An abortive meal in Bray

Our final appointment in our tour of South-East England dining establishments was The Hind’s Head Hotel. We’ve been there before, you can read the [link2post id=”609″]review here[/link2post]. This visit wasn’t such a success, but it couldn’t be helped.

We rolled up in Bray in plenty of time to have a pint and some bar snacks before lunch. It was really great to see Timothy Taylor’s Landlord on offer, it is one of the best pale ales there is. We ordered a couple of [link2post id=”566″]Scotch quails’ eggs and sat down to study the menu. The Scotch eggs were once again brilliant, but as we finished them off and thought about claiming our table the waiter came out and apologised profusely because they had been struck by a power cut. All of the ovens and fridges were off, the last things that came out of the kitchen were our Scotch eggs.

We were happy drinking Landlord and hoping it would be fixed soon. After half an hour or so the maitre d’ suggested we go to our table and have some cold starters. He was very apologetic, but clearly somewhat vexed. I asked how many covers he had for lunch, he said ninety with a sigh.

The cold starters were excellent. Carpaccio of Scotch beef with capers and shallots was damned good. Excellent quality beef with real flavour. A brilliant prawn and crab cocktail was Daniel’s other starter, which was certainly a top example of the genre. I love prawn cocktail; I’m so far behind that I am ahead. My potted shrimps were enhanced with paprika which gave them an interesting colour and a piquant flavour, delicious.

Then we sat around. Finally as the time approached for us to catch our train I went for a hit and miss and as I stood in the gents the lights flicked on. Bugger. We had to go.

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