THE menu at the Bull & Ram in Ballynahinch is pushing its luck. Just as every other post on Twitter or Facebook can't wait to tell you how 'hilarious' whatever mildly amusing story or picture it wants you to look at is, so the Bull & Ram finds place for a couple of adjectives a strong willed free-thinker like myself can't help but bridle at.
The French onion soup is made with 'good' beef stock.
Says who?
The beef dripping battered fish and marrowfat peas are served with 'proper' tartare sauce.
Really? I’ll be the judge of that.
And what about the tartare sauce that comes with the whitebait? It doesn’t get called 'proper'. Is there something wrong with it?
Well no, there’s not. It’s fabulous. And so is the whitebait. And so is everything else at the Bull & Ram.
The menu can play fast and loose with adjectives all it wants, as long as they’re of the superlative variety.
Housed in a grade one listed former butcher’s, complete with checkerboard floor, original tiles and oak ceiling, the Bull & Ram’s food could easily be overwhelmed by the surroundings.
That it doesn’t come close despite the evocative setting – a rail from which carcasses would have hung runs around the walls – is a tribute to the produce and what’s been done with it.
The whitebait comes in a perfectly crisp batter, which first crunches then gives way to melting fish within, and everything is set off by that tartare sauce.
Proper, indeed.
A special starter of corned beef, mixed with bone marrow, mustard and gherkins and served with sourdough soldiers, pulls together all the flavours you’d expect in the best sort of New York deli sandwich.
Sweetness and crunch is provided by a slaw of onion, carrot and cabbage.
If the Bull & Ram quit now, it would be miles ahead. Thankfully it doesn’t.
The centrepiece of the main course menu is the selection of steaks from the multi-award-winning Hannan Meats in Moira. All have been dry-aged in a Himalayan salt chamber for 28 or 40 days.
The end result makes you wonder if it’s maybe worth a few weeks in there yourself.
The 40-day aged rump is spectacular. If cauliflower is nothing but 'cabbage with a college education', as Mark Twain put it, this rump is a fillet with a Nobel Prize in physics.
Possessing a depth of flavour the pricier cut can’t come near, whatever has been done to it between field and plate has turned it into a tender cobblestone of “oh my God, you have to taste this”.
It’s perfectly cooked and rested and juicy enough to make a sauce redundant, but comes with a boat of bone marrow gravy that could only be improved with the addition of a straw.
Beef dripping chips complete as satisfying a plate of food as you could imagine.
So much for the bull, what about the ram?
Three Mourne lamb chops come with a pungent mint sauce that, combined with the golden, crisp fat cut from the bones does everything a mouthful of food should.
And that’s just the fat.
The pink meat is sweet and every bit as sure of itself as the steak. There’s also a baked sweet potato with chilli creme fraiche that, when mashed together, forms an earthy, sweet, rich, warming bowl that could have passed for a vegetarian option all by itself.
Buttered kale and tenderstem broccoli keep both bull and ram very good company.
An amaretto panna cotta arrives in a glass, meaning there’s no opportunity for a self-satisfied shuffle of the plate to determine its level of wobble.
One taste reveals that level to be spot-on. Candied pistachios and nut crumble add texture and sweetness to balance the sour cherries, all sitting on the perfectly set cream.
The white chocolate creme brulee looks like it could have the poor old panna cotta for breakfast – no-one will come away from here complaining about portions – but it passes both quantitative and qualitative analysis.
A ball of raspberry sorbet balances on the shard of burnt sugar above the custard and, when everything combines, it tastes like raspberry ripple that’s been in the dessert equivalent of that Himalayan salt chamber.
As for that 'good' beef stock in the onion soup, I’ll have to take the Bull & Ram’s word for it.
But, going by everything else, I doubt 'good' is anywhere near good enough to describe it.
THE BILL
Whitebait £4
Corned beef £5
40-day aged rump steak £18.95
Lamb chops £19.95
Buttered greens £3.50
Panna cotta £5.50
Creme brulee £5.50
Espresso x 2 £3.50
Sparkling water £3.50
Total £69.40
Bull & Ram,
1 Dromore Street,
Ballynahinch,
Co Down
BT24 8AG
028 97560 908
