Here you'll find reviews of restaurants and pubs.
Everyone is encouraged to contribute their reviews. To submit yours please click here.
Where possible reviews have been tagged by location. To view a map index of reviews by location please click here.
Name of restaurant or pub: The Black Rat
Location: 88 Chesil St, Winchester, SO23 0HX
Web site: http://theblackrat.co.uk/
Telephone number: 01962 844465
Date of visit: 6 October 2009
Approx. cost per head: £25 plus
Comments on wine list/beer: Interesting list with a few gems. Mark up slightly below average
Review:
On a dark and windy wednesday night in Winchester when other restaurants and pubs are nearly empty, this place is half full.
The restaurant is owned by the same people as the Black Boy and it used to be a gay pub – so I was told.
The Black Rat is mainly open for dinner and weekend lunches. The cooking is “continental” english i.e. its multiple ingredients with a slight twist.
We had the Pollock Croquttes which were moist and plum and an interesting dish of pork with rillettes and pate en croute or a sausage roll filled with pate (thats what I think it should be called) which I liked very much.
Main courses was duck, onglet steak (I always thought that this is a skirt steak but Tony of Vicars in Reading told me that this is the muscle wrapped around the bladder – to squeeze the bladder) and Tuscan vegetarian platter. The steak and duck were cooked pink with ample side vegetables. The Tuscan platter was disappointing – it tasted of the ingredients (bread, mushroom, red cabbage and cheese) with no “special come together effect”.
The deserts were very visual and according to my friends excellent.
Eddie – eddie@bottlesandcooks.com
