A return visit to Barnaby's

We so enjoyed our last visit to Barnaby's that the morning after our last visit we re-booked for tonight. Given the short time between booking and eating we did have to eat at 6pm, but having had dinner at 5.30pm on Monday this was no sacrifice.

As explained in my previous post about the place the menu is a mix of small sharing dishes and some larger meat or fish dishes. Having majored on fish and vegetables on Friday, a fasting from meat day, yes we Catholics still do this, today we intended to taste some of their meat selection. However our pre-starters were all familiar, simple tasty dishes including the Sourdough with delicious seaweed butter (photo above) alongside Artichoke hummus with za'atar and Padron Peppers in sea salt and olive oil as seen below:

The flavours were every bit as good as last time, with the artichoke sauce being rich and spicy and the peppers being salty, refreshing with the occasional very hot one, this time we had one of these each which is uncommon, but a very zingy experience for the tongue and lips.

Moving on to the starters we decided to share two. The first to arrive was the crab and pancetta baked orzo with rouille and herbs. The pasta, flavoured by the pancetta rather than it being a separate texture had a warming tomato and oregano through it, the crab, on top was sweet white crab meat and the rouille was a zingy lemon burst of flavour which accompanied by the crab and the deep pasta sauce was mouth-wateringly fantastic.

The Lamb moussaka, as always, reminded me of a lasagne with the aubergine replacing the pasta sheets. The moussaka sauce here made with lamb mince is full of the flavour of bay leaf, cinnamon and cloves, spices I always associate with winter (probably because they end up in lots of mulled wine!).The bechamel sauce on top of the dish was sprinkled generously with nutmeg, another of those winter spices, making the whole dish seem like a herbal health remedy as well as a delectable plate of food.

Our final starter (if that isn't an oxymoron) was Confit duck leg with damson. The process of roasting the duck leg and then grilling the skin to crispy perfection is a great way of paying homage to the delightful juicy leg of poultry. Duck has for centuries been paired with fruit and here again the restaurant excels itself by going for a late autumn fruit which is both strong in flavour, but savoury rather than the sweet flavours often associated with duck like orange or cherries. Given my preference for savoury flavours this was an ideal combination for me. 

Our main course was a 20oz Philip Warren Pork Chop shared between us. The gently roasted chop was topped by garlic, shallots, oregano and all cooked in a light yet sharp lemon sauce. I've never had lemon with pork before and I wonder why as the combination is such a success. The sharp lemon bringing the unctious, [Co-pilot's note: When, dear readers, I take over the world in my benign dictatorship that word is for the chop - I hate it!!] fine-grained, well-marbled meat to its peak of flavour. The chop has an amazing outer layer of fat crisped to perfection as delicious crackling. It was so tasty I was almost lost for words (though I seem to have made up for that this morning as I write about it!)

We opted for broccoli and spiced potatoes as sides for the pork. Both of these dishes were delicious in their own right, but it was the pork flavour that will leave the lasting impression on me.

Drew finished off with a basque style burnt cheesecake with macerated strawberries, but I was still delighting so much in the pork that I forgot to take a photo. Luckily someone on Trip Advisor had taken one there in the past, so this photo is a good representation of it, except in the photo both people had the dish while only Drew had it in our case. 

We both had a double espresso and left the restaurant at 8:12pm with 10 minutes to spare before our table booking expired as they limit tables to 2 hours 15 minutes during busy times and every table in the restaurant was booked for two sittings tonight. So while we walked back to our accommodation, the excellent waitresses had to do it all again for another group.