MEAL OUT: Marco Pierre White's / Electric Bar (Lincoln)

This was out third visit to Lincoln, and once again we made a b-line for the amazing 'Electric Bar' on the 5th floor of the Doubletree Hilton (which we've stayed in 1.5 times before....). The cocktails are amazing, I had an Electricolada (Coconut Rum, Absolut Vanilla, passionfruit liqueur, with coconut and vanilla syrup, shaken with pineapple juice, lime juice, milk and cream). Rose had a Clockwork Orange (Pimms, Beefeater Gin, Absolut Mandarin, strawberry puree, vanilla syrup and lime juice), which surprisingly turned out not to be a long drink, but it was very nice all the same.

After our cocktails we grabbed a Coke and wine and moved into the MPW restaurant, which we had reserved for 8pm. The restaurant was about a third full, which was perfect for us, not too busy and not completely dead. I had the Chicken Kiev again and Rose had the steak and ale pie, both of which were delicious. For dessert Rose opted for the Billionaires Shortbread (which was actually a sort of mousse/cheesecake kind of thing) and I had to go for the vanilla cheesecake and blueberry coulis. I must admit, it wasn't as good as the 'best cheesecake of all time' that I had in the Oxford MPW restaurant, but it was still very nice (rather than a moussey kind of cheesecake it was a more standard baked vanilla cheesecake).

Looking out of the window over at the car park of the Holiday Inn, we noticed some excavations and wondered if it was a 'dig' as it seemed to be very structured and not at all builder-like. Our waitress Chloe told us that it was a 'dig' and that they'd already recovered 21 Roman skeletons!

After our meal we were stuffed, so we headed back to the bar for another drink while I waited for my cocktail to wear off. I had a mocktail now called 'Strawberry Fields, which is strawberry and coconut syrup, shaken with lemon juice, pineapple and cream. Again this wasn't quite what I was expecting, being shorter and thicker than I thought, but it was still very agreeable. Not so good for the diet though!

When we eventually headed off we found the A46 was shut so we had to go a good 30-40 minutes out of our way to get home, which was a pain in the backside, but still it turned out to be a fantastic day and well worth the journey.