Nadia's Dinner

Here' s the full report of dinner number 4...

Welcome to Nadia's! Our penultimate Fun Dine With Me meal. On arrival, our guests were treated to a luxurious cocktail of Tattinger Champagne, Creme de Cassis and fresh blueberries. A sumptuous take on Kir Royale and a tray of cherry tomato, basil and mozzarella nibbles. After welcoming everyone, our hostess popped back into the kitchen to finish prepping...

...an ocean-full of mussels for the main course! Sourced from Stoke Newington's The Fishery, renowned for freshness and value. Bearding all those mussels gave our group time to snoop around Nadia's flat...

One room in the house had been on the BBC show Changing Rooms! Quite a talking point! Here our guests marvel at the wonkiness of outdated frosted glass designs and shoddy paint job. Then Leonie went to investigate Nadia's bookshelf...
...She has quite a collection of celeb biographies and I think the Alex James one was autographed! Amazing!

Anyway, on to the starter...

English asparagus wrapped in Prosciutto and topped with a poached egg. Parmesan shavings replaced the Prosciutto for our veggie types.

Guests tucked in and moved from cocktails onto the wine. Next, Nadia was back in the kitchen steaming all those mussels...

Three saucepans were filled with red onion, garlic, butter and white wine and the mussels were added to steam. Nadia put the chips in the oven to accompany but realised she'd forgotten the bread, oops!

With cream and coriander added at the last minute our main course was served. Informal eating with your fingers was the order of the day. Rhydian was especially skilled at deftly removing the meat using half of the shell, most civilised! Nadia removed piles and piles of empties and cleared the way for dessert...

Which had altered from the original menu slightly and become Individual Banana Mousse, topped with grated chocolate. But perhaps the most eagerly awaited course was the CHEESEBOARD!

Which was demolished pretty swiftly along with red wine, crackers and matzo biscuits; a nice touch as Gabriela was celebrating passover. After dinner and the all important voting in secret guests stayed and danced around Nadia's living room for hours. Most raging after-dinner so far in the competition!

Next up, our final diner to host, Gabriela. Her menu will be revealed any moment now and we shall all find out the scores and who our winner is!

Philippa's Dinner Party!

So at 7.30 on Sunday evening, Philipa had everything under control. She whipped up a quick batter for some after dinner cakes and showed me her impressive collection of cake tins. The tagines were stewing slowly on the hob and cocktail glasses awaited the guests arrival...

I had done my best to keep all the contestants secret from each other, which was quite a task what with my big mouth and having 4 of them all in the same club the night before. Rhydian and Nadia had found out they were both in, so arrived together (and completely covered in snow). Then Leonie, kindly brandishing a bottle (as was everybody else, oh dear!). Shortly followed by Gabriela.

Everybody was greeted with a delightful glass of Prosecco with Pomegranate juice and we all got acquainted. Some guests already know each other but others are meeting for the first time. Such fun!

After the obligatory snooping around a la Come Dine, the group sat down at Philippa's beautifully laid table. Set with her Grandparent's silverware and with a simple white cloth it was an elegant setting for the first course...

Homemade mushroom pate with toasted ciabatta and green salad.

What do you think?

Next up...

The main course of Vegetable Tagine or Lamb Tagine (below) served with herb and pomegranate cous cous.

As guests listened to the cool disco-y soundtrack, discussed Giles Coren and opened bottle after bottle of wine. Phillipa plated up her dessert...

Baked Cheesecake!

I can personally assure you it was sublimely creamy and delicious.

Then a little after dinner extra, the vanilla flavoured little cakes (whose proper name I can't remember but a recipe will follow soon!)

As if we weren't all fit to burst by then, we broke open the boxes of Ferrero Rocher and luscious Thorntons chocolates that Nadia and Rhydian had brought for our host.

Secret voting was taking place in the kitchen but we kept Philippa distracted with the chocolates!

Then all the guests departed into the snowy london streets and via snowball fights with strangers, snow angels and slipping over, finally made it home. Philippa has certainly set the bar high and all other contestants are seriously considering their menus, trying for top marks!

Scores will be revealed as soon as all 5 dinners are done, but until then, what do you rate the meal?

Also, keep an eye out for Philippa's recipes, they'll be up soon too...