English Toffee Pudding

The night before last, in celebration of a birthday of a family member, we (me, wifey, 1 daughter, 3 stepdaughters, 2 boyfriends of stepdaughters and 4 members of another family we know) went to eat at a restaurant called the "Claim Jumper".

This is one of those places where the menu is huge, yet familiar. They cover all the typical US style food groups.. Pizza, beef, pasta and some others like lamb and fish. I had the pot roast which was nice enough, but there were about 5 too many types of vegetable on the plate and there was way too much of it. I ate about half.

Where they had gone out on a limb is the inclusion of a bipolar dessert menu. It could be either huge or tiny, but nothing in between. Given that I had wisely passed over the last 50% of my main course, I had left space for dessert, but only one of the tiny desserts stood a chance of fitting in my distended belly. Some others in the party chose from the large end of the menu and were faced with a mountain of cream over sweet chocolately things.

I opted for the "English Toffee Pudding" from the tiny end of the menu. Now I know what this is supposed to taste like. I'm a native of the UK and my mother used to cook it. It arrived on a plate, with a small puck of the cakey bit, suitably dribbled with the toffee sauce and a dollop of ice cream on the side. Everything looked as it should, except it was a bit small, but that was ok, it was supposed to be small.

The shock came on eating it. Following the predictable but OK main course, this thing was a revelation. They, despite 5000+ miles of separation and a cultural gulf you could drive GMC Sierra through, managed to make an English Toffee Pudding better than any I had eaten back where they were invented.

Go there. Skip the starter and entree and head straight for the English Toffee Pudding. Trust me, you won't regret it.