

After suffering through another hour and a half of sitting down and trying to survive the boredom, we had a mid-afternoon coffee break. This time, we had mini spinach quiches, tako yaki balls with wasabi mayo, and otah-otah finger sandwiches. I didn't bother with the sandwiches and tako yaki. Went straight for the spinach quiches. Because spinach. And quiche. I'm glad I had just enough room for the lemon meringue tarts! Actually, if I hadn't had room, I would jolly well have made some, they were so bloody amazing. I totally want to make lemon meringue tarts now!

So yes. Stuffed to the gills. Couldn't be arsed with dinner, especially not when I had to stagger to class after we left the hotel.

Oh, and by far, the best moment of the day (other than the face-stuffing), was when I realised I'd been drinking water that was possibly from another time and dimension.

perhaps straight from the springs of Gallifrey