The Breslin...

On Friday evening we had a 4-way leaving party for some folks at work and to say goodbye (and celebrate in one instance) we all went for a big meal at the Breslin.

The Breslin is the restaurant at the Ace Hotel, it's got an bit of a British inspired menu, with scotch eggs and Ribena cocktails, and it's the place that does the most delicious chicken sandwiches in the whole entire world!

As well as amazing chicken sandwiches and incredible (warm) scotch eggs, it also offers a whole hog roast! So it seemed only right that for such a big leaving doo, we had an equally big meal...

It was a mighty fine pig, served with potatoes roasting in pork fat, collard greens and brocoli raab and the most humongous pile of caesar salad I'd even seen in my life. They certainly don't scrimp on the portion sizes at the Breslin!

The pig was, without doubt, the most amazing roast pork I have EVER had. The crackling was AMAZING! I somehow managed to bag the super crackling from the hind leg on my plate, so I had more crackling the meat... but I didn't mind!

They bring the pig to the table and carve it up in front of you, it was expertly done and it made it so easy to just help ourselves to huge platefuls of pork.

When they were carving it, they took off the head, and took it away to carve up separately - so towards the end of the meal they came back with the head in various bits, the cheeks, the tongue, the snout, the eyes (!) and the brain (still in the head!). It's a good job they didn't do all that at the beginning of the meal because it put me off my food a bit. I decided that eating pig's snout and brain once in my life is probably enough - so I didn't repeat what happened at Tet's Superbowl Party.

After we could no longer look at another piece of pork, we got to sit upstairs on a balcony overlooking the dining room and have some drinks. Not long after leaving our table (the chef's table!) another group were ushered in for another pig... theirs didn't last long, they must have been VERY hungry!

The Ace Hotel is a fantastic place - the lobby is so cool and brilliantly decorated/designed. It doesn't feel like a hotel lobby at all, it's an odd cross between a coffee shop, a bar, a library, a hunting lodge, a lounge and a nightclub...

 There are so many nice touches around the place!

After we were done at the Ace Hotel we went down the road to 230 5th for a few rooftop drinks with a view...

It was VERY busy up there, and where-ever you stood you seemed to be in someones way so Jonathan went off to ask if we could have a table. I already knew that 230 5th was pretty pricey, but I had no idea how pricey it was until I heard the waitress tell Jonathan that tables were bottle service only, and to have a table for 13 people there was a two bottle minimum... I thought bottle service was something like just bottles of beer - but no, if you wanted a Jack Daniels and coke you would have to buy the entire bottle of Jack Daniels... at $250 each!!!!!

Jonathan being Jonathan said OK and we all went and sat down and waited for a bottle of Champagne and a bottle of Bacardi to be brought out to us, sparklers and all!

It was ridiculous really, we all had the champagne but hardly anyone touched the Barcardi and it ended up being smuggled out in someone's bag... hopefully it'll find it's way into the drinks cabinet at work!

It was a fun night and it was good to get everyone together - but it was an incredibly extravagant night... I don't think we'll be seeing a leaving doo like again that any time soon!