My Experience at The Black Horse..........19-06-2011

Throughout our short trip to England we said that we simply cannot return home without having had a traditional English pub lunch, so we kept this for our last day in England. It was a slightly sunny day but the threatening clouds were constantly near. Seeing as we were staying in Reigate and flying out from Gatwick our “tour guide” suggested a pub in Reigate known as The Black Horse. We tempted the lurking clouds and opted to sit outside. I popped my head inside the pub to see what it looked like and it had that typical cozy pub feeling! J

We were ravished and ordered starters almost immediately. We had Goat’s Cheese & Caramelised Red Onion Tart: Served with salad garnish and balsamic and port dressing, Deep-fried Brie: Lightly breaded brie with a cranberry sauce and salad garnish and the Filo Prawns.

What is it about fried cheese that is just so damn good!? The Goat’s Cheese Tart was delicious! The soft gooey goat’s cheese on top of this crispy pastry tart with the slightly sweet flavour of the balsamic and port dressing was a perfect combination!

Although the Brie Cheese was deep fried, it didn’t taste like a deep fried heavily battered dish. The texture of the crumbs was just right. Once again the chunky cranberry sauce provided that little bit of necessary sweetness when eating such a fragrant heavy cheese. But everyone knows pairing something sweet with a soft cheese is going to be a winner! The Filo Prawns cocktail was light and refreshing. Made you feel like you had ordered it straight from the sea!

For mains I had the Lamb roast of the day served with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, seasonal vegetables and gravy, while my partner had the Beef version and one of my friends had the Locally Sourced Sausage of the Week served with mashed potatoes, seasonal vegetables and red-onion gravy a.k.a Bangers and mash.

While placing our orders I actually didn’t notice that they had “Bangers and Mash” on the menu seeing as it wasn’t actually called bangers and mash. Had I seen that I would have definitely had that instead. Sausage and mash are amongst my favourite things in the world! So to semi solve my problem I just ordered a side portion of mash with my lamb roast, to soak up all that gravy goodness. The roasts were really soft and tender. It literally fell apart in your mouth. However, I am not such a big fan of the Yorkshire pudding.  When I hear the word pudding I think dessert, not little bowl made of dough. The same goes with what they call Black Pudding! When I hear that I “see” a thick rich chocolate dessert so full of chocolate goodness that it appears black! Yeah, totally misinterpreted that one! Although I like sausage, I prefer it without hardened blood thanks! The meal was great but I did find the gravy a bit too strong though. I suppose it is not something that I would eat every day.

Overall it was a very great experience of English cuisine. The staff was extremely friendly and the rain also managed to stay away, which was an added bonus! J

Yours in fun & English pub grub,

Elly D

93 West Street
Reigate
Surrey
01737-245694
enquiries@blackhorsereigate.com
www.blackhorsereigate.com