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Harden's 100

"Savoury food delicious, sweet part was smal and underwhelming "

"15 courses may seem daunting but they are all small pockets of true delight. Henry Ford would be proud of the food production line as results are delicious imaginative flavours. Particular stars - Jerusalem artichoke ice cream with birch sap syrup, hand dived Orkney scallop cooked in own shell with sea urchin butter. Well worth the journey."

"Excellent tasting menu, full of variety. Highlights were Charcoal Pie, filled with roe deer tartare topped with caviar, Scallop with sea urchin butter, a delicious almost treacley black pudding sauce with the pork, and the goats yoghurt sorbet with rhubarb and treacle curd. Get there soon before they have a longer waiting list! 1. Summer Field Biscuit & Black walnut. Nice hint of the cheese in the biscuit, for me could do with a bit more punch of nut in the black walnut gel. 2. Charcoal Pie & roe deer, smoked caviar.. Excellent balance, a hint of the charcoal, moist deer, well seasoned, a little salt from the caviar, but not sure if the very light smokey flavour was from the charcoal pastry or the caviar. 3. Quail egg, hay, mushroom. Perfectly runny yolk, the fried (?) hay as a texture but not flavour, just a bare hint of mushroom flavour, subtle, hard to taste. A couple of grains of salt to season was ok. Maybe a grind of pepper will help? Personal preference with mushrooms. As the mushroom season isn't at its height in January I question the "wild" description, unless frozen from previous autumn. 4. Braised ox cheek in Yorkshire pudding batter. Hmmmm?The ox cheek filling was tasty, but to call the coating Yorkshire pudding batter I think isn't right. To get that kind of a ball coating to fry with a regular batter wouldn't work. It must have been very thick, which wouldn't make a good yorkshire pudding. Unless you can prove me wrong with the same batter! (challenge!) As I said the filling was tasty but I felt the ball of batter was spongey. To me, It would be much better with just a small crispy Yorkie Pud the size of your charcoal pie, with the filling. 5.Sourdough, Butter, Chicken drippings All good for me, but perhaps a little less tarragon in the dripping. 6. Scallop & sea urchin butter. Excellent. The hint of ocean aroma as the shell is lifted (from the uni/urchin no doubt) Delicious butter, a great scallop really fresh, but part was a little cold (hinge end), to me noticably temperature wise, where the heat hadn't quite got through. I know scallop sizes vary and i am being hyper critical here(!) sorry. 20-30 seconds. Then i was shown a marvellous pork loin on the bone, you could have left that whole joint for me to tackle alone! 7. Pumpkin seed miso Ice Cream & Squash soup. Very good, squash soup was hot and a good contrast, ensure that enough is poured to surround the ice cream. mine didn't. Flavour good and smooth texture (but that is the nature of squash when blitzed) but the seasong was good. The Ice Cream was a good contrast with the hint of pepper and almond that you get from the seeds. The garnish? was that some discs of the squash? Needs a bit more crunch like waterchestnut. Maybe hold it in iced water to be crisp. 8. Pollack over coals & Wild greens sauce. Large flakes(3)of fish with charred edges. Slightly over done, no "pearlescent" centre to the fish. Sauce of greens good, but could have been anything "Wild greens" split with a little oil. 9. Sourdough crumpet stuffed with duck liver and ham. Errr!? & Duck leg, sun dried tomato and chanterelle broth. Broth was ok, but description overplayed the flavour. Well half a crumpet, topped with a spread of liver pate and the duck ham. Nevermind, excellent. Moist, good flavour and texture. I know how hard crumpets are to make and have made duck breast ham myself so very good. Just the description. 10. Pork, radicchio, black pudding sauce. The star of this wasn't the pork but the black pudding sauce, rich and almost treacle in flavour. i was disappointed with the pork portion having been shown the roasted joint earlier. The small side of fig i think was nice too. 11. Goat yoghurt sorbet, rhubarb, treacle curd. I love rhubarb so this was good for me. A nice roche of the sorbet, light rhubarb foam and treacle hint to complement. Fine 12.Aged beef fat fudge. How do you do this? A dark meaty looking bit that seems edged with fat? I presume beef fat replacing or in addition to butter with the sugar and cream. Birch? Was that birch sap juice reduced as syrup? Well Done. I also think the cured heart was the fine shaved topping. A good intriguing nibble. Just looks like a piece of beef. 13. Colostrum custard tart. Well I know what colostrum is, first knockings of milk/cream soon after a calf born, rich in all the good stuff. This was a fine small tart but needed perhaps a little more nutmeg like a traditional custard tart. 14. Medlar Cake & ice cream Well this is the first time I think I've had medlar, the "dogs arse" fruit. All I can say is it tasted a bit like a cross between apple, pear and vine fruits. Maybe I was concentrating on finding what the medlar flavour was so didn't notice the malt in the ice cream, although I could taste the rum used for the flambe"