Langton House Blog

Last night we had a wonderful meal at this very plush and modern restaurant.

It is somewhat hidden away in Bourne End Marina, outside Maidenhead, but not too far from Windsor as to make it a serious trek. In fact, once found I’m sure, like us, you’d be going back more than just once!

The building is a fairly modern structure that has the actual restaurant on the first floor. There is some outside seating on a balcony overlooking the marina, but at this time of year that is not a  serious option, unless you’ve just come back from the Arctic!

On entering we were cheerfully welcomed and taken to our seats, although there is a small bar area to sit in whilst you wait for your table or for friends to arrive.

We were offered some bread and chutneys whilst we looked over the menu, but from past experience I know that this will surely fill me up far too much, so we had a good look at the bread from another table and although it looked lovely we concentrated on our main and starter decisions.

The menu is extensive and there is a choice of an A La Carte Menu or the Thames Side set menu at £16.95 for 3 courses (2009). For our starters we settled on Pan Fried Scallops with Smoked Haddock and Coriander Fishcake and I ordered a Butternut squash risotto with a Parmesan horne filled with rocket salad. All arrived wonderfully prepared and beautifully presented, succulent scallops and the risotto was exceptionally tasty. Both provided a substantial starter to our main course.

The next installment ….I ordered a Wildebeest Steak on Sweet Potato Dauphinois with Kangaroo Sausages and Rebellion Ale Sauce – it caught my eye as something very different and a interesting change from the usual steak offering. Sonja ordered the Trio of Game, Pheasent, Partridge and Venison served on a potato Rostie. Again all served beautifully and I was pleasantly surprised to find my Wildebeest steak to be a fantastic choice, very tender and combined with the Sweet Potato Dauphinois it was a mouthwatering combination. Sonja’s was an excellent array of meats working together and a lovely sauce to complement.

Desserts, which I normally try not to order, were just too good not to try. We decided on sharing the 4 small portions which included a Frozen Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Chip Brownie, Cheesecake and Panna Cotta  – something there for everyone and we both thoroughly enjoyed them all.

We both highly recommend this restaurant (as if this review did not give that conclusion away) and will most definitely be going back.

Check out their web site for directions and menus
www.ottrestaurant.co.uk

We wish him all the very best. He has undoubtedly got a very hard 4 years ahead of him, but if he does not get it right there will be more than just the USA in trouble.

We had a great Christmas here at Langton House – cold but lovely, in fact as I write this in early January 2009 it is still unseasonably cold at -2C and it is almost mid-day! Lucky for us it starts to warm up tomorrow to the usual temperature of about 7C which will be a lot less painful!

We don’t do this sort of cold here in the UK, and we have even had a small amount of snow, but as usual it never lasts long here, usually gone but lunchtime.

I have been using the slow period to get some decorating done about the place. A bit of fresh paint in the hallway, but I started and had forgotten how much paintwork there is about the place! The Victorian door take forever to do…I had to rope my nephew in to help me!

It was a shame that this year we did not have the outdoor ice skating rink, but we have a permanente rink in Slough just down the road, so really no excuse for not going onto the ice, and we have plenty of frozen ponds around here right now…but I guess tomorrow that will be the end of that.

This coming year looks like it may be more difficult (in a business sense) with the slowdown in the world economy, but at least the exchange rate is going to favour the rest of Europe and North America.