Royal Lion

Dinner in the Oak Room of the Royal Lion of Lyme Regis last week, a grand and relatively new dining room which had been built in the back yard of what was a mostly old hotel, with its front bar being well equipped with ancient black beams, log fire and so on. It looked to have a good selection of both beer and spirits. Not to mention being able to produce tea and coffee.

The dining room was sufficiently grand that we started off with an unsolicited amuse-bouche, a small cup of a pea and mint flavoured soup. Which we liked, in my case despite the mint.

I followed with what was described as red lentil soup, something I make quite often myself, but here the right colour and texture but tasting of tomato rather than lentil. Not unpleasant, but not what I was expecting.

And followed that with a confection of flaky pastry, black pudding and pork loin. Served on a little mound of mashed potato, with some red cabbage and a dollop of rich gravy. Not bad, but a little rich and the pork loin was a little lost in the savoury black pudding based mush.

BH was entirely happy with her gravalax, followed by a nice looking plaice, quite possibly fished out of Lyme Bay. With gravalax having swept through the world of fine dining over the past few months, with this being the third place we have been in which offers the stuff. Was it being featured on telly by a television chef or a container full of the stuff docking at Tilbury which did the trick?

Some chocolates appeared at the end, triggering a discussion about truffles, with my contending that they usually contained ground hazel nuts and cream, which these truffles did not. Reception on my telephone not good enough to seek a ruling from Cortana.

Taken with a white wine without bucket which we very much liked, described as Louis Jadot Saint-Aubin 2007. Diligent search of the internet fails to find anything answering this description, with the best I can do being Louis Jadot Saint-Aubin 2013 Blanc Burgundy. Right sort of thing, but wrong year. And the site of the man himself not much help at all. But I do learn along the way that he produces a large range of Burgundy, some of it very expensive, but also including various names which I remember as having being respectable in the past. I also learn that the world of wine is a bit like the world of hotels, with there being lots of websites out there which respond to almost any query about wine, more or less without regard to whether they have the one in question. Presumably these websites are paying the search providers in the hope that you pay them.

Perhaps next time I am in town, I shall try a fancy off-license and see if I can track the stuff down. Perhaps one of those places behind Borough Market.

Taken also with piano, from a second-career pianist whose first career was cooking. I only recognised the odd popular tune amid the improvisations, but we did ponder about what sort of music one did want on this sort of occasion. Not serious music as one was not paying attention, rather something light to amuse the ear and to cover the conversation of others. Perhaps what used to be called tafel music but I thought it best not to ask for any, settling for a large Jameson instead. Which they managed to deliver from the front bar, without ice, as asked.

A good meal. We should use the place again should occasion arise.

PS 1: some places use a concert harp for similar purposes, and I am sure that I do not only know about this from Agatha Christie adaptations. Maybe the Waldorf in the Aldwych. With such a large harp possibly being even more expensive than a small grand piano.

PS 2: inspection of the vinyl reveals a box of musique de table from Telemann, played by the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. First impressions are that it would have been a bit too much for the Royal Lion but I shall stick with it for a bit.

Reference 1: http://www.louisjadot.com/en/index.php.

Reference 2: http://www.scb-basel.ch/index/117099,?_LANGUAGE=en.