Lamb pie
There’s a lovely walk you can do from Hutton-le-Hole via Spaunton to Lastingham and then back along the edge of the moor, it’s only four miles or a couple of hours and all three villages are lovely. We came back to Lastingham in the evening for dinner at
The Blacksmith’s Arms, an atmospheric little inn tucked in a fold of the landscape with the village church and a scatter of grey stone cottages.
The menu is a lovely looking no-frills mixture of pub classics and more modern twists, and the prices good value. My starter was goat cheese and beetroot arancini. In hindsight I’m not sure why I picked it, as although I like goat cheese and beetroot they seem an odd filling for an arancini. Sure enough, they just sat there as unexpected flavour nuggets in an otherwise pretty dry rice ball fried in a very hefty breadcrumb coating. One large arancini would definitely have been better than the three small ones.
Stroganoff
My main was a piece of minted lamb pie. It was fine. I’ve had much more full-flavoured, melting and lush lamb in other pies, much more zip of mint in the gravy and much more crisp and nutty pastry. So this was just okay. Maureen’s beef stroganoff was also just kinda okay. It was the beef stroganoff of a modest home cook; the beef neither full-flavoured in itself nor seared, just cooked right through and sturdy in the creamy sauce and looking very grey on a bed of rice. Across the table mum had sea bass with a wild garlic risotto… but such a miniscule (if any?) amount of wild garlic in there it was undetectable. Decent chunk of fish though.
So although priced fairly, around £30 for two courses, I can’t honestly say that I’d seek out the Blacksmith’s Arms in Lastingham. But if you happen to want a lunch stop on a nice walk, or you’re staying in the area, it’s not going to do you any harm either.
Country stroll
