the Goods Shed lunchtime menu on 14th Feb 2012

I had lunch in Paris recently, in a fantastic restaurant, Terminus Nord, just across the road from the Gare du Nord. It occured to me that you would not find such a great eaterie so close to any major railway terminus in London. Well that may or may not be true, but there is an equally wonderful, but very different, restaurant right next to Canterbury West railway station.

The Goods Shed is a kind of fixed, indoor farmers’ market with a restaurant. There’s a huge variety of amazing produce on sale: meat, fish, cheese, vegetables, an extraordinary selection of bottled and kegged beer and cider, cakes as well as a cafe and ready-made food to take away and eat at home.

The restaurant sits around the outside of the shed on a raised platform. The atmosphere is informal and the food is amazing.

Eldest son had slow-roasted pork with marmalade sauce (£14.50). This photo really doesn’t do it justice – it was a BIG piece of meat. The pork just melted in the mouth and the crackling was perfect: crispy on top, without a hint of being burnt, and utterly melty underneath. The mashed potatoes and curly kale were perfect with it.

I had duck breast with roasted pears, hibiscus sauce… and some kind of mash and curly kale. At £16 this was the most expensive dish we had, and I was a bit disappointed with it. If you got each ingredient on your fork at the same time, it was lovely, but the duck on its own didn’t taste of anything very special to me.

My daughter had chicken – it was a leg, and being a leg they were unable to split it for a child portion. But what chicken! This was easily the best chicken I have ever had. It was cooked utterly perfectly – the source produce, seasoning and cooking process were all top-notch. And, like the pork, there was a lot of meat on the plate here. Superb.

There was also a very tasty, generously-portioned vegetarian platter on offer. I’m sure the puddings are amazing, but we were vanquished by the genorosity of the portions… and we thought we probably ought to visit the Cathedral, which was (ostensibly) the main purpose of our visit to Canterbury in the first place.

A very filling one course lunch for 2 adults and 3 children (two of whom had adult portions) came to £77.40 including one local ale and five soft drinks.

Thoroughly recommended – we’ll be back. And thank you to @ginandting for suggesting it.

Web site: http://thegoodsshed.co.uk/restaurant/
Closed Mondays!

I rounded off the day by watching one of my favourite films: Powell and Pressburger’s 1944 masterpiece A Canterbury Tale.