hit-and-miss british in holborn. I really wanted to like this place, especially after reading rave reviews in londoneater (a great resource) and greedy diva but we had a good start, and then a long wait before very uninspiring mains. we were so disheartened we left before drinking the ginger beer I wanted, and without dessert. without desserts! that’s almost like sucking through a straw and then you never reach the liquid and then the straw breaks off.
we had the pig head’s croquettes, AMAZING. soft meat inside, and fried to a perfect crisp on the outside. a brilliant start to the meal and it got us all hungry again. there was a marmalade on the side that seemed to be orange marmalade with mustard and etc in it; this tasted terribly strange on it’s own but was the perfect foil against the pork croquettes.
and then our plates were kept, and we waited for our mains.
waited, waited, and waited. and waited until I finished our sourdough bread (very good by the way, though my SO thought it a bit sour).
and then as my stomach sort of churned inside out and tried not to eat itself, two slightly small plates of food arrived. rabbit, snails and spanish rice on one side, and pollack with fennel and ham hock for me.
the rice was al dente, and the snails were just so… snaily. you knew you were eating things that had gone through the soil. I was almost waiting for my teeth to crunch on sand. the chorizo was the best part of this dish. my pollack was well-seasoned and well-cooked, flaky with a crispy skin, but it wasn’t anything that special, just a very well-cooked piece of fish.
the worst part of this meal was the wait. the food was good, decent, and we would have been fine with the same dishes if we hadn’t waited nearly half an hour for our mains, detracting from our enjoyment of the starter. service was good though; I suggest coming here if you want drinks and some good tasty food to go alongside but not so much when you’re catching a meal.
andmorefood 