So, you’d think I’d have learned by now that if you want a decent photo of food in a restaurant you have to eat at mid day, take a camera, not dig in first and ensure the light is good.
Oh dear, most of our best meals in Jersey were eaten at night, in dimly lit restaurants, with the photos taken on the phone and only after we had started eating and then remembered “ooh, must take a snap of this”!
But…being an honest Chica and wanting to share the experience with you, here are the photos in all their awful glory. Suspend your reaction to the bad photos and imagine the deliciousness of the actual food. Buen provecho!
Oysters featured frequently – and often at mid day with a glass of wine, so this photo is not too bad…
Mussels in white wine and Jersey cream…
A beautiful carpaccio of beef
Duck spring rolls in a home-made pastry…
Lamb shank…
Blueberry creme brulee…
There was also a wild mushroom and puff pastry tart, a bacon hock with borlotti beans, panna cotta, cheese boards, fish pie, fruits de mer, scallops…but if I tell you that the photos above are the best of a truly bad bunch…well, you get the picture.
So…I’ll leave you with a few more scenic shots and we’ll move on back to the cooking in the next post.
Chica Andaluza 
Sounds like me. Marvelous food!
Oh no Rosemary – even the photos you think are bad are stunning compared to mine!
Thank you Chica but we both have taken some great pictures and we know when we haven’t.
True 😦
Delicious – the taste and imagination of the taste is the most important thing 😉
We really did eat so well. Photography 0 – Food 10!
What you call bad photos results in a delicious sequence of food…..!
And then the other beautiful ones witness your splendid trips….!
Thank you – to be honest, the fact that we actually mange dot take any of the meals we ate was a bonus as we were so focused on eating and drinking 😉
What bad photos, all I see is fabulous food!
🙂 Mandy xo
It was very good food indeed – I think we were just more focused on eating than focusing!
Oh my goodness, it all looks amazing and now I am very hungry!
We were unlucky with the weather but supremely lucky with the food!
Yum! A perfect mix of meat and seafood. Decadent!
When you can’t decide between meat and fish – have both!
An image is worth a thousand words and what your images tell me is that the food was SO good, you didn’t want to waste the time it would take to pfaff around backlighting it while it went cold and congealed in order to share a few fleeting images. You are both forgiven and applauded ma’am. I found a hilarious Youtube video spoof of what it is like going out to lunch with the dreaded “Food Blogger”…3 people having lunch and 2 of them end up having a battle royal over who gets to take the best shot of the food that comes out. The third person obviously ISN’T a food blogger and is just plain old hungry and while the other 2 end up standing on chairs with hideously expensive enormous lensed cameras on all kinds of aparatus with backlighting, spotlights, and camera crews on either side ready for battle, the third person eats the object of their desire…HILARIOUS and something that food bloggers should really think about. Food is food. It is there to be eaten and enjoyed NOT photographed, waxed, oiled, posed and ultimately thrown out because it is cold and disgusting. It isn’t art…its bloody food! Honest photos, blurred with passionate heated steam and the sweat generated by arms moving so fast as succulent sauce dripping mussel after mussel…oyster after oyster slither down welcoming throats is how it’s meant to be!
Ah, I love you miss narf! I know my shots are not the best even on a good day, but as you say it’s real food cooked to be eaten and enjoyed so we take a quick snap and get down to snaffling and enjoying 🙂 I need to check out that you tube video 🙂
3 Asians and it’s war for the 2 sitting opposite and the poor third wheel takes a bite out of their precious dessert ;). Loved it 🙂 Food is what makes bad days dissolve. Stretching out it’s production and then adding insult to injury by making you sit with fork and knife at the ready for an hour while it chills and you get that “perfect shot darling!” has knobs on! If I was subject to someone telling me to wait… I would be telling them something in none too polite tones! 😉
I promise I won’t make you wait when we sit down one day together for a long and boozy meal!
