The Reliance, Leeds
Touted as a gastropub by son's mate and he thought it would be good for his birthday meal. So we went. Very Londonish with old pub look. I thought grunge but was slapped down by son as being 15 years out of date.
Meals was good apart from one striking element of which more later. Starters of warm salad of home cured, air dried bacon, Reliance black pudding, broad beans, frisee & poached free range egg. Beautifully presented and promised a great meal. I had Gazpacho with crab meat and another had Naturally smoked haddock & spring onion fishcakes with watercress sauce. 4 great starters. As an aside we had 2 local bitters a white wine & soda and a 6% cider.
Mains of Yorkshire rabbit in cider with celery hearts and apple; Herb gnocchi, roasted yellow courgettes & Yorkshire pesto and then the strange one. Two of us went for Smoked rare breed pork belly with French style peas. The striking element was what the smoking had done to the pork crackling. It was dark brown, gelatinous (according to the waiter), rubbery (according to us) and almost impossible to cut and when you tried to eat it almost impossible to eat. Waiter when informed of our dislike said "That's what happens when we smoke it..."
The meat was nice enough but we left two slices of brown rubber on our plates.
Eton Mess, pannacotta and a chocolate pot rescued the meal a little but 2 of us felt a little dissatisfied. Good value at £25 a head for a nice ambience,; service was a little slow but most of it was very good.
Meals was good apart from one striking element of which more later. Starters of warm salad of home cured, air dried bacon, Reliance black pudding, broad beans, frisee & poached free range egg. Beautifully presented and promised a great meal. I had Gazpacho with crab meat and another had Naturally smoked haddock & spring onion fishcakes with watercress sauce. 4 great starters. As an aside we had 2 local bitters a white wine & soda and a 6% cider.
Mains of Yorkshire rabbit in cider with celery hearts and apple; Herb gnocchi, roasted yellow courgettes & Yorkshire pesto and then the strange one. Two of us went for Smoked rare breed pork belly with French style peas. The striking element was what the smoking had done to the pork crackling. It was dark brown, gelatinous (according to the waiter), rubbery (according to us) and almost impossible to cut and when you tried to eat it almost impossible to eat. Waiter when informed of our dislike said "That's what happens when we smoke it..."
The meat was nice enough but we left two slices of brown rubber on our plates.
Eton Mess, pannacotta and a chocolate pot rescued the meal a little but 2 of us felt a little dissatisfied. Good value at £25 a head for a nice ambience,; service was a little slow but most of it was very good.
posted by Julius Caesar at
9:20 am
