It was my dad's birthday last week, so I wanted to take my parents out for a pub lunch. I also wanted them to see some of the nicer parts of Essex, so we decided to go to The Cricketers in Clavering. It's famous for being owned/run by Trevor and Sally Oliver, parents of good old Jamie 'put it in me 'elmet' Oliver. Indeed, as soon as we walked in the door we were confronted by a fairly large selection of his cookery books (signed copies, of course!). I'm all for this: parents spend a lot of money bringing up their kids, so why not make a little back if your son makes it big?!
The decor was typical of an Essex country pub - a shade on the twee side with, unsurprisingly, a lot of cricket memorabilia dotted around the place. We'd reserved a table in the bar area, which turned out to be a good move because it was fairly busy, even at a quarter to one. We were shown to our table by a very young barman/waiter - in fact all of the serving staff seemed very young, but also very helpful. I mentally awarded a few Brownie points straight off because nobody pounced upon us to ask what drink we wanted to order as soon as we had sit down. Also, the bread with dipping oil on the table was a nice touch and raised my expectations from 'good pub grub' to 'restaurant-standard food'.
The menu was extensive and quite impressive - it's proper food with some nice touches and twists here and there. We're a fairly big-eating family, so haute cuisine-style portions wouldn't have gone down at all well! We all ordered a starter - I went for artichoke hearts wrapped in Parma ham with a beetroot salad. I expected the beetroot to be very sweet and moist, to cut through the saltiness of the ham and I wasn't at all disappointed. I tasted a little of the duck liver parfait too, which was pretty good. My husband's salad of avocado with almonds and pomegranate was the only disappointment - the avocado was a touch on the mushy side and the whole thing was over-saturated with vinaigrette.
For my main course I chose lamb shank with root vegetables and mash. The lamb was cooked to perfection and I liked the fact that this was also served with mixed vegetables and new potatoes. The meal on its own would probably have been filling enough, but ... well, better safe than sorry!!
My family also sampled the lemon sole (served really simply with only lemon) and the guinea fowl (topped with delicious parsnip crisps) and both seemed to go down extremely well. Not a lot was left on the plate, at least!
As usual, I was underwhelmed by the puddings, although they were of a higher standard than your usual pub fayre. I had a semi-freddo with fig and prune - nice, but far too much. But it was the only thing that stood out from a list of creme brulees and apple pies ...
I'm very glad we decided to try this pub and I think I'd go again, though probably only for Sunday lunch. I don't see it as much of a weekday or Saturday evening venue. I was pleased, however, by the seeming committment to local produce and I definitely liked the attempt to bring some fancy touches to traditional pub cooking. This is the sort of place Stansted airport should promote far more in their marketing, rather than banging on about London all the time (... but that's another post!)
No comments:
Post a Comment