Beamish Hall Country House Hotel (from Durham Times)

BEFORE entering the Eden restaurant, we were shown through to the lounge and allowed to peruse the extensive menu at our leisure.

It was nice to be able to drink in the opulent surroundings of reds and golds in comfortable armchairs and look at the range of special offers available over the festive period.

Given the weather, it could have been Christmas, because despite being the evening of the summer solstice, it was dreary, wet and miserable outside but decidedly cosy within.

The history of Beamish can be traced back to the Norman conquest and over the centuries has been a country home to several prominent North-East families including Monbouchers, the Edens and the Shaftos.

Today, it is a country house hotel offering functions, conferences and luxury weddings as well as dining in splendid surroundings.

We were not waiting long before we were asked to come to our table. As we booked shortly after the restaurant opened, I was not surprised to find we were the only ones there to start off with and were joined by just two other parties as the meal went on - although there was a wedding party in full swing elsewhere in the hotel.

It felt a little as if the party was going on around us because we could feel the bass from the disco though the floor and every so often young women with angel wings and funny hats from the wedding party would glide past the door to visit the ladies'.

Away from the chaos we had a beautifully laid table near the window, although the curtains had been closed to shield us from the gloom from outside.

We were offered lovely fluffy crunchy-crusted bread and butter before the starters arrived.

Determined to expand my appetiser repertoire beyond breaded mushrooms and garlic mayonnaise, sadly not on the menu, I went for the roast pigeon breast, with apple, walnut and wild mushroom served with chorizo salad and sherry vinegar dressing.

(£6.50) It was well-cooked and tender enough but I found the strong gamey flavour a little overpowering for my tried and tested palate, heathen that I am.

The chorizo in the salad was a bit burnt and I couldn't even find the apple or walnut, so I am little disappointed I did not go for the bacon and brie tart which came with petit leaves. Lessons learned.

Elisabeth chose the tomato soup (£4.95), which she described as fresh, well seasoned and as nice as any soup I've ever tasted.' For the main, I chose the rump of lamb on spinach mash with wild mushrooms and a rich Madeira sauce (£19.95).

The lamb was cooked to perfection with just the right amount of pinkness in the middle but no blood coming from it. Although the mash was tasty enough, I thought it slightly runny and would have benefited from a thicker consistency but worked well with the bed of spinach it lay on.

It was a great tasting dish but I must say it is not worth getting too excited about, given the cost.

My pescetarian - vegetarian who eats fish - girlfriend decided on have two portions of the starter dish of warm salad with Craster kipper with curly endive as her main. (£4.95 each) While it was tasty enough, it was slightly overcooked for her liking, but the new potatoes were deemed very good.

To drink, we enjoyed a crisp dry Moondarra semillon chardonnay and a Ropitea L'Emage merlot and both were perfectly palatable drops, each costing £4.95 for a 250ml glass.

We are both fans of crème brulee and favoured this over the options of chocolate fudge cake, fruit salad or cheese board for dessert (£4.95).

Although it was very tasty, I was a bit bemused by the weakness of the caramalised sugar on top and even more by the warm vanilla custard beneath. Still, these fairly minor criticisms are not enough to put me off going back.

The Eden restaurant has a wide selection of good food cooked well served by efficient staff in luxurious surroundings - well worth trying out for special occasions or to spoil someone, whatever the weather.

What are these links for?

If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.

At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.

Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.

Newsquest
Terms & Conditions Privacy Policy © Copyright 2001-2008 Newsquest Media Group A Gannett Company
This site is part of Newsquest's audited local newspaper network