The Crown dishes up divine dessert

Having driven by the Crown Hotel in Bawtry countless times, I decided it was long overdue a visit.

On walking in we were instantly greeted by a polite waitress who took us to our table and gave us our menus.

The restaurant was cosy and despite being the only diners there, given that it was 6.30pm on a Tuesday, we didn’t feel like we were in an empty restaurant.

As we perused the menu a group of diners celebrating a birthday arrived and another couple of couples were seated.

There was a good selection of dishes on offer. Starters ranged from soup of the day at £4.95 to beer battered mushrooms at £6.95 and baked Camembert at £8.95.

But I couldn’t tempt myself away from one of the sharing platters. We went for the Asian platter at £14.95 which included tempura king prawns, Thai fishcake, Malaysian chicken, duck spring roll, chickpea and spinach samosa and chilli squid.

Everything on the platter was tasty. The batter on the prawns was crispy, the squid perfectly cooked and the Thai fishcake was creamy and mildly spiced.

But for £14.95 the portion of some items could have been more generous. Half a fishcake each was ample, but there was just one spring roll halved and only two prawns and four small pieces of squid.

While we were eating the attentive waitresses checked our food was OK and made sure we didn’t run out of drinks. After a reassuring wait, signalling that everything is freshly cooked to order, our mains arrived.

Again there were plenty of options including a selection of salads at £11.50, pastas at £14.95 and meat and fish dishes starting at £12.95.

I went for medallions of beef, with parsley mash and a wild mushroom and marsala sauce at £18.95, while my husband chose the crab linguine at £14.95.

When it arrived I was surprised by the size of the portions - maybe this is why the starters are kept on the small side.

The three medallions of beef were served on a generous pile of creamy mashed potato. I asked for my beef medium and it was cooked perfectly.

Martin’s pasta was a generous portion with plenty of crab meat. But there didn’t seem to be much of the chive and lemon butter so it was a little dry.

Despite being quite full we decided we had just enough room to share a dessert. We opted for the caramel bramley apple cheesecake served with toffee chunk ice cream and it was to die for.

The Crown certainly lived up to my expectations and the standard you would expect from a four star hotel.

Claire O’Neill

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