The Black Cow

The Black Cow
The Green
Dalbury Lees
Derbyshire DE6 5BE
theblackcow.co.uk

On Friday a group of us set out to Dalbury Lees to the Black Cow to celebrate a Birthday.
We had booked and reserved a table in advance as on a previous attempt to visit we'd had to go somewhere else as it does get busy, and right enough it was again on Friday night.

We were asked if we'd like to take a drink in the bar first but thought it would be easier to choose from the table, so we were shown to it promptly and were then given ample time to take in both the menu and the wine list.
The pub boasts an AA Rosette 'for culinary excellence' and a 4* AA rating for it's rooms which are also available.
The menu itself was large and easy to get on with offering a selection of European food and
'gastro-pub' classics.

Menu

Table setting

As a group we decided to order starters to share, so we all plumped for whole baked Camembert with garlic and honey, served with sour-dough bread. After seeing one arrive at another table we decided two would suffice.
They arrived on rustic wooden boards served in the cheese's own box, with possibly a garlic oil and some honey on the top. our waiter had informed us that unfortunately there was no longer any sour-dough left so they would substitute this for a similar bread - it was an olive one which was fresh and crusty and dotted with bits of black olive - fine for all of us except for one member of the party who didn't eat olives and therefore had plain white sliced.

Baked (or microwaved?) Camembert

It all looked good garnished with a dressed salad of mixed leaves, but on attacking it, we found it to be cold and solid, not oozing and baked as stated. As soon as we mentioned this the boards were removed and sent back to the kitchen, to be placed (we thought) in a large old black range with a fire licking the edges of our garlic laden cheese. In reality it was returned to us within the minute so we had to assume it had been given a few circuits of the microwave. Still at least then it was oozing and tasted fine with the bread. Almost a French fondue. I didn't get much from the honey, until I started mopping up what was left of the second one which really benefited form the flavour of the honey, so perhaps the first one had missed out a bit?

For main course, there was a bit of a split, two supreme of chicken marinated with lemon and thyme, two lamb shanks with a rosemary and garlic jus, and for myself half a crispy duckling with an orange and ginger sauce.

A good lamb shank

The presentation across the board was good and a lot of reviews I'd looked at on Trip Advisor had said the portions could be quite small, this however was not really the case, I think they were fair.
The main problem we had as a group was the saucing, in some was or another.
The chicken was quite a solid piece of breast and as such was quite dry (sorry, I didn't get a picture of it) the sauce was either not there or had soaked into the 'root vegetable and potato rosti'. The lamb was 'sauced-up' but had little or no taste of garlic and rosemary (it was also pretty short on the red onion marmalade).


Duck a l'orange (no ginger!)

As for mine it was a pretty good 1970's 'Duck a l'Orange', a nice crispy duck served with fresh veg and (a lot!) of new potatoes in a reduced orange juice sauce, it's just that there was no hint of ginger either fresh or ground and dried which was a shame as that would have just made the difference and moved it on form the 70's version. Still it was a good retro dish.

Not all of us took dessert, I did though!
I went for a vanilla Crème Brulee (sorry I'm not sure where all my accents are yet?!) served with shortbread biscuits. This was thick and creamy and flecked with vanilla beans. the biscuits however were not actually shortbread but looked like some Bronte oat biscuit they'd taken from one of the tea/coffee trays in the bedrooms.
The other sweets chosen included a banoffee crumble tart and a sticky toffee pudding with a butterscotch sauce.
The tart was crisp and filled with a toffee base and some banana but was slightly overpowered by a thick dusty layer of 'crumble crumbs'.
The pudding though was a good size swimming in a pool of sauce, not for the 'faint-hearted', sticky and sweet.
All in all it was a good night out, whether I would put it in the AA culinary excellence bracket is another matter but it was a good well cooked meal if a bit lacking in the sauce dept.

My finished (sorry) Crème Brulee