Preston Marriot Great British Steak Off

Last night saw us visiting the Preston Marriott Hotel for the launch of their #steakoff nights. On the press launch evening the competition steaks hailed from the USA (Creekstone Farms Natural black angus beef) and from the much more local Ribble Valley, Lancashire (Manor Farm, Hurst Green), chef carefully prepared some mighty hunks of meat for the awaiting guests to taste test and from which to make your choice.

We had a choice of a tomahawk, t bone, fillet, sirloin and rib eye cuts from both countries to choose our chosen favourite steak from. With some trepidation both Mr LF and myself plumped for origin B - sirloin, hoping that we had chosen the Lancashire Beef (fingers crossed) as we much preferred its meaty beefy flavour.

Chef Paul Mitchell  and his team then prepared our steak dinners to our specific order in terms of origin, cut and cooking level.

                                                           

The dining area in the hotel is sumptuously appointed and the steaks even more so, our steaks were served with fabulous double cooked chips, watercress, Bearnaise sauce and mammoth onion rings, as we awaited the results of what countries steak we had chosen. For those of you with mammoth appetites the tomahawk as pictured below would satisfy you and probably Fred Flintstone as well !

Photo kindly provided by Foody Phil

We were finally put out of our misery - yeah we had chosen the Ribble Valley steaks - talk about relieved as I wasn't sure how I would of coped if I had chosen the American version, which were also good but as you all know we are very big on local produce here at Lancashire Food.

You too can book an evening where chef will prepare steaks from different origins for you to taste

test before ordering your steak dinner for the evening, I am lead to believe it likely to be Yorkshire versus Lancashire for the first public steak off, launching on the 15th November. Prices start at £15.95 for a steak dinner with a tasting expereince and for you lucky readers we also have a discount of 10% if you book and quote SO1 at the time of booking.

I am sure the evenings are going to be very popular and you can book your steak off by contacting the Marriott directly.

Hollands new Steak and Guinness Pie

Hollands Pies sent us a few samples of their recently launched Steak and Guinness pie for taste testing. Frankly I'd forgotten they were on their way but hey ho...., Mr LF was put in charge of tasting given that they contain pastry and beer, two things that are off the menu for me now that I'm gluten free.

Initial impressions were good, the pictures on the box of a juicy well packed pie with a rich dark gravy all contained in Hollands trademark pastry looked tempting.

Hollands have been making pies for 160 years and this new introduction to their range retails for around the £2 mark and is available through Tesco and other retailers.

On opening the box Mr LF was a little disappointed as the pie definitely wasn't as tall as the one pictured on the box, for the purposes of taste testing the pie was cooked both in the oven and in the microwave following the instructions on the box. In both cases the flavour of the filling was good, the gravy rich with only a slight hint of the classic Guinness flavour. The pie did contain chunks of steak but also some shredded steak as well with a good quantity of gravy. The oven baked pie's pastry was crispy and crumbly and was the much preferred pie by Mr LF, but the one microwaved was soggy and a little rubbery.

Overall this is not a bad addition to the Hollands range but definitely not a rival to the classic Potato and meat pie.

Disclaimer
The pies where supplied on a complimentary basis by Hollands for review and testing purposes, any opinions expressed are my own.