Dine at Mine – A MasterChef winner’s Supper Club at room2
Dine at Mine is a fundraising campaign organised by Southampton Hospital Charity. They are bringing awareness and doing important fundraising work to complete a brand new Children’s Emergency and Trauma Department. Southampton Hospital Charity want to encourage everyone to host their own Dine at Mine and help raise a bit of cash towards this new and extremely important children’s ward.
An ambassador of Southampton Hospital Charity is 2012 MasterChef winner Shelina Permalloo. Since winning MasterChef, Shelina has her own Mauritian restaurant at Bedford Place in Southampton called Lakaz Maman, serving the most wonderful Mauritian food. To raise awareness of the current Dine at Mine campaign, Shelina decided to run her own supper club.
The Venue
Room2, Southampton’s Hometel recently opened in the city and they are shaking up the concept of hotels. Their tag-line is “A place to live, not just to stay” allowing you to enjoy the best bits of a hotel, but with the flexibility of being at home. To give the homely feel, they have board games available to play in the spacious and modern lobby area, that also has a cafe and bar area. You are also allowed to stay for a full 24 hours if you wish to do so; check-in at 2pm and check-out by 2pm. None of this up early to have breakfast, then leave. They also have fully equipped kitchens in each room, so you are able to eat what you want, when you want to.
The Meal
To prove it is possible to cook a three course meal in one of the hometel’s rooms, Shelina decided to cook recipes from the Dine at Mine fundraising pack for a small selection of local bloggers and vloggers. How lucky were we!
For starters I choose Buffalo Cauliflower, a mouthwatering fiery sauce on perfectly cooked large floret. Alternatively there was Coconut Prawns with a mango and lime chilli sauce.
For a main course, we were presented with either a Red Snapper Mauritian Curry served with Turmeric and Cumin Rice, accompanied by a Cucumber Relish, or Roasted Aubergine – decisions, decisions! I went for the snapper.. beautiful translucent flesh with a subtle combination of spices in the curry.
Dessert was a Chai Tiramisini – a suitable light end to the meal.
However, luckily for us it wasn’t the end of the meal, as Shelina then presented us with an amazing platter of tropical fruits with an extremely moreish salted caramel chocolate sauce!
It was a very special evening and enjoyed by all who were lucky enough to be invited to learn about the tremendous work being done by Southampton Hospital Charity and sample the tasty Mauritian food from a crowned MasterChef champion.
If you wish to raise some money by hosting your very own Dine at Mine event, you can download a pack from the Southampton Hospital Charity website.
If you want more information on room2 hometels, visit their website www.room2.com. Alternatively just pop in and say hello… they are very friendly.
I was a guest at this event, but all editorial content is my own.
