Graduation day! I woke up at 8am to see if I received an email congratulating me on passing my final exam. I was so excited when I saw that email and I could finally enjoy the rest of my day. Our class had a lunch at the Signatures Bistro at Le Cordon Bleu planned for 11am so I got myself all dressed up for the lunch and graduation and headed over to the school. Of course once again, I arrived before everyone else but people soon arrived. The lunch was so good. The restaurant never seems to disappoint.
Gorgeous girl modelling the menu for me!
I drank so many of these
For an appetizer, we had a choice of White tuna pissaladiere and confit tomato vinaigrette or cream of asparagus with Yukon Gold potato foam. I chose the cream of asparagus which was absolutely delicious. I have recently become a fan of soup and this one was so good. I really enjoyed the flavour.
Clearly I enjoyed it
The main course was a choice between Hangar steak, red wine sauce and gratin dauphinois potatoes or Tilapia filet in oriental vinaigrette, shitake, bok choy and green shallot. I've never had tilapia and I wasn't really feeling fish so I went with the steak. I am definitely more of a steak and potatoes kind of girl and I was very happy with my choice. The red wine sauce was a very nice complement to the steak. I ate it all.
Hangar steak and red wine sauce
Tilapia filet in oriental vinaigrette
For dessert we were served an orange gratin, mango salad and orange compote with rum gelée. I enjoyed the dessert but I didn't feel it was as good as the churros that I had the last time I had lunch at the restaurant. I liked the flavour of the orange and mango but wasn't sure about the rum gelée. I ate everything though!
I had a lovely time with everyone from class. We enjoyed our lunch and moved into the next room for our graduation ceremony. Normally, the graduations are not held at the school but we had a unique situation because we are a small group and we had finished our exams earlier than the other basic class and most people were flying home right away. We had a small and intimate ceremony in the bar area of the restaurant. It was quite nice.
Intensive Basic Pastry!
Graduation! There's not a lot to say about the graduation except that we each went up to receive our certificates and our marks from the chefs. Hannah gave a really wonderful speech as well. I think the pictures will say more than I can actually write.
Receiving my certificate (blurry picture)
Love these girls!
Pretty awesome day. I was very proud of myself for making it through, relatively unscathed.
I've been trying to post a video of Hannah's speech, but for some reason it won't play the video. I apologize Hannah because it really was a great speech!
After our graduation, I went home for a well deserved nap and a few of us had made plans to go out for the evening to celebrate. I met up with some of the people from class and a few of the Superior Pastry students for dinner and drinks at the Novotel Hotel. I'm not sure what the restaurant was called, but it was really good.
I have no idea what this was but it was delicious! I had quite a few :P
I didn't eat all of these, I just had the fish and chips. (Not as good as the Victory Restaurant back home though)
Not sure why, thought this little bottle of ketchup was too cute. I took it home!
Great dinner with great friends
Graduation was such a bittersweet moment. It was so satisfying that we all graduated together. No one failed, despite some of us being convinced we would. It was nice that we all graduated but it meant the end to such a wonderful experience. Only four of us were moving on to Intermediate and even though we're all moving on to bigger and better things it felt like such a short time to get to know everyone. I am very grateful for the time I did have with everyone. I really feel I have made friends for life. It was an amazing experience with all of you and I wish you all good luck on your new adventures. Much love to everyone in IBP!
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