Tuesday 20 May 2014

Dinner at The Thomas Lord


Review


Been eyeing up this place for a couple of months now and finally got around to going to eat there, its a quiet little pub set nearly the middle of nowhere (its by Petersfield).

Went here with my mother and better half, tried to book for 730 as thats generally a good time to eat i find. Sat at a nice table with a good view of the pub bar and interesting restaurant decor all round.

So down to the food as it was a 2 AA awarded restaurant the menu was as expected a 5 by 5 by 5 menu so then you get a better quality of food instead of quantity.
I decided to opted for a crab starter portland crab with brown crab custard, treacle bread and kohlrabi remoulade, which was nice just not enough of the brown crab custard but the treacle bread was great nice moist and not too sweet for the dish. mother had a fried smoked duck egg which looked just fried and not smoked at all the oxtail and black pudding hash looked nice and was said to be too. Gael had the risotto. but no one can remember anything about it.


 As for the main courses me and my mother had the guinea fowl dish, which consisted of breast, bread mousse, swede and bacon puree, crispy dumplings, marmite carrot, wild garlic and peanut brittle. the marmite carrot was nice something i've not had before but will be trying for sure the breast was cooked lovely and nice and moist. I wasn't a fan of the dumplings that more to my taste as i'm not a fan of them.

My only gripe with this dish was the bread mousse i spent about 2 minutes trying to find it, it turns out that it was inside the guinea fowl leg which was breaded and infact more leg meat then the mousse. I was taught that every element of the dish has to stand on its on and that one didn't, if it was worded on the menu as a crispy leg then there would be no issue but i only had probably 1 mouthful of mousse and the rest leg which was lovely.
Gael had a lamb burger with goats cheese broccoli pesto and served with coleslaw and truffle and parmesan chips. Before i ordered our mains i did ask if the goats cheese was a creamy type or firm and the waitress didn't know but said they were all local cheeses, so when gaels burger comes out and i see a bit of french Chevre log on it i was quite surprised cause that's not local made. Broccoli pesto was nice as was the burger bun nice and soft, chips were just normal handcut could see a few gratings of truffle but no sign of the parmesan.

Right on to the puddings and the let down of the meal, which is disappointing as 2 out f 3 of us have a sweet tooth.
I ordered a treacle sponge ale ice cream oat and raisin cookie and butterscotch sauce, this was the nicest dessert but with a real simple style of presentation, my mother ordered the coconut and pistachio macaroon with terrine of fruit and candied zest. This was presented nicely and tasted good, mum didn't like it my main problem with this was the fruit was suppose to be a terrine and that normally pressed down in to a mould, however the fruit looked like it was just poached.

So onto the final pudding of warm chocolate mousse, chocolate tuille, aerated chocolate, brownie and salted caramel and buttermilk  ice cream. this dish looked nice lots of chocolate for a fan of chocolate, how ever the one element that let it down was the warm chocolate mousse it tasted sour and not in the way of its a high chocolate content but more the type that the cream was of but the waitress said that wasn't the case and was the chocolate.
The puddings really did put a downer on the meal.


I would give this place a 3 out of 5 due to the puddings and my issue with the main course, i will not be hurrying back any time soon but the pub was lovely and loved the fact they grow some of their own veg and fruit and herbs in the garden.

No comments:

Post a Comment