“The Black Horse”:http://www.blackhorse-restaurant.co.uk/index.html is situated in the picturesque village of Ellerker (and not Elloughton as on the website) in the East Riding of Yorkshire and near the village I grew up in. I remember biking to the pub for a sneaky half a lager with a friend when we were too young to drink alcohol. But like many village pubs, it’s now morphed into a restaurant and is open Wednesday to Saturday for dinner and all day on Sunday.
We were paying a pre-Christmas visit to my family, who live nearby and five of us arranged to meet for dinner.
We decided against drinks in the small bar, and headed for our table. I was pleased it was a round one, as when you have an uneven number, someone always feels a bit left out. Having started to take our drinks order (a pint of lager and one of Black Sheep, a J2O), we were pleasantly surprised to see a number of wines at £19.95, with one of them an English wine from New Hall Vineyards in Purleigh, Essex.
I thought this was excellent as often English wines are so expensive and having left Yorkshire nearly 30 years earlier, my first new home had been in Chelmsford, Essex, just down the road. A bottle was duly added to the tab.
Drinks ordered, we were presented with a slate with brown bread and butter and grilled mushrooms stuffed with caramelised red onion and cheese on top.
Although there’s a sample “menu”:https://www.blackhorse-restaurant.co.uk/ on the website, the one presented was fairly different. Three of us were tempted by a starter of belly pork, which came as two thick slices of melt in the mouth pork accompanied by poached apples and coleslaw. It was a huge portion and all it needed was a few carbs to make it into a main course. Other’s chose parma ham and melon and cod wrapped in parma ham which came with pureed peas. All were excellent and there were five empty plates.
We all chose a different main: salmon in a teriyaki sauce, roast duck breast with caramelised orange sauce, rump of lamb, bacon chop and for me, a vegetarian option of asparagus and mushroom lasagne. Everyone was happy with their choices and mine was very tasty. There were sharing dishes of vegetables (cauliflower, carrots and sprouts) and chips.
We were all really full but after a little persuading that it didn’t matter if she was the only one having a pud, a strawberry cheesecake was ordered and enjoyed.
There are a couple of smallish rooms and even though there was a large group in one, their noise didn’t impact on us.
The menu is priced at £25 for two courses or £30 for three, so there’s no need for a calculator when trying to split the bill at the end of the evening.
