THE CLIVE bar & restaurant with rooms
Verdict: 7/10 (Fine, but maybe not that special)
I visited this restaurant with a friend on 27 March 2008, when we went to Ludlow. I got to know about this place through a review that I read either on newspaper or magazine, and I saved their website on delicious for an occasion like that.
It is situated in a village called Bromfield, 2 miles north west of Ludlow. If you are starting from Ludlow, you will see this signage on the right side of the road. It is just next to the Ludlow Food Centre where we visited afterwards.
This is the building. As you can tell from the name, it is not only a restaurant with bar, but is also a cozy 15-room hotel.
The name comes from the fact that this area was once owned by Robert Clive of India.
The website states that the building is a converted farmhouse, but it looks pretty new; probably it was redecorated substantially.
We arrived at around 1:45 of Thursday afternoon, and the place was about 80% full. It was probably due to its popularity and, also because many people were still in Easter vacation at that time.
As it was busy, it took sometime that we were asked our order. It looked that only a woman who seemed to be the manager could take orders, and we needed to wait for her (it is also possible that, even if we could order earlier, the kitchen could not cope anyway). As we had a rather substantial tea & cake break at the Olive Branch in Ludlow, we were not very hungry, and we decided to have only the main course.
Then, another rather long wait followed, but when finally dishes arrived, they looked appetizing and generous in portion size. This is Conwy mussels steamed in coconut milk, lemongrass and coriander sauce (£ 9.95). If you think of mussels flavoured with Thai green curry, it is not so far. Chili and coriander went very well with the shellfish, and I liked the idea. This dish was supposed to be served with home-made bread, which was not brought to us until after my prompt. The waitress must have forgotten about it and she was apologetic. I observed that the same scene was repeated at a table behind us. Probably they had some staff problem.
And the home made bread itself was a let-down, too, being too heavy and dry. It was seeded, beige colour bread, but with mussels, I think the French baguette type bread go better.
This is Sirloin steak of Shropshire beef, served with hand-cut chips, peas, red onion, mushroom and tomato. £12.95 for a sirloin steak is not a bad deal. Our waitress asked us if we wanted mustard, and when my friend said "yes", she asked again if she wanted English or French; which we thought it was a good service.
The chips were declared "hand-cut", but should not have been freshly fried, as the texture had that long-heated, dry characteristic familiar to the chippy chips left for some time under the heating light.
The friend asked the steak to be cooked medium-rare, and it was delivered as she asked. Very good. The meat was tender and flavoursome, good British beef. The steak is so simple a dish that it is difficult to cheat with the quality.
The menu did not say how much the cut weighed, but we thought it was thick and good-sized.
This is the side dish of seasonable veggies we ordered separately (£ 2.75). It was a good idea to order some extra veggies, as the main dishes did not have them enough.
As we spent longer time than we expected, we decided to have coffee later elsewhere. When we asked the bill, the electric supply of the restaurant was off, and we were given a hand-written bill, which is fine, but they missed our side order, and we had to send back to bill for reculculation. The total bill came to £ 25.65, so we left £28.
The food was fine and the portion was good, too, but to be honest, it was not that good to make us feel returning there from Birmingham. The service, although the waitresses were all nice and gentle, was rather clumsy, too. To us Brummies, it was an ok, but not a special experience.
The Clive bar and restaurant with rooms
Bromfield, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 2JR
Tel.: 01584 856565/856665
e-mail: info@theclive.co.uk
