Meeting 309 - Christmas Lunch at the Hind’s Head Hotel, Bray

Sunday 9^th December  2007

          Let’s start the story at the beginning: some years ago a group of residents, who were all very interested in both wine and food, got together and agreed at a meeting at the Hind’s Head Hotel in Bray to form the Berkshire Branch of the IWFS. 309 meetings and 35 years later the society returned to the hostelry for the annual Christmas Lunch on Sunday 9^th December. Of course, today, the Hind’s Head Hotel is also known as “Heston’s other restaurant” and the menu is based around high quality, interesting and basically British dishes. These include standards such as pea and ham soup, oxtail and kidney pudding, treacle sponge and banana mess.

          We began with an aperitif sparkler from Chapel Down which was very well received and stood up well as an excellent example of what British winemakers can achieve – albeit at a price. Then we were treated “with Heston’s compliments” to two amuse bouches: the Heston Blumenthal interpretation of a Scotch egg, very flavourful and not too spicy sausage-meat, containing a soft boiled quail’s egg – how do they do that? Then a cup of traditional pea & ham soup with lots of real ham, setting us up nicely for the lunch which followed.

     Dishes which stood out were the tea smoked salmon and soused herring starters: the skate wing and sea bream and the traditional turkey which was a very tasty, if quite a large portion!: the treacle sponge with a tangy orangey aftertaste and the poached pear.

     To accompany the lunch we chose their VistaFlores house wines from Bodega Norton in the valley. These were a 2006 white wine made from Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc and a 2006 red of Malbec and Sangiovese cepage, which had sufficient body and complexity to satisfy the dishes being eaten. The service was provided by Carly and her colleagues and we were well looked after during the afternoon.
These restaurant visits are an opportunity for members to socialise.

      On this occasion Julian (our president) and Deborah Jeffs, together with Pat (our Chairman) & Tony Curtis welcomed Helen Mills, chairman of Surrey Hills Branch, and 16 of our members to the private Vicars Room upstairs at the Hind’s Head. Being seated around a long table created the right atmosphere for conversation.  However by 4.30pm, the sun had given up for the day and we had eaten and drunk our fill of wine and coffee. People began to head for home, having experienced an excellent start to the Christmas festivities. (CG)

Click here for a full menu.