A bright sunny day in Stratford and we wanted to eat a light lunch outside, so we spotted that The White Swan was offering a range of salads, on their outside billboard and there was a table free in a bright sun drenched position. The hotel has recently been renovated to a high standard, but has retained all its many15th Century characteristics. The outside tables are shielded from the busy pavement and roadway and one can sit and watch the world go by and the overseas tourists surging into Shakespeare's town.
You order at the bar and the waitress serves you at the table. I ordered the Chicken Ceasar Salad and my wife the Salad Nicoise supported by two glasses of white wine and sparking water. The food arrived promptly, but to our surprise each dish included an undercooked poached egg hiding in the centre of each dish. So undercooked, that the gluttonous egg white lay like frog spawn in the centre of the plate. A mackerel in my wife's salad was also unexpected, as tuna is the norm in salad nicoise, but nevertheless it was fresh with a tasty flavour, though slightly undercoloured for a pan fried fish. My chicken, anchovises and bacon were firm and juicy. Every component of the meal was well received but the undercooked poached egg undermind each dish. We should have complained at that point, sadly we did not, but tried to scrap the eggs into our servettes and eat on.
My wife's pleasure from her dish was clearly marred by this egg 'feature'. Surely, salads call for quartered boiled eggs, not undercooked poached eggs. (Just a tip for the chef - a lttle vinegar added to the boiling water helps to 'set' the white of a poached egg!). For me, it was an experience I would not want to repeat, particulaly when our bill for two salads, two glasses of wine and water was £37.
We mentioned our concerns to the manager on our departure and he apologised, but the chef should know he should not send out to customers such undercooked poached eggs. Neither dish needed a poached egg!
