Chicken @ The Lyndhurst 28/12/2014

Chicken @ The Lyndhurst 28/12/2014
The Lyndhurst used to be my local.  It always had a warm, welcoming feel to it, a
good range of beers and good food. 
Always.
So it was a surprise when it closed earlier this year.
Thankfully it has been re-opened, the kitchen has been
refitted and roast dinners are back on. 
Served until 6pm so as not to compete with the pub quiz at 8pm and at an
efficient price of £9.95 – the cheapest roast I have reviewed to date.
The welcome was voluminously complaisant – warmth and humour
exuded from the host and hostess, invigorating my slightly fragile mind and
body, which was immediately endearing and I dearly wished to be able to give a review as
warm as their welcome.
Beef and chicken were the options, I had reviewed lots of
beef recently so it had to be chicken. 
But wait a minute, there is a lamb shank available – oh yes please.
Actually, oh no there isn’t.
It is still panto season isn’t it?
When the roast arrived, my immediate impressions were of a
home-cooked roast dinner, it looked similar to something my mother would make.
Sadly there was only one vegetable – peas were also due to
be served however as they are the anti-Christ of the vegetable world due to
their lack of discipline, I was left with just one rooty delight – carrots.  And they were fine.  Nothing more, nothing less.
The potatoes were real home-cooked roast potatoes, sadly no
crispiness but these were an improvement on most of the offerings in recent
reviews.
Two Yorkshire puddings were served – small in size and soft
throughout.  They really should be
soft-bottomed only with a somewhat crispy outer shell.  Far from perfection but better than the over-cooked
offering from London Street Brasserie.
There were several generously sized slices of roast chicken,
along with two wings.  It was definitely
from a real chicken, it was tender, nicely cooked – however I felt it was a
little ordinary in taste – some lemon infusion or some herbs would have greatly
increased the score.
It being a chicken roast, I was disappointed that there was
no stuffing offered.
Finally, the gravy.  Good
marks for consistency, it was actually gravy-like consistency, however there was that tinge of
something like tomato that a lot of places seem to feel necessary to spice up a roast dinner
and ends up making the gravy, and hence the roast dinner, a touch tiresome.
I still asked for extra.
 
It’s a tricky one to give a rating to.  My heart wants to give a higher rating than
my belly does, due to the very warm friendly welcome, and general excellent
service – it seemed as though nothing was too much effort.
There was nothing wrong with the food and the home-cooked
feel was particularly endearing, however there is plenty of room for
improvement.
6.3 is my rating.  I do
recommend a roast dinner here.
And I have a feeling that if I go back in a few months,
which is inevitable, there will be a higher score.

Roast Lamb @ The Lyndhurst

Roast Lamb @ The Lyndhurst

I thought I should bring back the search for the perfect roast dinner in and around the Reading area.

I went to the Lyndhurst, on the edge of the town centre, a nice, friendly locals pub which is well-run and has a very good choice of drinks.

As you can see, they had a good choice of beef, pork, lamb and roast chicken – along with a mega roast!

Had I not had breakfast, I would have attempted the mega roast.  I went for the roast lamb, which at £10.50 is a decent price.

As you can see below – it was well-presented and tidy.

I shall start with the least important – the vegetables.  Thankfully no peas.  There was 4 different vegetables, one I didn’t recognise, some kind of yellow stuff.  The vegetables were a little too cruncy for my personal tastes, but generally good still and not a criticism.

The potatoes however were rather rubbery in texture and though edible were not good.  This however was the low point of the roast dinner and it gets much better from here.

One yorkshire pudding, and it was a decent size and a tasty yorkie.

There was three slices of lamb, a perfect thickness and nicely tasty.  A good cut of lamb.

And last but certainly not least – the gravy.  It was very tasty gravy, and the consistency was nicely thick – but not too thick (I do like my gravy super-thick but most people don’t down south so this is probably about as thick as could be acceptable).  None of this water gravy crap that many places serve up.  Proper gravy – and no skimping on the amount.

As you can see below, it was the perfect thickness to do a little gravy art.  Good job I went with friends and not my mother.

A friend of mine also had the pork roast which looked even better than the lamb (and another friend had the sausage and mash which also looked superb but doesn’t count as a roast dinner).

I am going to give it a rating of 7.5 out of 10.  A good roast dinner at a good price, and I will be back to try the pork or maybe even the mega roast one day.

Recommended.