A Birthday Meal

We took H and her boyfriend out for a birthday meal on Thursday evening....they were celebrating last night with friends. She suggested Giraffe, (the restaurant that is....not the animal) I think she really wanted sushi at Yo Sushi next door with the fun conveyor belt, but knew there were a few non, raw-fish lovers in her midst, so sweetly suggested an alternative. It would have been cool to do that and order a rickshaw to take us there. I keep seeing them recently when I've been giving her a lift to her holiday job in town. In fact I saw a guy hugging a cardboard coffee cup being transported in one along the Abingdon Road at 8.30 in the morning....quite surreal especially as it wasn't in the old part of Oxford but cycling out into the suburbs....but great fun....I'd really love to do it sometime.

Giraffe has a cool laid back kind of jungle feel to it. The cutlery is kept in big bamboo containers and the bill brought to you in half a coconut shell.

H order strawberry cider. I tasted it, it's amazing, made with real fruit, of course apples, but also orange and strawberries. It had a really intense strawberry flavour.
Everyone except me had various hamburgers ranging from 100 percent beef to chicken schnitzel and a felafel burger with tsatsiki and harissa which I had a sneaky bite of and was delicious. The felafel was crunchy and the harissa really hot and zingy...yum. I chose a Bronte Beach Salad comprising spice roasted pumpkin, endame beans, spinach, beetroot, zucchini, little fine baby green beans, peas, fresh orange segments, sesame seeds and dressed with a golden balsamic dressing. The flavours were amazing, my only criticism was that the pumpkin was a little undercooked. But apart from that really yummy.
'A' arranged that when H's desert was served they would do something special, candles or sparklers. We were all so full though, that no-on could fit in a desert! However hard we tried to persuade her to have something, she declined.....she has such a tiny appetite. So a sweet guy brought her a balloon with a little giraffe attached, and when it came to paying they insisted that her food was free!! That was really kind.......they did get a big tip of course......