|
This restaurant review was conducted on
Saturday 10th January 2009.
A rare Saturday free of any engagements offered
my guest and I the ideal opportunity to visit one of our
favourite pubs, The Black Horse in Woburn. Despite arriving
reasonably early for our 730 booking, the establishment was
already busy and finding space at the bar to order a drink was
not easy.
Atmosphere
The Black Horse caters for people of all ages yet
a look around showed a predominantly mature crowd either
enjoying a drink at the small bar or food in the restaurant.
Initially, a mixture of popular music (aimed at the younger
crowd?) did not seem to be in-keeping with the customers present
including myself, but a few hits from the 1980’s soon made me
feel at home. There is a buzz about this place and if you’re
looking to dine out in relaxing, cool and sophisticated
surroundings, then The Black Horse ticks all the right boxes.
Food
 I’ve
always loved the way the menu allows you to choose certain
dishes as either a starter or a main course. How often have you
wished a tasty starter could have been a more substantial dish?
At first glance, there does not appear to be a massive range of
dishes, but somehow you are still spoilt for choice and this
includes vegetarian options. The menu states that the “sourcing
the best quality fresh ingredients from ethical producers costs
us more, but we know that we can trust our suppliers, then you
can trust us.”
Before choosing our food we ordered a bottle of
Cabernet Shiraz Merlot, George Kinross Paarl. Full bodied and
well structured with plenty of berry fruit. (£13.75). My guest
would have preferred a Shiraz without the Merlot but this was
still a very pleasant wine, very dark in colour and silky
smooth.
To start I opted for the seared pigeon breast,
pumpkin puree, crispy smoked bacon, roast chestnut and sherry
dressing (£6.50). For those of you have not tried this bird, it
always appears a dark pink and this should not be confused with
rare or bloody meat – it is this colour simply because pigeons
are an incredibly active bird. I strongly recommend you give
this starter a try. It was delicious with a wonderfully soft and
meaty texture, colourful and tasty. The pigeon combined
particularly well with the pumpkin puree.
My guest was for once, not suffering from menu
envy and quickly tucked into their choice – mushroom, artichoke,
spinach and endive salad, parsnip crisps, apple and balsamic
vinegar (£5.75). Many salads can be a tad bland but this full of
wonderful flavours. The parsnip crisps were a delight but the
dish possibly had too much spinach and this proved difficult to
finish.
I was siding with steak for my main course before
the ‘Specials’ board was brought to our table. I then changed my
mind and plunged for the Black Horse Bangers instead – black
pudding, onion, mushroom and pork sausages. This was a simple
looking dish, but it worked well and as a lover of black
pudding, I was never going to be disappointed.
Fishcake, wilted spinach, butter sauce (£10) with
an additional side salad of parmesan and rocket was the choice
of my guest. The fishcake is large and hides the small bed of
spinach – a fantastic looking main course, this was superbly
cooked and combined well with the must have salad. The potato in
the fishcake was incredibly moist and my guest liked the fact
that you could also see large pieces of fish within the cake.
This meant that no two mouthfuls would have the exact same
flavours; making this an exciting meal. Despite it being a
reasonably large main course, there was never any danger of
anything being left on the plate – simply outstanding.
Onto dessert - we decided to share another
‘Special’ – the banana cheesecake. Unfortunately we did not
finish our meal on a high. The dark biscuit base contained
chocolate and was quite hard to break into. The top of the
cheesecake was formed of a deep layer of pureed banana. The
banana had no option but to fall away once you started to eat it
and the dish looked a little messy and not incredibly inviting.
Certainly not the worst dessert we have experienced, but we did
not feel this was up to the pub’s usual high standards.
Service
We were waited on by a variety of staff and in my
opinion The Black Horse is one of the few places that is able to
make this work. You have to be confident the whole team know
their job and communicate well. There were plenty of genuine
smiles (we spent a short while watching the waiters go about
their work) and we were highly impressed. Our food was brought
to us in timely fashion and our every need was catered for.
Décor
The Black Horse is very eclectic with mixture of
modern tables, wallpaper and sofas combing beautifully with the
old-fashioned low-lying oak beams. Very dimly lit, it has a
particularly cosy feel. For a small restaurant, the tables are
still well spaced, giving you that sense of intimacy.
In conclusion, The Black Horse is still very much
one of my favourite places to eat out.
To read an older review of The Black Horse
please click here |
