Not the usual stuff, for once

Dinner with Mr and Mrs Tigger at Cipriani.  We have always liked this place, and wondered if business wouldn't be much better if they changed from a "members club" to a regular restaurant.  In all honesty, though, it's much easier for us to get a table if the restaurant remains half-empty as a membership club...
I'm a creature of habit (although Tigger is a lot worse in this respect) and I tend to order some of the same dishes whenever I go to certain restaurants.  This is one of the places where I always end up having the same handful of dishes... and tonight I made a conscious effort to get away from that.

Sea scallops with prosciutto frisee and rucola salad - four of them to a plate, and these were pretty big and tasty.  I would have preferred the scallops on their own, but having some prosciutto is fine, too.

I think the execution was pretty good, as can be seen from the cross-section...

Tiger prawns with cocktail sauce - I've never been a fan of "shrimp with cocktail sauce", as I find the crustacean is usually bland and all I end up tasting is the stupid sauce.  Today the prawn was a little bit better, but only just.

Braised wagyu beef short ribs alla Cipriani - this was a big hunk of beef...  I was definitely expecting something smaller, and it took some effort to finish this.  The beef was very tender, as expected, and quite yummy.  A very simple dish with lots of collagen - not that I need any, to be honest...

This came with some potatoes and haricots verts.  Naturally I didn't touch the potatoes but ate all the beans.

Chestnut cake - I swapped with Tigger so that he got my vanilla cream cake instead.  The cakes here have always been pretty good.

Mrs Tigger requested that I bring a nice bottle of wine for our little celebration, so I decided to dig my last bottle of 1983 Chave Hermitage out from the fridge.  I had brought a bottle of the 1979 a few months ago for her birthday.  The nose was very smoky, meaty with leather notes, fruity with a little prune.  Slightly acidic on the palate at first.  With more aeration the nose became a lot more farmy with a little brett.  After more than 2 hours the wine had become very acidic, and wasn't very enjoyable...

It seems that some of the other customers who dine here are wine lovers, too.  One of the tables next to us were drinking a bottle of Pichon-Lalande, and the table behind me brought a bottle of 1991 Armand Rousseau Chambertin Clos de Beze to drink with their rather grown-up kids.  Nice...