Good girl…bring on the deliciousness, the wine, the convivial conversation (at least till a couple of bottles of wine has disappeared and the conversation might be somewhat loud and slurred…) and enjoy that food! That’s what it is there for…enjoyment and feeding our bodies. Bollocks to the food photography…sterile pretties. The fashion models of the food brigade and just as unpalatable in real life 😉
I think the conversation would be loud and slurred and possibly very excited fromt he word go 🙂
There would be banquetting, quaffing with impunity and table dancing but you might have to stop me at the point where I remembered that I could fly…ok? 😉
Promise!
It all looks simply wonderful to me. 🙂
Ah, thanks Christine 🙂
Looks quite delectable! Best, Shanna
Thank you Shanna 🙂
OOHHH but we get the idea ….. bet the food was scrummy 🙂
It really was, it’s a bit of a foodie heaven that little island 🙂
You’ve been eating some wonderful stuff. I never take pictures in restaurants because it’s always a nightmare. Sounds like you had a brilliant time.
I have to confess it wasn’t the best holiday ever (weather, hotel) but the food really did save the day…not a single bad meal (except the breakfast in the hotel which was very disappointing). Needless to say, we didn’t lose any weight! And I’m with you on taking photos in restaurants, don’t usually do it and I’m not sure I’ll bother again. Best to focus on eating and enjoying the meal and the company I think.
Phew! So much food! I had a simple pasta for tea 🙂
I never remember to take the food shot till the plate’s nearly empty and my husband is a fast eater so that doesn’t give me a lot of time. When I do remember I get so excited it’s always blurred!
Yes, there was a lot of food but we didn’t feel too naughty as we walked a lot of it off (through wind and rain)!
Love all your dishes. But especially I love raw oysters – then I don’t have to share any of them with husband. 🙂
Unfortunately Big Man loves them as much as I do 😦 You have wonderful oysters in NZ from memory!
An evening meal in a comfortably lowlit and romantic place ~ dishes such as you have shown which we can see well enough to judge and envy, Milady ~ why on earth would you waste the ambience and let the food go cold or warm for the sake of playing with a camera! Thanks for showing us as much as you did! Yum, love that shank – oh, oysters first 🙂 !
Ah, I think people here understand that in a situation like this it’s food first! The lamb shank was gorgeous – Big Man ordered it but he’s good at sharing 🙂
That lamb shank caught my eye, Tanya. This is the time of year when I prepare them. It kind of takes the sting out of knowing that Winter is heading this way. Creme brulee wouldn’t hurt either. Kinda lucky that the weather was foul. Good weather might have disrupted your dining and that would have been a shame. 🙂
God forbid we would have missed out on some of these meals…we certainly made the best of the bad weather! Slow cooked dishes like this are perfect for the colder weather. It’s 4 degrees outside right now but I think the sun is about to peek through soon 🙂
TBH would love the oysters and mussels. Love them! I do the same with my pub photos–mess up my plate and then remember that I need a photo. And why are pubs always so dark? Sounds like a great meal!
Maybe we should carry a torch and then get our partners to illuminate our plates much to the bemused glances of other clients. Maybe not – best to focus on the eating and drinking 🙂
That post has made me very hungry . 🙂
😉
Fantastic dishes! Never mind the photos, which ones will you try to recreate at home so we can get the recipe. I have my eye on that lamb shank:)
Ooh I think I have a lamb shank recipe somewhere, will have to search it out!
😀
It all sounds delicious 🙂
We were very lucky!
actually that brulee shot has a certain charm i think.. focus is way overrated anyway..how lucky you are to have so many wonderful eating establishments.. c
It was a good holiday for eating! And the brulée shot looks like something out of a 1980s cookbook I think!
This looks like quite the feast!
It was!
Sometimes we can not deny we sell food could be attracted from the photo interesting and nice. Although sometimes not necessarily taste good compared with the photograph.