The Horseshoe Inn
August 15, 2008 – 8:31 pmToday we visited the Horseshoe Inn at Mamhilad (near Pontypool) in south Wales. Interesting place!
The first thing that took me by surprise was that when the waitress went to tell us about the specials, she pointed us to the specials board, noticed that there was some things missing from it and told us that there was another specials board in bar area with more things on it. We didn’t bother going through to look at the other board, as I had found the items I fancied off of the main menu, and the Wife quite liked one of the dishes from the board that we had. The next thing that was odd was that when we asked for a wine list we were told there wasn’t one - as their wine merchant had gone bust and they were clearing their stocks of wine before getting any more in. So we were sent through to the bar to talk to one of the bar men about what was available. Whilst through there, I noticed that the specials board in the bar didn’t just have extra things on it, it had different things on it! Basically the board through in the restaurant section was a previous day’s board and was basically rubbish. My Wife had ordered the gnocci from the specials board thinking it was the meal that was on the board in the restaurant, and it turns out that the kitchen were preparing the gnocci dish from the specials board in the bar. My Wife was OK on this as the other gnocci dish looked good too!
When our food arrived, it was very well presented. My started was a Welsh Rarebit served in a flat mushroom with bacon some leaf salad and drizzled with Balsamic vinegar. Tasted excellent. My main was a rather straight forward pan fried rib eye steak with roasted tomato, flat mushroom and home made chips. Again it was excellent. It was just as I had pictured, and the taste was spot on. The chips were especially good. “Triple cooked” I was told. My wife had the gnocci with an olive, tomato and pepper sauce served (rather oddly) with tagliatelle. I say oddly, as I always remember being told by my Italian friend that you’d tend to have gnocci or pasta - but normally not both. The gnocci turned out not to be the classic gnocci you’d expect to get at an Italian restaurant - which may be why it’s OK to have it with Pasta - it was more like potato croquette. Pretty tasty though. The dish’s ingredients mixed well together and the dish tasted really good.
So, to summarise - good food, friendly staff but a bit dissorganised. Will I go again? If I’m back in the area, certainly yes!