So I’ve been on a bit of a budget recently, why? Because things are flippin’ expensive! But also I do like the finer things in life, especially when it comes to food (obvious, I know), so the super-budgeting means I still get to treat myself on special occasions.

And one of those occasions presented itself recently. It was my wedding anniversary… 2 years!

We alternate between who chooses the venue for our anniversary meal and this year it was my turn. I strongly believe a man should treat his lady, but it’s a special day for us both and after all he’s a pretty lucky guy, so he deserves to be treated now and then 😉

Now the husband loves the Shard, I mean really loves… So the choice seemed obvious, but which restaurant to eat at?? I did a quick Google and looked like Ting was the favourite and they had a halal menu. It advertises itself as a ‘modern European menu with subtle Asian influences’. The decision was easily made!

On the day itself, we arrived for our weekday evening booking, through the entrance to the Shangri La Hotel and then whizzed up to the 35^th floor. On entry into the restaurant we were wished ‘Happy Anniversary’ and told our table was not ready, but would be in just a few minutes. So we waited… It took the waiter sometime to take our drinks order and even more time to deliver our drinks. They then got my husband’s drink order wrong. We had been sitting there waiting for about 20 mins so got up to ask the hostess what was happening. After the reminder, we were seated quite promptly.

Once at the table we took in the view, which was spectacular! The waiter brought us halal menus as I had told them it was a requirement on booking. I took one look and immediately knew what I was going to have… steak. How could I resist! Then a nice seafood starter to begin, I tried both the scallops and salmon.

The scallops were meaty and perfectly cooked. Three came with a sweet accompaniment of carrot, citrus and some edible flowers (very fancy I know!). The sweet and savoury flavours worked really well together.

The salmon was delicious and fresh, served raw in generous proportions. The pieces of salmon were coated in blitzed spinach. It was good and delivered what it was supposed to!

Now the steak… It was a fillet and by now you know I like my meat rare and so that’s how I ordered it. However, it arrived and I cut into it, tried it and it was pretty well cooked. I looked inside and it was brown! It had already taken 2 hours for us to get to this point, so I hesitated mentioning anything but I wasn’t going to enjoy it, so I did say something. And the waiter gladly took it back to make a new one. Rare steak wouldn’t take that long to re-cook right..?

With the mains we also got chips, mash potato and veg. *Warning* the sides are very generous, quite out of character for an upmarket restaurant, but that did not impact the quality. So we had this to graze on while we waited… and we definitely waited.

About half an hour later when the new steaks arrived they kindly refreshed our sides as well, but we had already filled up on our previous sides plus the sourdough they served us in the beginning we didn’t have much space left in our stomachs!

My steak was better this time. I wouldn’t say it was rare, more medium-rare. Of course I could not return it again! However it was melt in your mouth and I really enjoyed it. The steak was of great quality and the rare part at the end, to die for! Thankfully it was worth the wait, but I was so stuffed that I was finding it difficult to finish. The fillet was larger than normal, 300g.

Normally dessert is on the cards, but 3 hours (yes 3 hours) later we were full to the brim and definitely ready to go home. So we asked for the bill which came with petite four. This consisted of a madeleine and a crunchy chocolate ball.

As you can imagine, this was not one of my cheaper meals however it was definitely worth it. The view plus food makes a killer combination.

Not sure if it was the day we went, or it is just generally how service is, but I have to say it was slow! So if you are eating here, leave a decent amount of time.