Riverside Restaurant, Cambridge

Lent term is over and Spring has arrived, so it's time for lunch.

In our research group, it seems to be a tradition to visit the Riverside Restaurant at the end of Lent term for group lunch. Situated in the University Centre, the Riverside serves as the official posh restaurant for the university as a whole.

I imagine that people on official university business would take their guests here, and the place lives up to its billing, with a tasteful and well organised interior combined with picturesque views of the punts on the Cam.

The restaurant serves what they term to be "modern British" cuisine, which is a surprisingly accurate and far more concise description than what I could come up with ("several-courses-involving-small-amounts-of-fancy-food-artistically-displayed-on-large-plates-using-local-ingredients").

Left: Rather tall and skinny glasses ; Top Right: You know you're at a fancy place when... ;
Bottom Right: Olive and raisin bread - addictively sweet and salty.

They offer a seasonal lunch menu with the choice of two courses (£19.45) or three courses and a glass of wine (£23.95), although this wasn't much of a choice as we naturally all went for the full three courses.

Seared scallops, chicory, pomegranate finished with pomegranate reduction.

Winner for the Most Popular Entree award was the seared scallops, expertly browned on top. Whilst the beads of pomegranate and reduction sauce were rather pretty, the consensus from Electric Frye and G'mma was that they were somewhat superfluous. Not quite the plump juicy scallops I had at Midsummer House, but then again you'd pay double there.

Warm salad of pig cheeks, black pudding croutons, roasted apples, cam valley cider reduction.

I went for the warm salad of pig cheeks because I was intrigued by a) pig cheeks, b) black pudding croutons, and c) cam valley cider. OK so that's the whole thing basically. The pig cheeks were meltingly tender, a perfect match with the amazing roasted apples. My favourite part however was the little deep fried cubes of black pudding - whoever came up with the idea deserves a medal.

Goats cheese and red onion tart, toasted walnut and pear compote, mixed cress salad.

Lined with a generous amount of pear compote, the goats cheese tart was met with murmurs of definite approval from FS (I can't think of a pseudonym for you), who was too busy enjoying it to give me any adjectives to work with...

After such fantastic entrees, the mains were no disappointment either!

Sea bream, baked with fennel and tomatoes, tarragon butter sauce.

The sea bream was an excellent lunch main - satisfying but not too heavy. I actually enjoyed the vegetables the most. Check out the char marks on that spring onion!

Roast partridge breast, slow braised leg, partridge and redcurrant stuffing, casserole of baby vegetable.

The most interesting presentation of the day belonged to the roast partridge breast, almost deconstructed, with two parts of the partridge prepared differently, plus the stuffing on the side. Mmm stuffing.
 

Pan fried fillet of beef, chateau potato, buttered kale, parsnip purée, parsnip crisps.

Parsnips are the perhaps the best food thing I have discovered in the UK. Roast parsnips with honey are so good. Anyway, the pan fried fillet of beef doubled down on the parsnip quota, with some seriously awesome looking crisps (damn British and their incessant use of the word crisps) and a puree. G'mma kindly informs me that the green is kale, which is apparently in fashion at the moment.

Vanilla pannacotta, tuile biscuit.

Desserts! YST opts for the pannacotta. Note the mint leaf and chocolate decoration. We'll see that again soon.

Cardamom parfait, brandy snap basket.

When I chose the parfait, I was expecting a layered dessert with cream and other delicious things, so what arrived was a pleasant surprise. The cream/ice-cream thing was strangely delicious - it really was like ice cream but not cold. Bizarre. Plus, you can't go wrong with a brandy snap basket! Note again, mint leaf.

Chocolate and orange torte, cointreau cream.

Did anybody mention mint leaves? Anyway, FS and G'mma won the dessert competition decisively by ordering the chocolate and orange torte. Needless to say I was jealous.
"Like Terry's Chocolate Orange but 100 times better."  Enough said.

Carnage. And it's not even 2pm yet.

We all thoroughly enjoyed our lunch at Riverside, although this may have been because the boss was shouting (not literally), and quite possibly due to the amount of alcohol we demolished.
No smoke and mirrors to be seen here, just good quality food. I think the entrees and mains were a notch above the desserts. All in all, a definite recommendation when feeling like a little splurge!

Riverside Restaurant
University Centre, Granta Place
Mill Lane, Cambridge CB2 1RU
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 337759


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