If you're going to serve up a Sunday roast there's a few things you need to get right.
As well as well tender meat, tasty gravy, crispy Yorkshire puddings and a nice selection of vegetables, you must have roast potatoes that are crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.
It's a given and on this point the Otter & Fish in Hurworth-on-Tees near Darlington in County Durham didn't quite pass muster for me. Which was a shame as the overall dining experience was good, although on the pricey side.
Read more: Sunday lunch review: The Punchbowl Hotel in Jesmond offers a roast with a bit of something special
To begin at the beginning. Hurworth is a nice little village adjacent to the River Tees, not far from Croft-on-Tees, home for a while to Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass.
The Otter & Fish is a pleasant pub, light, welcoming and with a very pleasant atmosphere. Service is both efficient and pleasant with nothing being too much bother.
I kicked off proceedings with a pint of John Smith's (£4.20) while my partner had a 125ml glass of Sauvignon Blanc (£4.50). Both were pleasant.
We had planned to go for a main and a dessert but one of the specials caught my eye - a black pudding and chorizo salad and poached egg (£8.95). Except for the salad, it contained some of my favourite foods so I couldn't resist, and I'm glad I didn't.
The egg was poached to perfection, the yolk oozing out onto the black pudding and chorizo which had been cut into small cubes, resting on the salad leaves. It had a lovely rich taste and proved very satisfying.
Onto the mains and I went for the roast lamb (£17.95) and my partner the roast chicken breast with sausage meat stuffing (£15.95). They came came with roast parsnip and carrot, a large Yorkshire Pudding and gravy with a selection of cauliflower, peas and pickle red cabbage. And a couple of those controversial roasties each.
My partner enjoyed her chicken roast, although I found my lamb a little on the bland side but otherwise nice and tender and OK.
It was the roasties, as I said earlier, which were found wanting. Rather than crisp and fluffy, they had a strange yellowy sheen on them, and a slightly rubbery texture. Very disappointing compared to the quality of the rest of the food.
Finally for the dessert. I went for the warm chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream (£6.95) and my partner the sticky toffee pudding (£6.95).
My brownie was, naturally enough, sweet but not overpoweringly so and was a nice way to finish off. My partner's sticky toffee pudding was more like a 'stocky' toffee pudding, coming in a sizeable slab and while tasty, seemed to lack dates which was a shame as they can elevate the taste of it.
Overall it proved a decent dining experience, good quality food - on the whole - in a pleasant pub with a nice relaxed atmosphere. The negative points were the roasties (sorry to bang on about it) and the final bill.
For a starter, two main courses, two desserts, one pint of John Smiths and a small glass of white wine, the final bill came to £65.45. I know costs are going up and the hospitality industry is having to rebuild after Covid, but it still seemed slightly pricey to me.
