Last week was mine and DanMan’s five year anniversary, an event I look forward to every year for the sole reason that it means we have an excuse to go to a fancy restaurant and then get drunk on cocktails (although, frankly, I’m thinking more and more that the only excuse you should need to do either of those things is ‘because I really want to’). After much deliberation this year’s establishment of choice was the Lime House restaurant on Goodramgate, which we’ve been recommended many a time but never made it to.
The restaurant is bigger than it looks on the outside, with a light and modern dining area that extends into a second room at the back, where we were seated and had the room to ourselves (for about 10 minutes, then it quickly filled up). After an agonising deliberation about whether to have the avocado and brie cheesecake or smoked duck salad as our shared starter we eventually opted for the duck salad. It was a delight. Turns out smoked duck is delicious, and it was served with cherries, poppy seeds, rocket and a filo basket, all of which complimented one another and made for a perfectly light starter – the filo might have been a little unnecessary, but it added a nice crunch.
The choice of mains was equally alluring, but we each found a dish that spoke to our particular tastes; mine was the butternut squash, sweet potato, beetroot and celeriac stew which came with an oat and nut crumble topping as well as some kind of crème fraiche. I have an overwhelming love for root vegetables, as well as oats and nuts, so it couldn’t have been more up my street. I loved it and found it rich without being overly filling, and it had an almost curried taste yet no spice whatsoever, which is also perfect for me. It was a fairly large portion and was fairly one-note in terms of flavour, but as I loved it this wasn’t a problem. My only complaint was that it was incredibly hot (like, centre of the earth, scorch the skin of your tongue type hot) when it arrived and took a very long time to cool down, but that’s better than it being cold, I suppose!
Dan had the mixed game grill, which was pan fried venison rump, a wild boar sausage and a pigeon breast topped with a fried quails egg, a bacon and onion rosti potato and brown sauce jus. All the meat was perfectly cooked and tender, the quails egg was as cute as you could hope and the sauce and rosti were both surprisingly incredible. Dan loved every bit of it and I was pretty in love with the few bites I managed to nab.
We still had a small amount of room for dessert, so decided to share the mixed berry eton mess as I’ve recently discovered I love berries after years of finding them weird and off-putting little niblets of squish and am currently delighting in all things berry. It was served in a glass and was a perfectly proportioned and light ending to the meal. We spent most of our time eating it sighing in gentle, berryish glee.
All things considered and snarfed, Lime House was certainly worthy of its recommendations and we were very pleasantly surprised by the bill at the end. We fully intend to return, if only to try that avocado and brie cheesecake (I mean, come on).