Foodie abroad: return to Raby Hunt

You will have noticed that there have been quite a few posts recently about eating out. You might be forgiven for thinking that D and I have been eating out a lot recently; you would be right. After eighteen months of home cooking and takeaways, getting back out into the world of restaurants and multiple courses and wearing something other than pyjamas to eat has been extremely gratifying.

A couple of weeks ago, we were lucky enough to be treated to a meal at one of our old favourites, Raby Hunt just outside Darlington. We've been there a couple of times before - most recently in 2018 - and the menu has definitely evolved a bit since then to make it EVEN MORE FANTASTIC. Yes, I am shouting. That's how good it was.

As always, practically impossible to pick a highlight in the menu which heaved with influences from across the globe all delivered with the utmost of refinement. I think the majority of the party favoured the snack type dishes at the beginning - the tempura prawn has to be seen (and crunched) for the batter to be believed and the pastrami and foie gras sandwich was out of this world (and has potentially ruined all future pastrami sandwiches for me).

Tempura prawn!

Pastrami sandwich!

A frankly sinful brioche was served with the most glorious French smoked salt butter (you can buy it here - I'll be getting some in for Christmas). It was one of the nicest bread courses I think that I have ever had and I would walk back there to eat it again.

Brioche! Butter!

The chef's signature razor clam, celeriac and almond dish was still on the menu and, if anything, even more buttery and luxurious than before. I just adore this combination of textures and flavours.

Razor clam!

And another shellfish course - the lobster ravioli with sauce Americaine - was a particular favourite of mine (and I may have been caught in a sneaky finger-swipe-and-lick to ensure that not one drop of the fabulous sauce was left for the dishwasher).

Lobster ravioli!

Desserts require special mention as well. My goodness, but we have had some brilliant desserts this year. Here, we were served an amazing millefeuille with chocolate and hazelnut cremes - my Dad described this as tasting like a Ferrero Rocher and he's not altogether wrong.

Mille feuille!

And finally a Baba au Kirsch. I'm not always a big fan of boozy puddings (I like my booze in a glass, thank you) but this had just the hint of a kick tempered by the rich chantilly cream and the texture of the sponge was pure velvet.

Baba au Kirsch!

What made this experience even more special (and thank you to my lovely Mum and Dad for being kind enough to treat us) was that we were at the Chef's Table, which meant eating while watching the kitchen at work. For food obsessives like us, this is the equivalent of a backstage pass and we (well, I) was quite giddy. And we had a brief word with executive chef James Close at the end, who  recommended to us a Mexican restaurant in Durham which we will go and check out in due course.

Yet another fantastic experience then - 2021 is shaping up, in its latter half, to be a veritable embarrassment of riches in terms of dining out.. As D pointed out to me as we drove away the next morning, replete and a little bit sleepy, it's going to make picking my dishes of the year an incredibly hard task. What a lovely, lovely problem to have.

Foodie abroad: return to Inver

It's been less than a year since I last wrote about Restaurant Inver and I don't wish to repeat myself, but I can't allow the meal that we had there a fortnight ago to not go unmarked on this blog which, aside from anything else, is a much loved personal record for D and me of great food and great memories. As far as food and memories go, this last trip to Inver, the little restaurant on the shores of Loch Fyne, was up there with some of the best.

Full disclaimer: we were there to celebrate our tenth (tenth!) wedding anniversary. We were predisposed to be happy. We had a bottle of champagne in the room before dinner. And, as I've pondered fairly recently - has lockdown deprived me of any critical faculty I ever had with regards to eating out? I feel like I've been very effusive of late! But I stand by my assertion that Inver is one of my very favourite places to eat, and I think it is getting better every time we go. 

We started with cocktails and snacks in the cosy bar area, the best of which was some tiny cockles, suspended within their shells in a zingy lemon and fennel jelly. Although a special mention should also go to the miso hazelnut dip that accompanied the raw vegetables; anything that has D tucking into raw veg is worthy of note. Sometimes the “snack” section of a tasting menu can be substantial such that you arrive at the meal proper wondering if you have the capacity for anymore. Inver have got the knack of preparing perfectly judged morsels that deliver on flavour, texture and interest without taking up too much precious room.

 

Cockles!

And for said meal proper, we moved to the dining room, to a table looking out over the darkening loch and an offering of sourdough that was crunchy of crust and springy of bread. Perfect for dunking in the first course (one of my favourites): a tomato broth with cumin seed butter. Now I am never one for a soup course, but this was an absolute flavour bomb – buttery, rich, a hint of elusive spice and sweet-sour notes from the tomato.

And there were more treats to follow – D’s favourite course of torched mackerel with nasturtium and a loose textured, deeply savoury venison sausage which popped up on the main were particular highlights. But then we came to pudding.

Mackerel!

Now, I am not a fussy eater. There are very few things in the world that I truly dislike and would struggle to eat. But among those things is rice pudding. I just cannot get on board with rice pudding. It makes me shudder just to think about it. With a tasting menu, you accept that you just have to eat what you are given (allergies aside) but my heart sank a little when I saw that we would be having a fig leaf and ricotta rice pudding with fig and walnut and burnt honey sorbet (honey! Another ingredient that isn’t at the top of my favourites list.) D was so convinced that he would have to manfully plough his way through two desserts that he eschewed the cheese course.

In retrospect, this was a real shame. It turns out that when rice pudding is as light and creamy as this, and sits on top of a rich compote of figs and walnuts that is redolent of all of the spices of Christmas, and there is a crunch of toasted coconut on the top, and a sorbet tastes like the very best honeycomb, then it turns out that I like it. As D pointed out, the texture of the rice pudding itself was atypical – we think the rice had almost completely broken down as the texture was quite silky. As part of the whole, it worked beautifully. I’m not going to call myself a rice pudding convert because I think very few rice puddings will ever present and eat like that. But it was an absolute dream of a dessert in terms of marrying wonderful textures and flavours and I have seldom been so happy to be proved wrong.

Rice pudding!

Other notes: we think that Inver used to do a matching wine flight but that appears to have been knocked on the head, which is not really the end of the world since the wine list is thoughtful both in range and price points. We are both bitterly regretful that we missed out on not only the cheese course but the marvellous picnic breakfast the next morning (we had to leave early to catch a ferry and the kitchen very kindly did us a sandwich lunch to take with us which was really above and beyond). If you find yourself here, do NOT make our mistakes.

And I hope that someone that comes across this blog entry does make the trip because it is well worth it. Look out over the loch, eat tremendous food and enjoy this most wonderful of havens secure in the knowledge that even if your least favourite dish in the world pops up on the menu, there is a pretty good chance you will be licking the plate and exclaiming in joy and re-examining all your preconceptions. I promise.