While the Fat Cactus does make some ridiculous happy-juice Margaritas by the jug-load, there is something to be said for strawberry daquiris made from real strawberry juice, featuring two straws and plenty of ice in an enormous glass like real full-price cocktails.
So when Wendy called yesterday to say that she wanted to meet after work for a drink, Da Vinci's it was. They make the strawberry daquiri (pictured on the left) that Banana Jam's one wants to grow up to be. We also had the finest pizzas and a delightful buzz that lasted for two hours of gossip and catching up!
I had the Rembrandt: Butternut, Roquefort Cheese, caramelised onions, pear and peppadews. It was incredibly delicious. Richard had the Botticelli, Wendy had the Da Vinci. It was a fun time for all – Richard even used a pizza wheel for the first time!
Unfortunately for him, he sat opposite me. This meant that he had to be the subject of all of my photographs for the night! Sadly my choice in pizza, although deliciously appealing as pictured above, proved detrimental later that night: I had to get the post out of the mailbox and there was a heck of a lot; I bundled it out of the box and into my arms, then rushed it indoors and onto the dining room table. I felt something cold and gelatinous (like a piece of pear) on my neck area and wiped it away, blaming on a piece of runaway pizza topping. About ten minutes later the feeling was back, so I wiped it off while trying to figure out why I had managed to drop so much pear that evening … Turns out that my fruity instincts were misleading me because it was actually a slug. A real, live, juicy, revolting, scream-inducing slug. Excuse me while I freak out as I relive this incident!
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Distraction! Ewwwww. Okay, distraction: as is traditional with Da Vinci's dining we spent the night drawing on our 'table cloth'. Pictured to the right is Richard giving us a pose as he shows off his Jelly picture, which later became a chef's hat because of dubious jellyness. This extended into a traced hand outline, and three furious artists (Da Vinci, Botticelli and Rembrandt) having a go at the jumbo children's crayons provided with dinner. After much scribbling our food arrived eat from the pizza moved through the wooden plates and onto the table in interesting sweat patterns of swirling woody dictates. This added a certain something-something to our artwork, but also made the paper very volatile and susceptible to breakage (see bottom left!)
Much merriment at the crayon art. This photo will be worth millions one day. Richard followed his pizza up with coffee and a brownie. The photo opportunity was too good to miss, look how amazing it looks:
Nom nom nom. Alright, and one final image:
This is Wendy and I (above) trying to keep still to avoid blurry photographs and (below) after we were all brave enough to let the flash go off inside a dark restaurant. Not the most flattering, but it's one of the few that I have of myself. The food was good, the company was excellent, and the atmosphere was merry. WIN. Such a pity that we had to come home to discover that someone had driven into Wendy's car! And the slug incident! Luckily both of those were off-set by the hit-and-run driver being discovered in the form of our opposite-neighbour, and Wendy's fancy new Omnia distracting me with all of its gadgetry.
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