Waterside Inn, London
I was on a trip to see a friend in Zurich, which turned out to be another story. Since the flight was in the morning I booked a hotel next to Heathrow and booked this restaurant that was only a 20 min drive. The restaurant was located in a very nice village, Bray, Berkshire, further west of Heathrow so it was probably not in London.
I drove there. The staff actually helped me to park my car! This was the first time someone did that for me. I was fairly early and I got a table facing the river side. The view was very stunning. The table had a cute lobster, I guessed, because I was dinning by myself.
Table and view
The menu was of very typical French style. I was not very surprised, yet fairly fun to read through.
Menu
After the canapés, the first cold dish ‘Flaked Devon crabmeat with a light Sichuan pepper jelly, charentais melon coulis’ was impressive. It was slightly too cold given the temperature for that night was a bit cool. Apart from that, the crab meat was juicy and firm. When mixing with the sauce, I could taste bitter with a light sweet citrus-like flavour. It turned out to be charentais melon coulis; this was very interesting because I would expect more sweet than citrus-acid. Nevertheless, it paired very well with, and emphasised, the crab. The Sichuan pepper jelly smoothened the carb texture and provided a lingering punchy and numbing flavour; it was not very noticeable. This was a great dish!
Flaked Devon crabmeat with a light Sichuan pepper jelly, charentais melon coulis
The immediate next dish ‘Pan fried foie gras with caramelised Marmande tomato and elderflower scented sauce’ was also a great show. First of all, I think it was duck liver. It was just cooked, thus still had a jelly-ish texture, rather than a pasty texture. It was very fatty and rich especially mixing with the duck brown broth. The sauce to the left was tomato-based, which balanced the overall flavour.
I personally really enjoyed it. However, this was a challenging dish, because the strong and almost raw duck liver might put off some customers.
Pan fried foie gras with caramelised Marmande tomato and elderflower scented sauce
The main dish was lamb presented in a countryside style in the sense that it was a simple looking lamb and vegetable with light dressing. I had asked for medium rare. It was very juicy yet without any of the heavy blood taste. The light dressing balanced the harsh lamb flavour very well. Therefore, it was very enjoyable. There was an olive inside the lamb. It added a very interesting strong flavour too.
The vegetable was purposed cooked thoroughly, I guess. Although I found them a bit too soft, yet they very much absorbed sauce. Also, they did not overtake the lamb flavour. The small pea mash, which did not stand out on flavour wise, between lamb and other vegetable was the only part with relatively strong texture: it was actually hard and dense to cut through.
Roasted West Country lamb roulade and summer vegetable mille-feuille, basil infused jus
I surprisingly really enjoyed the dessert. It was a simple soufflé when presenting, and then the waitress dug a hole with a small spoon and poured warm raspberry juice/sauce into the soufflé. The soufflé itself provided light sweetness. The most amazing fact was that it was full of air and smooth; it just melted inside the mouth and without any taste of flour. The raspberry, instead, provided a strong acid and fruity flavour. It immediately toned down and in fact also enhanced the sweetness from the soufflé.
Warm raspberry soufflé
This was a great French restaurant in a very U.K. countryside location. The presentation was simple, but the seasoning was very subtle and well-thought. It is a 3-starred restaurant, so I fully expected this level of subtlety, thus a solid 4 out of 5.
However, there was something outside of the food that meant I might never want to visit. The short version was one manager, who had some French accent with less formal dressing, and who, I believed, talked about something inappropriate with a likely regular customer about some female staff taking some parental leave that caused difficulty to the restaurant and inn business. It was the table immediately in front of me. I could not hear every word, but I heard many of them. Sure, I could misinterpret, but this was unprofessional, even if it was likely that the customer brought up the topic.
🐼 Score: 4/5
