Acle: The Hermitage

05 May 2007

I had a feeling that I would end up dining at The Hermitage (a place I've frequented on many occasions) as earlier in the day I was in Yarmouth. The taste of the sea was on my lips and the thought of a good fish supper was most definitely on my mind.

I was in the borough attending the opening of Skin Deep, an exhibition at the excellent nautical Time and Tide Museum (now in its third year of operation) about the history of tattooing. I finished up enjoying coffee and cake in the museum's warm and cosy Silver Darlings café, appropriately named in honour of the borough's past life as the leading East Coast port for the herring fishing industry. If you're not familiar with the term 'silver darlings' it refers to a pair of herring, which was the staple diet for thousands of Norfolk folk in the 19th and early 20th century - the good old days, eh!

I reckon the taste for this fish is slightly out of favour nowadays but in my particular case I love it and for my starter (you've guessed it) that's what I had. And I can honestly say I enjoyed two of the most delicious ones I've ever tasted (at £4.50) and believe me I've had a few in my time! I used to always eat them with the help of a pint of Guinness but nowadays I prefer a good bottle of wine. My dining companion went for a more traditional dish of plaice goujons at £5.50. Lightly battered and crispy, they looked pretty good from the other side of the table and were soon polished off!

But fish is good and plentiful here simply because the boss, Chris Carter (trained in the Escoffier tradition at the posh Grand Hotel De Luxe in Paris) knows what he's about. He lives, dreams and eats it and when he goes on holiday, he even catches it. He's a regular off the coast of Florida, looking for marlin and the like. Big fish for big appetites!

He's also a regular at Lowestoft fish market, eyeing up the catch to bring the best to the table. His table and, of course, that of his customers. And he most certainly brought me the best. I was spot on ordering fillet of halibut for my main course priced at £13.50. It came with a nice selection of steamed vegetables (including red cabbage, I just love it!) and buttered new potatoes. No extras here to be added to your bill, let me tell you. It was pure white, thick and tasty and one felt that it had jumped straight from the sea on to my plate. I won't be far wrong in that assumption either. It was pan-fried and doused in malt whisky giving the dish that extra little bit of flavour aided by a sprinkling of sage and rosemary.

But looking at the menu there were some other dishes I could equally have gone for. Let me tempt you with a few of them. I bet it'll get your taste-buds going. Dover sole (at £17.95) is the most expensive dish of the house, but that's usually the case in any restaurant; pan-fried turbot at £15.50; fillets of wild sea-bass at £14.25 (cooked in brandy and a pepper-cream sauce) and fillets of lemon sole at £15.50 (stuffed with fresh crab and cooked in a white-wine sauce). And I must duly add the trio of well-established favourites: long-shore cod (£9.95), haddock (£9.95) and plaice (£8.25) and make a comment on the wing of skate (at £13.50) which, I think, is superb value, but that can be said of this establishment as a whole. You can have the skate either fried or poached but my advice is to go for the latter and forget the batter. What a poet!

My dining partner went for something a bit more exotic for her main course: a stir-fry dish with an extravagant portion of tiger prawns, priced at £11.95. It was served with rice.

It was difficult to contemplate a dessert after such a hearty meal but eventually the time came and it was a case of having something light to share. That turned out to be a large dish of refreshing pineapple generously soaked in kirsch and served with a couple of dollops of vanilla ice-cream. It proved to be an ideal dish in which to cleanse the palate while a shot of cointreau with ice helped the digestion and coffee and mints finished off another fine repast!

If fish isn't to your liking, don't worry; steaks at the Hermitage come as good as you can get: a fillet is the most expensive at £15.95 followed by sirloin at £14.25 and rib-eye (my favourite) at £13.75. And if you're swanning about at lunchtime, this is as good as any place to call for a spot of lunch. A selection of traditional favourites are on offer including liver and bacon, sausage and mash and home-made lasagna as well as the usual multitude of fish dishes. Say no more!

But what about that exhibition about tattooing... Well, it's worth a visit and its link with the sea and seafarers is down to Captain Cook. His explorations introduced Europeans to the Pacific islanders and one thing they liked about them was how they decorated their bodies through the art of tattooing. Cook's crew soon followed suit, thus starting a trend among sailors all over the world. In fact, the word 'tattoo' is a Polynesian word. The exhibition at Time and Tide (to September 16) also includes portraits of local people revealing their tattoos and the stories behind them. You may know one of them?

Here's to fishermen of the sea everywhere.

Bon appetite!