Good Morning,
Didn't manage a post yesterday I'm afraid as I had to take my youngest daughter for an audition in Convent Garden and then was out last night.
I did, however, manage to cross off another of my London "must dos" which was to eat at the Coach And Horses in Greek Street, Soho.
My dear Hubby was also in London for a meeting yesterday morning and suggested that he join us when he had finished. Before I go any further I must explain a little about him, he is an Omnivore, a Carnivore even, his ideal diet really is red meat, sausages and red wine which is now fundamentally opposite to mine. In fairness to him he has said that he doesn't feel its right that, at home, meat should be cooking whilst I am in the kitchen so he bought himself a gas barbeque (we now call him "Ken" as he is always out the back with Barbie!).
He wasn't, therefore, my ideal lunch companion on the day but the Coach & Horses did hold interest to him as the place well known for the staff at Private Eye (his favorite publication) holding many a liquid lunch at and you could tell it had a history, there was that feel. For any visitors to the UK this would be a great place to go, there is a "hidden" tea room (quintessentially English) upstairs, "hidden" because you access it through the bar. I saved this "treat" for another visit and we stayed in the bar, which had everything you would expect of an English Pub, wonderful to see the character preserved and not "improved (?!) by one of the large chains.
- Coach & Horses Bar
I was interested to see how they would put a menu together that catered for meat eaters and expected there to be a number of meat substitutes, Quorn and the like, but it wasn't like that at all more reminiscent of Manna menus (where Head Chef, Lahiri Balloni, worked before) and it sparks an interesting debate of whether you offer an easy decision for meat eaters when your worlds come together or do you go "full on" Veggie: Artichokes, Polenta, Beetroot Tarte Tatin that sort of thing. Another discussion for another post.
Back to our lunch, DH went for cheese and biscuits (safe!), whilst daughter, Bean (that really is what we call her) went for Home made sausages with mash and beans in a tomato sauce. Her verdict was that it was very filling and tasty with the beans tasting quite similar to my home made baked beans which I took as a compliment.
Purely in the interest of research I ordered two dishes (a martyr to the cause), Pate and Sourdough toast followed by Tofush with chips, Peas and Tartar sauce.
Pate was "mushroom-y" with a flavour that wasn't overpowering, nice though, and the Tofush - well now that was interesting: Tofu, wrapped in Nori Seaweed, dipped in Ale batter and deep fried and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Beautiful crispy batter, lovely deep flavour from the Nori and although there was more Tofu than I would normally eat in a sitting I didn't leave a scrap. Left the Tartar sauce however because there was a mix up on the deliveries meaning I wasn't sure it was the vegan option I had ordered and was much too hungry to ask!
A note here about the service, we had ordered four dishes and there was only three of us which confused the waitress and she gave my Tofush to a couple at the bar who had also ordered one. We could quite understand how this had happened and it wasn't a big deal but they were full of apologies and gave us all a free drink to apologise. How they handle everyday situations like this says a lot about a place; impressive.
Would I go back? Absolutely but next time I try upstairs, have a feeling that will be a treat!
Here's a link to the menu, most of this was on offer yesterday but not all. http://www.coachandhorsessoho.co.uk/coach_menu.pdf
By the way, I didn't take any photographs (not really into this recording your life frame by frame business yet) so the picture above is from Google and I have gone back to find its originator for acknowledgement but can't find it again - rookie error - sorry!
No comments:
Post a Comment