The Lost Lamb - Reviewed by Dinertec, May 14, 2015

Rating: 4/5

  • 6-12 Langlands Road
  • Auldhouse
  • G75 9DW

Driving around country roads in the middle of grassy fields in search of clues on a case, I got the question no gumshoe likes to hear. ‘You’re lost, aren’t you, Tec?’ Yes, my beloved was in the car to keep me company again, and the dame’s no navigator.

I wasn’t going to admit it, but I was a tad confused. It was all pretty rural. The Buick crawled on. Was that a settlement up ahead? A tiny hamlet, barely even a village. But maybe someone could help us back to civilisation. And it looked like it had a pub... my luck had changed.

Soon enough we saw the sign proclaiming it the Lost Lamb. I locked eyes with Blondie, but for once she opted for a tactful silence. ‘Come on, Toots’, I said, relieved. We’ll see if they can do us some food and tell us where we are.”

I’d have settled for a beer and some chips but once we were through the door it was obvious this was no spit and sawdust joint. The Auldhouse Inn was a charming pub, but the Lost Lamb was its separate restaurant and it looked very welcoming, in a traditional, unfancy way. What the heck, we decided to go for it.

We were shown to a table and ordered a couple of drinks and took a look at the menu. Someone had been thinking outside the box. To start, I looked at the specials and went for the prawn and crayfish salad. Toots went for the black pudding and apple. For mains, there were a lot of pub grub staples, but I homed in on the slow-cooked ham with mash and buttered cabbage and the Moll got pretty excited about roe deer with parsnips and a red wine jus. Not your everyday fare, for sure.

“What a find, Tec” the little lady enthused and I don’t think she was being funny. I still wasn’t sure how we were going to wend our way home.

When the food arrived, it was obvious we really had found a gem. My crayfish salad was rich yet light and perfectly dressed. The Moll’s back pudding was “sublime” she raved, full of flavour.

My two rich slabs of Ramsay’s of Carluke ham came with a melting stack of buttery mash and some bright green ribbons of cabbage, cooked al dente. It could have been a little bit school dinners, but was a triumph of good local ingredients cooked simply and was delicious.

The deer was an earthy, lightly gamey treat, dark meat and jus offset by herbs and the sweetness of the parsnips, and the Moll went very quiet as she hoovered it up.

The country air had given us an appetite and we still had room for dessert. Blondie said the clootie dumpling was rich and fruity, with custard to die for.  She said it reminded her of steamed puddings at her granny’s when they boiled for so long the wallpaper started to peel off in the kitchen, and she can have offered no higher compliment. My puff candy meringue was, no surprise, very sweet but a real original, and a very decent coffee helped balance it out.

Time to hit the road again, but the bill was no nasty surprise. I’d say once we get a satnav for the Tecmobile, we’ll be trying our best to find the Lost Lamb again.