Lamb shank- the food of love?

The lamb shank

FOR Valentine’s Day Tom took me to The Old Queen’s Head in Penn. I was really looking forward to this as although I had drunk there before (Tom and I went on our first date here!) I had never eaten there. It was busy but not too packed and I was relieved to see it wasn’t bursting at the seams with over amorous couples. I also like the fact that they didn’t have a set menu for Valentine’s, although they did have specials.

I didn’t fancy a starter so we went straight to the mains. I went for Slow-cooked lamb shoulder with roast garlic mash, purple sprouting broccoli and roasting juices (£15.50). I loved the way they presented it. They had shred the lamb off the bone and mixed it with carrot and put it in a cylinder shape. The meat was tender and so good and went really well with the garlicky, yet not overpowering mash, and the jus. Tom had Pan-roast sea bream fillet with dauphine potatoes, confit tomato, lemon butter sauce and saffron oil (£15.75). It was really well presented and Tom said the fish was really well cooked.

The desserts weren’t quite as great as the mains. I had Banoffee pot with Chantilly cream (£5.50), which had a strange flavour! The biscuit base wasn’t crunchy enough and then there was a puree of banana, topped with toffee and cream. It was nice but not great. Tom had the Millionaire shortbread with coffee ice cream (£6.75), which looked pretty standard to me with a chunk of shortbread- with a very hard chocolate topping. Tom wasn’t blown away by this.

Overall though it has a great atmosphere with friendly staff and the mains were both winners. The company was of course the best thing.