I was in Oxfordshire for work, attending a conference in Oxford. I booked to stay in the Milton Hill House hotel close to Abingdon. I would then catch the Park & Ride into the heart of Oxford for the event.
I had dinner in the hotel, and for my starter I had the pork and black pudding scotch egg with homemade brown sauce.
For my main course I had the roast pork fillet that came with a potato terrine, braised pig cheek, bacon jam, red cabbage, and pan jus.
Overall it was quite a disappointment, it wasn’t bad, it was just disappointing.
The plate looked interesting, but the individual components didn’t really make for a great eating experience.
The focus of the dish should be the roasted pork fillet, which comprised of two chunks of pork fillet. Pork fillet with its lack of fat, can be quite difficult to cook well, and in this case the pork was tough and lacked flavour. I also think the way it was served exacerbated the dryness of the pork. These triangular blocks of pork weren’t that easy to cut and eat either. I think serving it either as medallions, or as a proper chunk of pork fillet would have been a better choice. The braised pig cheek was much better, it was tender and was quite tasty though it was quite a small portion, more a taste of pork cheek. I did think there was too much red cabbage, it did dominate the dish. I was not impressed with the potato terrine which felt like a rather dried out potato dauphinoise. I am guessing it was reheated from some prepared potato. I think if it had been cooked in butter, it would have been better. I also wasn’t too keen on the bacon jam, which I felt didn’t add to the dish. Finally it needed more jus, a jug would have been nice.
It was one of those times where I was inspired by the description on the menu, but the reality of the dish failed to meet my expectations.