Much like many of my fellow bloggers I suffer from a terrible addiction to social media, I actually just read all about Emma’s over on her blog…so I know I’m not alone…
You see, Twitter is the first thing I look at when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I check at night. Bloglovin’ is alway open on my computer desktop so that I catch up with all my favourite bloggers’ latest shenanigans. Facebook also has a huge place in my day to day activity so that I can keep tabs on people who I know in real life outside the virtual world. Of late Instagram has become a very important to me and I’m getting more and more into the world of Pinterest.
Now with the constant Twitter vigilance, you can’t help but notice how active some of the hotels and restaurants are on social media. I can certainly say that the Doyle Collection of hotels has one of the strongest social media presences around. They’ve also given me lots of support which has help grow my own accounts in the last year with plenty #FF’s (that’s Follow Friday to those not au fait with Twitter-speak) and #TravelTuesdays, for which I greatly thank them.
Recently I visited The Marylebone Hotel, part of the Doyle Collection, for an LK Bennet fashion show which took place in the hotel’s restaurant 108 Brasserie. Since then 108 Brasserie has had a facelift and a menu revamp and has made my mouth water with pictures of the new delicious dishes on Twitter.
So when they invited me in for dinner…the answer was of course a resounding YES!!!
The city chic hotel’s interior had been done up all Chrismassy…Mr S was pretending to take photos of gold pine cones, but we all know he was really taking a selfie…We headed through the hotel and down into the restaurant bar for a glass on Nyetimber.
I really liked the way they’d refurbished the bar with red leather seating contrasting with the beautiful dark stained oak bar.
I haven’t done a his and hers OOTD for a while so here it is:
I had a new little black dress from Sandro to show off. I’ve never been a huge fan of lace but this year I’ve got quite into it and I really loved the lacey cut outs on the side of this dress.
We’d just had a bit of a shopping spree for Mr S and bought him this gorgeous scarf made of very fine cashmere.
And also a new cashmere jumper, both from Dolce and Gabbana.
I loved this picture, it looks really funny with me sitting under the girl and Mr S under the man, we should really have imitated their expressions for the comedy value! The Nyetimber, by the way, was excellent. It’s an English sparkling wine which has a slightly sweet and a fantastic alternative to champagne.
After finishing our aperitif we were led into the main restaurant for our dinner. Now, after seeing so many gorgeous pictures of the food on social media, I barely needed to look at the menu of British cuisine, I already knew what I was going to have.
First my eyes greedily veered to the centre of the room where a vast bread selection was set up on the table.
#Breadporn…
It think most blogger’s shudder at the phrase #Foodporn but it is a useful tag…
Anyway all that bread was my idea of heaven…forget dinner…I’ll just have the bread! The waiter suggested that we choose a selection of slices but we asked him to give us a choice of his favourites.
One of which being the Guinness bread that 108 Brasserie is known for. The bread was gorgeously light and spongy, not at all stodgy as I thought it might be, with a slight pleasant sweetness. If you’re going to 108, you simply must try the Guinness bread.
Sitting very comfortably on the red leather banquettes, we waited for our starters to arrive.
Seared tuna with soy and ginger dressing was a delicious Asian style dish to start on, and one of Mr S and I’s favourites.
Octopus carpaccio with tomato and chilli dressing was our other starter. It’s so easy to get octopus wrong, it can come out rubbery and tasteless, but 108 got it completely right, it was absolutely perfect. Personally, I’m a big fan of octopus and I’m definitely getting Mr S around to my way of thinking.
108 Brasserie is that type of restaurant that offers simple homely food cooked beautifully. My whole lemon sole was grilled to perfection with the butter adding an extra creamy flavour to the dish.
Honey glazed carrot and steamed spinach were our chosen side dishes.
Mr S went for the seared Aberdeen Angus sirloin steak topped with onion rings. Well-cooked hearty comfort food…Mr S was very happy.
Choosing our dessert wasn’t hard…
….when we spied our all time favourite, fruit crumble, on the the menu! 108 Brasserie’s crumble was made with Autumn spiced fruits and topped with vanilla ice-cream. Literally the best thing ever, perfect Christmas comfort food.
And you know I like to keep a bit of balance in my life, so we chose a very light dessert for our other choice. Pineapple grilled in the Josper oven with a chilli and lime glaze and coconut sorbet, something a little different but so perfectly light and refreshing.
I’m so glad that I got to try that wonderful food that I’d been lusting after on Twitter and Instagram. Thank you to 108 Brasserie and The Marylebone Hotel for inviting me and Mr S for dinner and for your constant support on social media.
For some fabulous #foodporn make sure to follow 108 Brasserie on social media:
Twitter: @108Marylebone
Facebook: 108 Brasserie
Instagram: 108MaryleboneLane
Pinterest: Doyle Collection
108 Brasserie,
108 Marylebone Lane
London
W1U 2QE
020 7 969 3900
Our dinner was complimentary for the review, thank you to the team at 108 Brasserie.
