We had great expectations of our trip to the Crooked Billet. It looks like a very nice thatched village pub, but inside is an upmarket restaurant with a good reputation.
The web site promised a Set Menu of £21.25 for three courses, but this was not offered. There are still a couple of options: a Gourmet tasting Menu with six courses for almost £70 or £100 with wine, or the A La Carte option that we went for. The meal started off with canapés, a white bean pre soup with truffle oil and some homemade bread for £1.95. The canapés were OK and the bread was nice, but the soup needed seasoning so we had to ask for some salt which doesn't seem to be standard issues on the tables, just a pepper grinder.
Starters were between £4.25 and £8.75: we had smoked haddock, leek and Wensleydale tart with leaves and a chive dressing for £7.25, quite nice except that the pastry case was BURNT which ruined the taste of the dish, so had to be trimmed away and left. The second starter was duck leg, pork, pheasant & chicken liver Terrine de Campagne with fig and onion jam served with toasted Brioche for £7.25: it was only OK, somehow the different layers of the terrine seemed to fight with each other and it didn't come across as a single finished dish, disappointing.
Mains ranged from £13.25 to £22 with a Fillet steak and Foie Gras at £28. We had pan fried venison loin, venison haunch meatball, roasted beetroot puree, celeriac and potato gratin, turnip Royale, juniper & port reduction £22.00: the venison loin was beautiful, the celeriac and potato gratin was OK, but the rest was disappointing I think the main problem was the juniper and port reduction which was rather bitter and detracted from everything it was served with. The other dish was better: a fillet steak served with Foie Gras with truffle oil mash and spinach. The steak was truly excellent, but the mash had some strange lumps in it that weren't nice.
Deserts ranged from £5.75 to £7.00 with cheese and biscuits going for £12. We had Griotte cherry Bakewell Tart with Cherry brandy ripple ice cream and rosehip custard for £5.75 which was nice but I couldn't detect Cherry brandy just lumps of ice; the other desert was sticky toffee and apple pudding with toffee sauce and vanilla ice cream for £6.00 which was again nice but lacked something, perhaps the taste of apple!
When the food worked, it worked well: the steak and venison fillet were excellent for example, but there were too many mistakes: poorly seasoned soup, burnt pastry, big unidentifiable lumps in the mash, even bits in my wine. The restaurant was about half full, but the service was sluggish at times. Once we had paid we had to ask for our coats so that we could leave: at these prices I expect, and demand, more.
Would we go back again? No, we won't be retuning for quite some time. read more