Address: 126 West Street, Marlow , SL7 2BP

Telephone number: 01628 482277

Website: www.thehandandflowers.co.uk

Date of visit: 8 May 2010

Approximate cost per head: Approx £40 for 3 courses

Comments on wine list/beer: Excellent list.

Summary:

I have been here on 4 separate occasions during lunch time. I thought that it is time to test out their evening performance.

To start with, the place was packed and on some tables, they managed 2 sittings. I was told that their busiest night is Saturday.

Lets start with the positives: the bread is as good as ever and is served ward. You get  the complimentary deep fried whitebaits which were excellent – in fact, I have had this on every visit. So it does not change. Service was good.

On the negative side, the chips were not as crisp as they normally are. The description on the menu is also not 100% accurate. However, these were minor faults.

We had a mixture of starters, salmon tartar, mouls, omelette with smoke haddock. The omelette was in fact the famous Arnold Bennet omelette (invented in the Savoy Grill for the great man) served in a small frying pan. It was pretty filling and was as expected. The moules  were served with a Guinness foam – we were warned about this – I am not sure this works as it add a bitterness to the sweet mussels cooked as moules a la marinier. The salmon tartar turned out to be a salmon mousse sitting on a bed of finely chopped raw salmon mixed with vegetables – much like a mirepoix. In fact there was more mousse than raw salmon.

For main courses, we had the fillet steak, braised shin of beef, pork loin and plaice. The shin of beef was covered in a heavily reduced gelatinous dark sauce and shelled broad beans. The meat fell apart when I touched it with a fork. The steaks were given top marks except that it was done British style – the rare turned out to be medium and medium became well done. The fish and pork also went down well with the side order of “selection of vegetables”.

All these were washed down with two bottles of wine – Abarino (£38.20) and Faugeres (£59). Both wines were excellent.

For desert we had crème brulee and chocolate tart. The came brulee came in a bowl the size of a Chinese rice bowl and the chocolate tart was a wonderful invention. The base was a piece of biscuit. On top of this was a runny chocolate mousse encaed in dark chocolate. This was the covered by layers of chocolates – dark, white, milk and in it sat a white chocolate malted ice cream. Deserts were £8 each.

For 7 the bill came to just over £385 (incl service charge). It was a  pretty good meal for just over £50 a head including booze.

E

PS They do not serve their famous fish and chips on a Saturday night.