Fusion

There’s been a revamp internally. It smells new and looks like a shed or the inside of a barn, there’s a but more light and there are paintings still to be added around some of the walls. There are new menus too. What hasn’t changed is the friendliness and the ambition to serve tasty food, generous portions and serve all of it up politely, without pretension. I was drawn to the mussels in red Thai curry style broth, which was served in a rectangular metal tin, served with a home — made herb bread on the side. I found the bread necessary as a tasty dense sponge to dunk into the superb spicy broth, but it did feel out of place with the Asian style of the dish; I can’t think of a more suitable substitute, maybe offer wheaten bread. The tasty moreish mussels were plump, orangey morsels, farmed in Carlingford lough, which is about a mile away so no food miles there. Then I followed with a selection of three different tapas: superb flavoursome scallops, good salt & pepper squid and alright baked Camembert. This baked French cheese was served up with the same bread that came with the Thai mussels, so some other bread should have been offered. This cheese was the pasteurised Camembert so the flavour is mild. The unpasteurised one has a far better flavour. I’d prefer a bit of roasted garlic studded in the baked cheese to zing up the flavour. My wife had the prawn & basil spring roll with crab salad. Very good it was too. Then she had the burger and chips with French fried onion served in a tin similar to the one that my mussels were served in. The only disappointment was the Asian slaw — looked grim, not a great taste and better without say a Waldorf type or ordinary coleslaw instead. Finally a word of caution. There’s some good competition around and it’s a price sensitive market. I think almost all of the al a carte mains are about £2 over the odds. The price of the fish and chips particularly at over £11 is too high.