Seafood specials
The St John’s Chop House, like its sister on King’s Parade, is justly famed for its meats, including its sausages made on the premises and its suet puddings. It also does pretty good game dishes, including venison. This time, however, I ordered two of the specials, both seafood dishes.
First were the scallops, big juicy ones sitting on little squares of black pudding alongside a pea purée. Delicious, as ever. I don’t recall seeing lobster there before, but on the board there was a half lobster, which I ordered. It came with new potatoes and crunchy string beans. Again, superb. My dining companion from the US surprised me by ordering sweetbreads followed by steak and wild mushroom suet pudding. I haven’t met many Americans who take to offal, yet sweetbreads are usually from the animal’s pancreas or thymus, and suet is the fat from around the animals kidneys. With my seafood I drank Makuto, New Zealand sauvignon blanc, the ideal wine for it.