Valentine's dinner review

I'd been warned by a friend who'd eaten at the pub last year, along with his wife, and didn't like it...in fact his wife was ill afterwards, he said.  I did worry about that before we went...but we'd already paid half in advance, so we were going no matter what.  Well, I'm pleased to say the food was fine, as are we.  One or two things could have been better, though.

My starter was chicken liver pate (they called it parfait...pretentious, it's a local village pub in Somerset, not some minor celebrity chef's place on the banks of the Thames) and plenty of it, with a heap of very colourful salad, homemade red onion marmalade and toast.  The pate was delicious, as was the relish (husband ate my salad).  2 things let it down - the toast was 1 slice of ordinary cheap white sliced bread, and the dish was served on a piece of black slate.  A pet hate of mine - what's wrong with plates?!?!  Husband had 'sautéed scallops served with roasted cauliflower, pancetta lardons and cauliflower puree'.  When it arrived, his face was a picture - 3 small scallops with 3 tiny, I'm talking miniscule, florets of roasted cauli, a teaspoonful of lardons and a few dots, my smallest fingernail sized, of cauli puree.  He liked it all but said there was barely enough to taste, hence why he ate my salad and some of my pate and relish - there was too much of mine!

For my main I had 'serrano wrapped chicken stuffed with mozzarella, pesto and sun blush tomatoes in a tomato and chilli sauce', it came with new potatoes (plenty of them) and a massive amount of French beans.  The chicken, a large breast, was lovely and moist, the stuffing delicious, my only complaint being that the serrano ham was overdone, crispy and dry.  Fortunately, there was plenty of the sauce, which had large pieces of sun blush tomatoes in it and wasn't too spicy, it was really nice.  The potatoes were overcooked though, but the beans were underdone.  

Husband, bless him, had obviously drawn the short straw again with his choice of main course - 'slow roasted pork belly with fondant potato, black pudding, apple crisp and cider sauce'.  He also had French beans, although not as many as me.  The pork belly was 3, I kid you not, 3 one-inch sized cubes, with 2 round brown things which we first thought were miniature pork pies - they turned out to be the fondant potato.  One disc of black pudding, he didn't even notice the apple crisp (if there was one) and a tiny amount of sauce which he said tasted of nothing much.  Again, he ate quite a lot of my main course, there was too much of everything for me.

Oh, I forgot to mention the best bit....after our starters, we had a gin & tonic sorbet served in sherry glasses.  It was absolutely gorgeous, I could happily have eaten a whole big bowlful of it.

For dessert, I had crème brulee with a homemade shortbread biscuit.  Now, I like crème brulee, I've had it several times over the years, it's always been a very smooth, very creamy custard with, of course, the caramelised sugar topping.  This one, although very nice tasting, wasn't smooth or custard like - it was more like rice pudding!  Not smooth at all, a bit lumpy and quite solid, but as I said, it did taste quite nice.  I think the chef must have been distracted when he was making it.  The shortbread biscuit, which was clearly homemade (by a child, by the look of it), tasted of nothing, however.  Husband had cheese and biscuits with grapes - fine, nothing remarkable but nothing to complain about either.

In conclusion, on the whole we both liked the food, with a couple of reservations, husband's gripe being there just wasn't enough of it for him.  However, I do think that I could have cooked it better myself (and cheaper, and enough of it to satisfy husband) at home.  But it's nice to have dinner cooked for us and not have to wash up afterwards, and we enjoyed the evening with our friends, who are good company.

Oh, we also had a complimentary glass of Prosecco with a fresh raspberry in it upon arrival, which was a nice touch.