1st October 2007
another gastropub
I was quite excited about coming here, I've been past this place a few times and it looked interesting. I think it's won some awards in the past so I was intrigued.
Inside, there were wooden panels along the walls along with dim lighting and sort of has the feel of a private library in a big house. There are the usual wooden tables and chairs that you expect in gastropubs with some leather seats in some parts.
They have a great selection of spirits, wine and lager/ales. The service would be excellent if only they had more staff. We ended up waiting 20-30 mins for each course and they were slow to clear up plates. It wasn't actually much of a problem for us because we wanted to relax and have a long meal but it's not ideal.
We had starters of smoked haddock and sweetcorn chowder with poached egg and bone marrow and parsley salad with toast. The chowder was tasty. They'd blended the soup so it was more smooth than the tradional chunky chowder but fantastic nonetheless. My bone marrow was very fiddly as expected but wasn't as good as I imagined, it didn't taste of much. It's obviously a St John copy but according to my friend, it wasn't as nice as their version.
For mains, I had escalope of veal with a white wine, cream, mustard and tarragon sauce with wild mushrooms and my friend had rump of lamb with french beans, anchovies, something else that I can't remember and rosemary jus. My veal was slightly overcooked, it was perfect for the first few minutes but because it carried on cooking, it ended up being quite tough. The sauce was not reduced enough and so was a bit bland and watery and I didn't get much wild mushrooms. The rump of lamb was cooked perfectly but not sure about the anchovies in this dish! It made it a bit too salty for my taste. The jus was decent though.
For dessert, we shared a fig tarte tatin with honey ice cream. The caramel was cooked more than I prefer and had a very slight bitter taste but I can see why some people might prefer it like that. The honey ice cream was nice on its own, quite subtle but we couldn't really taste the flavour with the fig tart aswell because the sweetness of the tart overpowered it.
Overall, it's a very nice pub and would love to live nearer for it to be a local (for drinks) but the food is not quite there though it has the right idea. The meal cost about £60 with soft drinks which is expensive for us I suppose. I actually don't think I'll find a gastropub that I'll love after knowing about Anchor & Hope and Great Queen St because the benchmark is so high now :D Too bad
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(3/3 found this review helpful)
