One of my favourite restaurants in the City has announced their new menu for Spring/Summer and I, for one, was excited. Beef and Pudding is one of those places where you can meet friends, go on a date or just sit in the window with a drink and watch the world go by. They serve what I’ve heard described as ‘posh pub grub’ many a time but for me it to good wholesome food that makes you feel warm inside. So when invited to try the new menu I obviously jumped straight in.
The winter warmers have been replaced and there’s lot of lighter options with some impressive looking salads to choose from. The evening we visited was still pretty chilly so my friend chose the sweet potato skins to start. Rolled in black pepper and served with a trio of dips they didn’t look like what I was expecting. They almost had a crunchy crumb so were slightly different but tasty and the aioli had a wonderful kick of garlic that worked well with the black pepper crust.
Having regularly chosen the pate when dining at Beef and Pudding I chose the new version, well it’s called Dark and Stormy like a favourite cocktail of mine, how could I resist? Gone is the glass jar for hefty slices of wild boar pate with Gosling’s Black Seal rum and a touch of ginger. The rum flavour was a little lacking for me and was overpowered by the wild boar although this had a great rich flavour to it.
Sorry for the blurred picture, I didn’t realise until I got home how blurred it was! My date chose the light option of grilled cod fillet, peas and ham. The fish was slightly overdone but then that is how I like my cod so this wasn’t a big issue for me. The flavour of the light fish, salty serrano and earthy new potatoes was a lovely combination and the vodka citrus butter added a little fattiness to round it out. A beautiful dish that I will be ordering next time I visit.
I almost always would choose the lamb hotpot from the old menu. Piping hot and served with amazing dumplings I was gutted to see it had not made the cut then it was understandable with it being such a heavy dish. I opted for, what I can only consider to be its replacement, mince and spuds. Not really a summer dish but certainly one for those colder days when comfort food is needed. The thyme spiked gravy was lovely and the potatoes were a much lighter alternative to the heavy dumplings of my favourite dish. Next time I’ll be ordering some bread to mop up the delicious gravy.
I have to say I was a little disappointed to see that the dessert menu was still the same. I expected this to have had a summery overhaul but it is unfortunately the same as before. My date chose the jam jar lemon cheesecake with eton mess dressing whilst I went for the creme brulee. The cheesecake was quite heavy but had a nice zesty lemon flavour and the eton mess dressing is a nice twist. The creme brulee had a satisfying crack when breaking through the sugar and the cracked pepper shortbread was a lovely touch to add a hint of spice to a normally creamy dessert.
Some nice additions to the menu which, for starters and mains, has had quite an impressive change. I’ll need a few more visits to try out the summery salads and, I believe, the new cocktail menu which is currently in the design stage. Now if they ditch that Drumstick lolly cocktail there will be hell to pay…
We were invited to dine as guests of Beef and Pudding and weren’t asked to pay for our meal.
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