Sam’s has been one of our regular places for some while. The food is unique for the city - it concentrates on traditional British dishes, although overlaid with a modern touch, of course. So, in the past, we’ve eaten the likes of Lancashire Hotpot and cheese & onion pie. But expect the likes of burrata, aioli and ricotta to make appearances.
I suppose you might say our meal was a game of two halves. I fared fairly well with a Scotch egg starter, served warm, still with a slightly oozy yolk and a tangy date ketchup. That was followed by a good steak and kidney pudding. I couldn’t actually detect any kidney which was a disappointment but this was, otherwise, a good version. Not overly thick suet pastry with tasty long cooked meat (a world away from the version you may have had from your local chippy). It comes with mushy peas (more puree than mushy), chips and a gravy which was overly salty for my taste. On the other hand, my partner started with ham & cheese croquettes – a flavoursome, if rather solid affair. Corned beef hash is the restaurant’s long term signature dish. We’ve both ordered it in the past and it’s been fine but, this time, it was another quite solid affair with boiled new potatoes seemingly just stirred into the meat, rather than any sense of them being fried together for a while, as you’d expect.
Not fancying a dessert. we finished with decent espresso.
