A couple of places in Lymington

It's B's uncle E's 94th birthday so something special had to be planned. We had a recommendation from local wine club friends to try Elderflower, a Michelin-starred place down near the front in Lymington. They only do tasting menus (4,5 or 7 courses) which led to some heart-searching as E and son-in-law B like a nice steak. But it was duly booked and we arrived expectanlty.

The table is booked for 6.30pm - apparently only this time and 9.30pm were on offer. Which seems odd, as people did drift in over the course of the evening.  When we arrived there was only one other table occupied, but the restaurant was nearly full by the time we left.   We are shown to a nice table for 6 in the window, and feel a good welcoming vibe.

We order a bottle of French Viognier (£40), a glass of rosé and some sparkling water. We have settled on the 5-course menu at £75 a head.  Prior to the courses themselves, we are served with bread and a salmon butter, which is lovely. 

The first course arrives quite quickly - crab and potato mousse topped with caviar nestling in a Jersey Royal. The crab flavour comes through well, not dulled by the potato. Oddly our waiters are wearing gloves, not something I've seen before.

Next up is pea mousse and ham. That description doesn't really capture it. The pea mousse is squiggles across the plate, with a few peas thrown in. The ham, only small pieces, is strongly smoked with a good flavour.  A smallish course.

The fish course is unusual - skate cheeks. It comes with brown shrimps in a lovely lobster velouté. Skate cheeks were new on me, but they had plenty of flavour and not the challenge of an oversized wing that you often get. 

For the meat course, there is Black Sheep lamb - a goodly sized portion. Served in a rich wine sauce, with some potato and spinach. Mine is slightly on the tough side, but everyone else really enjoys theirs.

Finally there is a trio of desserts. There is a blueberry sorbet, melting in the heat, a strawberry mousse with a very tasty wrapping, and a rather complicated assembly of chocolate mousse and pieces. 

Throughout, the service has been excellent - friendly and informative. And the whole thing was well-paced, neither rushed nor leaving you waiting. We had three bottles of the Viognier and a Vega Douro (also £40) to go with the lamb, so with coffee and water the drinks come to £220 between 6 of us including service

The steak eaters seemed satisfied, and the rest of us were really pleased.

The following day after cruising the market, B and I have lunch at Koh Thai on the High Street. It's a lovely sunny day, so we sit outside in the garden. There's no-one else there when we arrive but soon after two ladies arrive - choosing for some reason to sit at the nearest table to us. 

It's an intriguing menu, so we have some steamed edamame beans while we make our choice. A £26 False Bay SA Chenin goes well. 

In the end we go for 5 starters and one noodle dish, served in two waves. First we had "Thai-namite" battered prawns in a Sriracha mayonnaise - nothing like as spicy as implied, but good prawns. With that came duck rolls, which were excellent - crispy wrapping stuffed full of shredded duck served with Hoisin dipping sauce (which it didn't really need). The third was the crispy beef. I fall for this every time and it is always disappointing, a bit claggy and tough. 

The noodles were spicy seafood udon - prawns and squid. Lovely sauce, good prawns, chewy squid. Some good prawn dim sum and minced chicken in lettuce leaf wraps came with that.  

We had substantially over-ordered, but they were happy enough to decant the remainder into take-away boxes.  The lonely waiter was good enough with the service, if rather distant. Total £123 with two bottles and just 10% service.