A couple of Sunday’s ago my husband Geoff and I popped up to London to visit Helen and Sam and enjoy a meal and a catch-up. Helen had named a few places for us to eat at and after looking at them all – they were either too expensive/not open on a Sunday/wouldn’t suit my husband’s tastes/not even in London! – I decided on Lambert’s on Balham High Road. Traditional Sunday roast would be served and you can’t really go wrong with that, something we all enjoy.
We had booked beforehand and I had a call a couple of days earlier to confirm it (also an email confirmation at the time of booking) and to ask if there were any children in our group. We were greeted by friendly staff who took our coats from us and showed us to our table. The restaurant isn’t very large, fairly cosy, which is nice and we couldn’t hear other people’s conversations so we didn’t feel on top of other people. The decor was nice and fresh with paintings on the wall.
We took a while to order as we couldn’t make our minds up and unfortunately a couple of items were off the menu. For my starter I ordered Middlewhite Pork Terrine with chutney and toast. It was like chunks of cold pork pressed together with aspic. I wasn’t a lover of this although it did taste fresh and the chunks of pork were nice, but I would prefer a pate or parfait. The toast was a little hard and I was worried I may cut the inside of my mouth on it. The chutney was tasty and went well with the dish.
I opted for the Rare roasted Angus beef for my main meal – my first choice would have been the pork, but they had run out. This was served with roast potatoes, carrots, parsnip and topped with a large Yorkshire pudding. Gravy and horseradish sauce was provided on the side. The gravy was a little on the watery side for me, I like it thicker and I found the carrots were rather cold. The potatoes were lovely, hot and quite crispy and the parsnip was nice too. The beef was done very nicely and cut fairly thick, a little gristle and fat but I suppose it’s what’s to be expected from a joint. My husband had lamb and I wished I had ordered that as it was tastier than my beef.
For my dessert I had hot chocolate fondant served with Meantime stout ice-cream (all I can find on-line about this ice-cream is that Meantime Brewery teamed up with artisan ice-cream makers Sulqui in 2009). Our first choice for all of us bar one was the white chocolate cheesecake, but this had run out along with the apple crumble which they replaced with pear. But the chocolate fondant was very nice, it was fresh and light, not too stodgy and plenty of hot chocolate oozing out of the middle. On top was a serving of Meantime stout ice-cream which was rather tasty and a pleasant change to the usual vanilla. I had a little of my husband’s pear crumble which was very nice too and lashings of hot custard.
This was all washed down with a bottle of fresh tap water and we picked a lovely white wine, The Wing Walker Voignier 2010 Alpha Domus, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand which I can thoroughly recommend. It was so fruity, very much like a Marlborough which we all love.
Sunday lunch at Lambert’s is available from noon until 5pm, two courses £20 and three at £24. A good price I think so well worth a visit. They have an À la carte menu for the evening as well as a set menu and also a weekday lunch menu. We enjoyed our meal – it was a shame that a couple of our first choices weren’t available but our meal was booked for late afternoon – and wouldn’t hesitate on returning. For more of our restaurant reviews click here
Living life, loving cake
A x
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