The Elephant
(Salad of smoked salmon with pickled fennel and lovage emulsion)
(Southdown Farm belly pork, mash potato, confit young carrot, asparagus)
(Vanilla creme brulee with lemon meringue sorbet)
First of all apologies for the poor quality photos as I only used my iPhone to take these since taking a massive camera out was just too much hassle.
Secondly, these are what I ate when we visited the Elephant a few weeks ago. We dined at the brasserie of the Elephant since the actual Michelin starred restaurant part of the Elephant which they call 'The Room' was shut for the winter season since the restaurant sources most of it's ingredients from their farm.
In the brasserie we were given the set lunch menu with 2 options from each course and the menu having the standard 3 course.
From the first course I chose the smoked salmon salad as I'm not a big fan of goats cheese and it was a great start to the meal. The presentation was perfect from every detail and the dish was tasty as expected although the emulsion wasn't as strong flavoured as I thought and therefore soon after was just forgettable for me. The textures worked really well with the flaky soft salmon and the crunchy radish and the herbs to just add that nibbly chewing needed.
For the main dish, the majority of the group chose the pork dish and I'm not surprised we did. The pork was very tender juxtaposed with the crispy and hard crackling paired with a smooth and creamy piping of mash potato and those baby carrots that have been confit(ed) so it tasted even more amazing and of course the asparagus shavings was just a nice 'to top it all off'. The jus was also rich and flavoursome as it should be.
Finally, to finish of the meal, I chose to have the creme brulee with lemon meringue sorbet. The creme brulee was perfect, the lemon meringue sorbet was also perfect although I just don't find them working together. The sorbet seemed like a pre-dessert which was decided to be placed along with the dessert itself and that's how I ate it, separately.
Overall the meal was lovely and a really nice taste as to what else the Elephant can offer since if that's just their set brasserie menu then the whole brasserie menu and the Michelin 'Room' holds much expectation.
