Having a food experience at Lord Nelson has been on Neal’s list for quite a while, so, when we finally managed to get a booking, we were well excited. Whilst I don’t want to say, we should have curbed our excitement a lickle…, we should have curbed our excitement a lickle! Plus, the taster menu’s are served only during the week 🤔? Slightly odd right? guess it is a way to ensure that the locals can enjoy a meal at the weekend perhaps? 🤷♂️. No matter, taster menu or not, we were here for a food adventure!
Our chef’s intro was a parmesan pomme fritter which Neal arugued was more of an arancini
and you can see why yes? The bread was fresh out of the oven and the tomato paste type sauce, reminded me of chutney.
You know how when there is foie gras on a menu and I can’t resist? This is now becoming a thing with carpaccio 🙄#dontjudgeme yeah? The white fish carpaccio served with honey dew, olive oil and raddish and what I like to think might be caviar!
The honey provided the sweetness to the saltiness of the fish, well balanced flavour that was delish! As was the beef fillet tartare with egg yolk, pickles, ranch and pecorino.
It was nowhere near Aulis or Stem by Neo tartare, but it was not bad either! Interestingly it was quite a portion size!
We tried the burrata dish and this let us down 😱. The one dish which I think the Maltese do fantastic variations of, was not it here at all! Visually it was not very pleasing to the eye, it looked like the burrata was placed on top of pasta morsels with pesto sauce?
I mean why did they do the burrata like that? Tsk tsk! Maybe because it was on the ‘specials’ menu? nah! it cant be, I mean, specials are fantastic! 59 Republic got that down to a T! We were not best pleased and had very low expectations from the remaining dishes we had ordered to be honest. However, the beef cheek agnoleti came next and praise be!
With an intense, flavourful aroma.. like a well-seasoned bone-marrow broth that had been cooked for hours and then reduced! I really could not wait to dig in. Plus, the cheeks looked like pasta with brown butter and the hazel nuts gave it not just texture but a definitive creamy nutty taste! It was yummy!
After this course, I really could not be dealing with another dish that was going to be a downer! I mean this place had my feelings all over the gaff, the inconsistency of the dishes got me like 🤔🤨😮🙄🥺! The food gods must have felt my pain, because the next course was IT! Calf liver parfait and chile….It was awesome! Calf liver parfait with maple jelly, pork rind and cucumber! The maple jelly was perfect with the liver, it nulled the otherwise bitter taste associated with liver, turning it into a savoury melt-in-your-mouth yumminess. The fermented cucumber was acidic and salty, giving it that added depth of flavour! Just aesthetically, the plating of this course makes me more convinced that this was created by a different chef,
I mean do you see this? Compared to the burrata like 🧐? exactly! Pork belly with udon noodles was one a dish Neal was keen to sample. You know how he is with pork belly? Alas! He was left wanting. And I quote ‘I can make better at home’ and I agree. There was nothing fascinating about this dish at all. Presentation (even with the pour over which was the dashi and ginger mignonette) it did nothing!
We were going to skip pudding, but decided, since we are here might as well get the full food experience. If we were on a roller coaster, at this point, we would be on the last curve and expecting to get to the end without any other flips, surprises and what not! Almond semi freddo was the pudding – nougat, summer berries and praline and 😋
Yeah, the pastry chef came through. It was as delicious as it looked and definitely the preferred way to end what we have dubbed ‘a rollercoaster’ food experience.
Cheers
Ndidi
p.s. Despite our feelings about this experience, the restaurant offers a plant based menu as well which is a good look. However, it is not enough to get us to try it or a taster menu here 🤷♂️
