It's a New Year and I still have lots left on my list of 52 New Things to do. To kick off 2016 it was a fun one - Eat at a Michelin starred restaurant. For Christmas I asked Stuart to pick something off the list and organise it for me. He brought some discount vouchers from Time Out for a four course meal at Heston Blumenthal's new Hind's Head restaurant in Bray.
It's a lovely 15th century pub, which means it has a huge fireplace, low ceilings and a lot of character. With my love of the Tudor era I felt very much at home. It is the type of place I can imagine the locals heading to warm up or relax in after a hard days work. We arrived a bit before our seating time so we had time to check out their cocktail list. I recommend the one below. Unfortunately I can't remember what it was called (I need start taking notes!) but it had something about 'Grog' in it's name.
Soon it was time for us to sit down. As we were cheap voucher users we were shuffled off to the back to enjoy our set menu. In hindsight, and checking their website we probably would have got a better deal, and obviously more choice, if we had gone and brought a main and a dessert (or starter). However our set menu was four course, and was a good starting place for someone like me, who had never been to a Michelin starred restaurant before. We began with a welcome drink (a delicious bakewell martini) and a small scotch egg. The scotch egg was good, the meat was really tasty, but the egg wasn't runny in the middle, and I couldn't really taste it with the strong meat flavour. Then it was on to our starter. On the set menu was a crab soup and sandwich. I don't like crab, but they let me change it - for an extra £5! - to a ham terrine.
It's a lovely 15th century pub, which means it has a huge fireplace, low ceilings and a lot of character. With my love of the Tudor era I felt very much at home. It is the type of place I can imagine the locals heading to warm up or relax in after a hard days work. We arrived a bit before our seating time so we had time to check out their cocktail list. I recommend the one below. Unfortunately I can't remember what it was called (I need start taking notes!) but it had something about 'Grog' in it's name.
Soon it was time for us to sit down. As we were cheap voucher users we were shuffled off to the back to enjoy our set menu. In hindsight, and checking their website we probably would have got a better deal, and obviously more choice, if we had gone and brought a main and a dessert (or starter). However our set menu was four course, and was a good starting place for someone like me, who had never been to a Michelin starred restaurant before. We began with a welcome drink (a delicious bakewell martini) and a small scotch egg. The scotch egg was good, the meat was really tasty, but the egg wasn't runny in the middle, and I couldn't really taste it with the strong meat flavour. Then it was on to our starter. On the set menu was a crab soup and sandwich. I don't like crab, but they let me change it - for an extra £5! - to a ham terrine.
I tried a sip of the crab soup and wasn't keen. It was very crabby, which I guess is the point with a crab soup. Stuart said the sandwich was quite bland, and I imagine this is to contrast with the soup, but I was glad I had the terrine. Saying that, the terrine was okay, but it didn't blow me away. To be honest, I'm not a fan of terrine anyway, I prefer my meat hot, but for me it was better than crab. I'm still a bit pissed I had to pay extra for diverting from the set menu. I thought most set menus would give you at least two options to pick from, but this wasn't the case at the Hind's Head. Therefore if you like choice or even if you're a vegetarian I definitely wouldn't recommend the set menu! Next up was our main, more meat with a chicken, ham and leek pie.
This was definitely my favourite dish. The mash potato was more like puréed potato but I hate lumpy potato so this was perfect for me. The pie was very nicely flavoured, and I really enjoyed the wholegain mustard cream (basically a tasty gravy). Stuart was disappointed that the pastry was only over the top, not down the sides. In his mind it's not a proper pie if you only use pastry over the top. I agree and think that having a proper pie (with more pastry) would have been better as it would have soaked up the flavour more. By the end of the dish I felt like there was a salty after-taste, but it was still best of all the courses we tried. To be honest, so far none of the dishes had blown us away. Perhaps we were expecting too much, but they were all just okay. Dessert however had to be the dish to win us over, which was a treacle tart ice-cream with lemon and yoghurt.
I wish I could say something nice about it, but Stuart put it best when he said 'never, in my life have I been so disappointed in a dessert'. It wasn't terrible, we both finished them but it was just a bit unsatisfying. Stuart described it as a rusk biscuit with a lump of sour ice-cream on top, which I feel is a bit harsh, but it wasn't a dessert I'd recommend. Overall it was an interesting experience. I wouldn't recommend the set menu, but I am tempted to head back one day to try a different main, as some of the dishes other people had looked really good. Also as it was dark and rainy when we arrived we didn't get to explore the area, if one day I'm feeling a but flush with cash I might consider heading to Bray, wandering around the town, when it's sunny and bright, and then popping into The Hind's Head to give it another go. But for now - Thank you for my Christmas present Stuart, the food may not have been to my taste but the company definitely was!
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