Herriots, Skipton

A chance encounter with a couple we have known a long long time led to that rarity, an occasion when a resolution to eat and reminisce actually came to fruition. So we met up with, let's call them M & C, for dinner at Herriots in Skipton.

The chat covered five decades of history and it's as well the conversation was stimulating because most of the dining experience was a let-down.

The dining room and bar areas are pleasant enough and some of the food was fine. Thai fishcakes (£4.50) and oven-baked chilli prawn starters (£5.95) were good, freshly cooked and tasting as they should. The liver pate (£4.25) just about passed, although the fresh bread on the menu arrived as toast. But slices of black pudding and apple stack (£4.25) were cremated rather than cooked.

Of the mains only one - slow-cooked Bolton Abbey Lamb (£12.45) - gained better than a five out of 10. Caribbean chicken and seafood gumbo (£10.95) was thin and weary and I was halfway through the half-portion I ate before I realised what the missing ingredient was - the flavour you would associate with West Indian food.

Mushroom and spinach risotto (£9.50) was overcooked and described by M as "clarty" and three parts stayed in the bowl. I know risotto should be moist and creamy, but this was tinned rice pudding texture.

Rib eye steak (£12.95) was accompanied by just about the worst pepper sauce I have tasted, for which they were asking £1.80 extra. Like the sauce with the gumbo, it was thin and lacking in taste.

It's difficult to spoil ice cream, crème brulee and chocolate mousse (all £3.95) and thankfully they didn't.

We had been plonked down, offered bread, at a stonking £1.95, and wine but not menus. We found out for ourselves that the folded piece of paper on the table was the one menu between four and it wasn't until we were leaving we spotted a pile of paper marked "Today's Specials".

An aside that the rock-hard butter which accompanied the doorsteps of bread was a little hard to spread was greeted with a glib, "Well at least it's chilled, you wouldn't want runny butter would you?" and an offer to microwave it!

A suggestion that the pepper sauce lacked something, like taste, got the excuse that, "We don't put much pepper in it in case people complain." It's pepper sauce for goodness sake. Of course, it should have pepper in!

C should have had vegetables with his lamb but after waiting patiently had to ask again and they arrived as he was mopping up his gravy. Why, other than to fill plates and customers up in the cheapest way, were we given more huge chunks of bread with our food?

Especially mystifying was that when the main course plates were cleared, two half-full and one with three quarters left uneaten, it brought no comment or query from the staff.

Very disappointing.

Andrew Clark

Back

© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group

http://www.cravenherald.co.uk