The Lescar with some very good Sheffield based friends is
even better. It’s in the student enclave
of the Hunter’s Bar area of Sheffield and is definitely the
most bohemian pub on Sharrow Vale Road, but serves a good selection of real ales and is a pub shaped pub.
The Lescar takes pride in promoting its food and I was
hoping for great things
from the beer battered haddock and skin-on chips with crushed peas & tartare
at £8.50. I was disappointed.
The fish was watery and bland with the batter soggy and
undercooked and it ended up having quite a gloopy texture in the mouth. Green
herbs had been added to the batter mix and it looks as odd written down as it
did seeing it on a plate. You do not put any herbs in a batter for deep fried fish and it shouldn't cross anyone's mind to do it in the first place.
The chips were good and although I knew they were coming
with skins on there’s still that sense of a missed opportunity that could have
been had, had the chips been deep fried potato slices peeled on every side rather than leaving one
to have more texture than the others. If they’ve not fully peeled then it’s a
wedge in my book and not a chip.
The crushed peas were OK but not seasoned enough and almost
too green. The tartare was also OK but a little too acidic and the lemon was
far too small for what was a decent sized fish. They had posh vinegar, which was fine,
but I’ve never heard anyone say that “this Sarsons is nowhere near as good as
...”, so I say stick to Sarsons. There was no bread and butter and I was sufficiently disappointed to not
even bother asking for the tomato ketchup.
A great afternoon but the meal’s only redeeming feature were
the chips, and they weren’t really chips at all.
