Father's Day featuring The White Lion, Brinsley and Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake

Not exactly breakfast in bed...

Father's Day in our house began with a big cup of coffee (in a Hedwig mug!) and presents. Typical Dad presents of some beer and chocolate, a Brita" Fill&Go" to avoid having to buy so much bottled water and my best find a bottle of triple filtered Auchentoshan, not the McMurray David version from Tony's 40th but a close contender.

Big tea, little Guinness

I had planned breakfast in bed, but Tony had other ideas, so I set about knocking up Nigella's Chocolate Guinness cake, you can find the recipe here. It's one of those strange cake recipes with lots of bicarbonate of soda, that you have to pour into the tin.

Dinner was going to be at The White Lion, Brinsley but not until after 3pm, so we did eventually have a Father's Day breakfast of fried eggs, sauteed mushrooms and grilled bacon on multi-grain toast (lovely freshly baked bread from Lidl would you believe and for only 79p), all washed down with a cup of tea and a small glass of left over Guinness.

By the time breakfast was over, the kitchen was smelling deliciously chocolatey and the cake was ready to come out, cool and be frosted, so that it looked like a strange pint of Guinness itself.

I wished my dad "Happy Father's Day" over Skype, taunted him with his presents which he will have to wait 12 weeks for.

Tony's dad arrived with his mum and we all went off to the White Lion. If you follow the blog you will know that we have previously been regular visitors and big fans of the food whether it be for Sunday dinner or Seafood nights, however in February it closed following a staffing shortage leaving us in a quandary, our favourite haunt gone? Good news came mid-May when we heard they were re-opening with a new chef. We've been for a couple of bar snacks since things started to get back to normal, steak ciabatta and White Lion Burgers, nice food, the fat chips are still great, the French fries not so good (on the day we went), burger still tasty - onion rings - greasy and not crisp, steak ciabatta - all the elements there but steak just a bit over and no longer £5 per "snack" but £6.95.

We were curious though to know what the dinners were like now, so we booked in for today.

We didn't have a starter, but there was Soup of the Day (£4.25) which was Mediterranean Vegetable, I usually find soup too filling before a dinner. Smoked Salmon Roulade (£5.25) My mother-in-law fancied this but decided against when no one else was having a starter, I'm not a big fan of smoked salmon or I might have been tempted, although I do think of roulade as party food. Mini breakfast (£5.25) - if we'd not had a cooked breakfast I probably would have gone for this - a ring of toast  with black pudding, sausage, bacon and the bit I was really intrigued by - a deep fried sage poached egg. I didn't see any starters go past so I can't really say what they were like, but I did hanker for some deep fried Brie with cranberry or a chorizo scotch egg or a duck salad and Tony and Lauren really missed some scallops.

The main dinners were all priced at £8.95 as they had been before the change with a choice of  Pork Loin or Roasted topside of beef. The other choice was a 10oz ribeye steak £17.50 which seemed like a lot of money for steak, chips, tomato, mushrooms and onion rings at double the cost of a roast dinner. There was no vegetarian choice listed on the menu which was unusual, but maybe you could have requested something. We all went for beef, except Tony who got seduced by some crackling when a plate of pork went past, but he made sure he got a Yorkshire Pudding too.

Roasted topside of beef, served pink or cooked through, homemade Yorkshire puddings and horseradish sauce £8.95 

The beef was good, again not quite as melt in the mouth as the old 24 hour roasted Selston beef, but still very tender and tasty. The gravy was delicious and it was a shame that I didn't manage to mop it all up. The Yorkshire Pudding was good, not too brown, nice and high, not too crispy, nice and puddingy. The meat of which there was plenty was served on top of the vegetables, the roast potatoes weren't crispy, they tasted great though as if they had been cooked in the juices, there was some cauliflower cheese, some roasted root vegetables, a little broccoli and some cabbage which had an almost celery like taste. Personally, and I believe the consensus around the table was that less meat and more veg would have been perfect, previously we have had steaming bowls of fresh greens which I loved and really missed and we all missed a dollop of White Lion mash, Lauren especially who last year broke the news that it was the "best mash ever, even better than yours".

Pork loin, served with home made apple and thyme compote £8.95

Tony was the only one to have the pork, he too commented on the gravy being really deep in flavour, he wanted more veg, although he was happy with his pile of meat. The crackling wasn't quite crackled and he said the pork was a little dry - but loin is prone to that as it is a leaner cut. He really liked his cauliflower cheese. He said he would have preferred his veg to the side rather than underneath everything as his roast potatoes weren't crisp.

Don't misunderstand though - it was a really nice dinner and it was really good value for £8.95 as we were all stuffed, it was just different from how it used to be, which we expected as there is a new chef and we will need to put the "used to be" to the back of our minds. I'm certain we will go back again for Sunday dinner and will be interested to see if they revive Seafood night or their popular Man vs Food nights.

Only one of us had a pudding, my mother-in-law really wanted to try the Strawberry Creme Brulee, I think the puddings were all around £5, there was also a toffee apple crumble with custard, a white chocolate cheesecake with ice cream, a marbled chocolate brownie, lots of people around us were having puddings and there were lots of clean plates. As for the strawberry creme brulee, it got a thumbs up, it was rich and creamy, with a crunchy top, full of strawberry flavour and served with two delicious shortbread biscuits.

Strawberry creme brulee

Thankfully we had a walk home and a chat before tackling a coffee with the Chocolate Guinness Cake. The cake itself mostly gets it's colour rather than it's taste from the Guinness, it was beautifully moist, really good texture, there was not much taste from the bicarb maybe a hint in the crust, the frosting tasted nice but I would have preferred it thicker and would leave out the cream if I made it again, also it lacked a depth of flavour, it wasn't chocolatey enough for me or Tony though there were no other complaints and if you read the reviews for the cake on the recipe website you will see we are alone in our opinion!

I think there's probably quite a lot you could try with the recipe like swapping the Guinness for some chocolate stout, adding some fruit and nuts and chocolate drops, changing the frosting to a chocolate one, although then you will loose that "pint of Guinness" look.

Would be interested to see what you think and what you try.

Anyway, Father's Day is drawing to a close for me, it's getting late and an early start tomorrow, however Tony looks settled in to the golf for the second night running, he's allowed though - it's his day.

The presents