Digestive blogging

It's 00:45 and I have no choice but to blog. There's no way I can go to bed on such a full stomach, and I need to take this time to digest. So bear with me.

La Posta is the name of the fabulous outdoor restaurant that had me and fashion-fundi colleague dining to our foodie delight for the fourth of my five-part 'eating out and getting paid to do it' escapade. Owner (but don't call him that, he really hates it) Michel Ferneini, chef Maroun and their team treated us like Lebanese royalty. If I'd thought that I'd seen all the hospitality I could during family outings, this experience took it all one step further, and saw our table filled constantly with ever-changing dishes for two hours flat! Yes, that does mean we ate non-stop for two hours! Fashion-fundi colleague has just come off a strict diet, and I - well, I never need an excuse to overindulge, so it was a fitting night to celebrate our love of food and wine.

Cupcake and Belly Dancer, you're dying to hear what we ate, right? Espanola photographer, I think you'll appreciate this too. Felt like our indulgent Legacy experiences! Well I wrote down some things so that I wouldn't get them wrong according to Larousse, so here you go (oh, I should mention that this is an Italian restaurant and the setting is something like a scene from the hanging gardens of Babylon, with the smell of jasmine and the sound of the water fountain completing the sensual experience):

We started off with a complimentary glass of Champagne (who am I kidding - it was all complimentary!), and then Michel recommended the Mastroberardino Radici Fiano de Avellino 2006, a fruity white wine from Italy's Campania region (described by one reviewer as tasting like 'flowers and honey' - how cool does that sound?!).

Then the food started rolling out. First the divine tomato tart and morels feuillete with green asparagus and cream of oignon brules. We shared and gobbled down both dishes before the risotto with testun cheese imported from Piemonte arrived - absolutely delicious with the wine (and made me forget the importance of eating local produce). Then we shared a linguine with black truffles from Umbria (quite rich, so it was the first dish we didn't demolish) and the most melt-in-your-mouth pasta experience I've ever had: truffle ravioli (we left two stuffed raviolis just so that we wouldn't look like we hadn't seen food in a week).

When the pastas started, our red wine was poured out of a decanter (Michel had made sure it'd been decanted for an hour before - don't you just love this guy?). It's the most expensive wine I have ever consumed, and I can once again attest to having expensive taste. I loved it! Maybe the fact that it's apparently got one of the highest percentages of alcohol in wine deterred my sober judgement. It was the Zardini Amarone Della Valpolicella Classico 2003, a wine from the Veneto region, and it was on the menu for R1 300! This is the kind of wine I want maturing in my home cellar one day.

You'd think that was enough food, right? But Michel had other plans for our mouth-to-tummy route. Fish with basil and tomato (sorry, I didn't write this one down, so I don't know what type of fish it was, as it was the least tasty of the lot) and Angus beef from Australia served with the largest bone marrow known to Angus cattle I'm sure, and a truffle/ cauliflower moussy sauce. For those of you who know my penchant for sucking at bone marrows, you'll be relieved to know that this one was too large for me to cause a whistling scene.

How could we ever manage to fit in a dish of dessert? Michel solved that problem by making us forget about the one dish, and presenting us with four dreamy desserts. And we found place! We had

1) what the menu describes as 'like lemon meringue'

2) chocolate mousse (I need to get that fluffy recipe from Maroun!) with mandarine sorbet (I'd have preferred an extra dollop of mousse, thanks!)

3) a berry soup

4) and the popular La Posta chocolate fondant (oozing out delectable chocolatey sauce) accompanied by a tiny raspberry and coconut panna cotta.

Sweet dreams are made of these, I'm told (or sung to), so I'm off to dream about what foodie heaven must be like... Oh wait, I was just there!

Espanola photographer, this is why I need you here. Dessert just doesn't look the way it should when you capture it on a phone!