So, first - the location. Watch the Estrella Damm sponsored ( 
) video which is now on the main website and you would never know that as well as being in leafy Lancashire, Moor Hall is in fact on the back road between Kirkby and Ormskirk. Why do I mention this ? Kirkby is one of the most deprived towns in the country. I grew up 5 minutes away. So, whenever I think of Moor hall it always make me smile to think of the 2* baggers parachuting in to the âLancashire countrysideâ without a clue where they actually areâŚ
AnywayâŚit is three years since I was here at the âproperâ ** restaurant and this was my first visit to what Mark Birchall himself describes ( in said video ) as their âlittle casual dining restaurantâ in the Barn.
First impression as you drive in is, for me, âweâre not in Kirkby any more.â I was struck how much the gardens and entrance ( the âplantingâ or âlandscapingâ, dahling ) have been improved, or are just better kept and mature now. I remember it seeming quite sparse before, but now we have full on slick car park and walk-through to the restaurant or Barn ( kept well apart so the hoi polloi donât accidentally come into contact with the baggers 
)
The entrance to the barn is a tad underwhelming. The restaurant is upstairs but they have someone stationed downstairs at a little lectern who checks youâve got a reservation and arenât just there to make sure the car park isnât visible while your mates get that Porsche onto a low loader. It could be any restaurant anywhere. It weirdly feels like Iâm in some kind of modern municipal office building, or behind the scenes at a swimming pool. A nice one, though. Not Kirkby baths.
This is probably all âjust meâ. Havenât been out much in last 18 months. However, if I hadnât been to the proper gaff Id have been worried, I think.
Happily, Iâd have been wrong to worry.
Once upstairs, that casual restaurant room itself is busy and buzzy. So busy our table isnât ready so we are invited to sit at the bar which is in the middle of the room. This is psychologically quite challenging as we havenât been out much for the last 18 months ( did I already mention that ? ), but gin conquers all. The room still has screens up between tables, so that helps too. Plus they are so beautifully done that it takes ten minutes for us to even notice they are there.
Oh yeah ? The food ?
On the whole, beautifully done too.
You order yer starters and your mains ( circa 15 quid for starters and 25-30 for mains ) but you also get
Snacks
Delivered together you have some wafer ( and I mean wafer ) thin coppa ( lovely, thank you ) and a cheese tart. In the main resto one of my favourite things to eat was a smoked eel tart which they told us was meant to taste like a smoky bacon crisp. They never said this but Iâm think perhaps the intention was for this tart to taste like a cheese and onion crisp. If it was, something is going very right in that kitchen. If they didnât, something is going very wrong in my brain. Probably both. Either way it was delicious. As in âI could eat a plateful of thoseâ delicious.
Next up⌠Amuse
This was squash puree with yoghurt and small discs of potato and toasted seeds. It came with their own sourdough foccacia ( just take a moment for the conjunction of those two words to register ) and was much nicer than I am making it sound. The bread was just as nice as it sounds.
Highlight reel 1 were the starters
Red Mullet for me. Beautifully crispy skin. Served with a tomato gazpacho and Tarleton tomatoes ( whatever ) it was light and elegant and I want to know what oil they had put with the gazpacho because it was, well, I cant lick the plate clean in here can IâŚbut I can use that bread to mop up every last bit. My other half had beef tartare. That was lovely in itself but it came with a mini brioche and beef butter ( fat ? dripping ? )and the advice was to use that to scoop up the tartare. It was exactly as rich and comforting as it sounds. Id never had beef tartare like this before. My word, Iâd have it again if I went back there.
Mains
Right, so these were both good but not amazing. Plus there was more plate than food and it is at this point that I think my mates and my parents would either stage some kind of protest, or be looking for the waiter to ask when the illustration was being taken away and their âactual teaâ delivered. Other half had monkfish and I had duck. Both were lovely but two slices of duck and two small pieces of monkfish. For 28 quid and 30 quid respectively. Come on guys, just one more piece each - is it too much to ask ? We had ordered some Jersey spuds as a side. Just as well and for a fiver you got a proper bowlful and a proper load of butter on them too. I think the carbs loading with the bread is key here ,as you still feel full ( comfortably full , not Hungry Horse full) at the end of the evening.
Puds
A game of two halves, Brian.
I of course chose The Wrong Pudding.
Honey parfait and plumbs. How idyllic does that sound as we move into autumn? With the deft touch shown everywhere else so far, expectations were high. Sadly they were crushed by a rogue element - plum sorbet. The baffling thing is that it wasnât even in the description, and as you know they put every last molecule into the descriptions. If it had been I wouldnât have ordered it. The sorbet was too sharp and socked the delicate parfait off the plate. When they asked for feedback on the puds I told them this. They looked a bit shocked. People never actually want feedback when they ask for it, do they ?
Other halfâs pud, by contrast was a master work, a symphony. It was blackberries with a meadowsweet cream and hazelnut meringue. It sang , it soared. It was wonderful. Can I have one of those instead of mine, please ? No, thatâs what you get for always wanting to share, you greedy man.
So all in all, as our first proper tea out this year, this was great experience. For what we had ( gripes about the mains aside ) it was good value, I felt, at 159 - albeit only one of us was drinking.
The staff were friendly and informative and it felt like they might be using this place to train up folk for the full ** gaff. Sensible idea if so. The only awkward interaction we had was with the guy who came to take payment - a different person to those who had served us all night and who we had at least developed some rapport with , so odd in itself. He had obviously been told to chat to people as he relived them of their cash. so we told him it was our first meal out this yearâŚat which point he said we should âTake care to make more time for ourselvesâ.
You what, lad ? Thereâs been a pandemic on, thatâs why we havenât been out, FFS. Sometimes, if you have nothing to say, its best to say nothing at all.
Which no doubt you will agree with having ploughed through this
The good news though, Mr H, is that it looks like the Christmas Party is in safe hands âŚonly the government (sic ) can stop you now !
