IN the early 1980s the future Mrs Hirst and I ventured out on our very first date.
It’s one we’ll never forget as I turned up on a motorbike while she was expecting a car. Any car. Anything but a motorbike. The lilac skirt and thin white cardigan didn’t quite sit well with the Kawasaki Z550 and it was the first and last time she went on it.
But on that very first outing we went to the Golden Fleece at Blackley – and I don’t think we’d been there since.
At that time it seemed to be predominantly just a drinking pub.
If memory serves me right, which it may not, crisps were the only sustenance or pork scratchings if you were really hungry and the owner – a chatty bloke with curly hair, large glasses and seemingly a perma tan – called coca-cola cokey wokeys.
My, how times have changed.
The pub now has a website, a menu and is co-run by Kristiane Haigh and chef Daniel Knapton.
For us it was like going back in time. The big difference was my biking days ended coincidentally in the early 1980s so we arrived ‘en voiture’ as they say in France.
The Fleece is still white on the outside and tucked away down a back road at Blackley below the M62 and just before Blackley Cricket Club.
Time and memory always plays tricks and it’s smaller inside than we remembered.
It now has square wooden dining tables in the main lounge and it must have been a coaching inn a long time ago.
The reason for deducing this? Not exactly Poirot-style skills of deduction. Parts of the coach seem to be stuck on the ceilings and walls in the shape of large rounds wooden wheels and coaching lamps.
It retains its oldy worldy feel with brass fireplace, red upholstered seats and old photographs of Elland 100-plus years ago dotted around the walls – including a dramatic one of an overturned tram.
There were dainty red glass tealight holders on the tables but the candles had burned down and none were lit. Shame that as the little things like this can make a big difference.
There’s also a spill-over lounge in another room with just three tables in it and heavily artexed walls to give it an oldy worldy 70s feel.
The Golden Fleece remains popular – certainly as a meeting place with several customers in when we arrived shortly before 9pm on a Tuesday night.
The kitchen was due to shut at 9pm but they could sort us out with a meal, no problem.
So to the menu, serving the kind of food you’d expect in a pub not short on history.
Although what’s this? Homemade nachos (£4.50). OK, we’ll give them a go. Turns out these are deep fried to give a texture that’s a not-so distant relative to Indian puri. I’d prefer crispy as opposed to deep-fried but I guess there’s a lot out there who wouldn’t.
We asked for more toppings halfway through and they quickly arrived in their own little dishes.
My creamy garlic mushrooms (£3.95) were just that. Fresh mushrooms swimming – no, make that drowning – in a sea of sauce.
Plenty for the French bread to mop up and you’ll also need a spoon for this saucy fellow.
Feeling hungry? Then go for the sharing platter for up to four people featuring the nachos, cheesy garlic bread, pate and toast and beer battered onion rings served with salad garnish.
Mains were gammon with egg for Ruth – a thin gammon with salad, peas and chunky chips that had been built into a kind of dry stone wall folly effect. That was the only thing dry about it as the meat was tender and moist.
My crispy belly pork was a robust piece of meat with the promised crackling on a bed of mash with apple.
Now that’s how to do mash – add something in to give it a twist. Spring onions aren’t bad either.
The vegetables – carrots, green beans and broccoli – were crispy too. It was a big dish to satisfy the heartiest of appetites.
For vegetarians there is a five bean chilli (£7.25), a mushroom lasagne (£7.50) or a cheese and broccoli bake (£7.50).
Only the bravest would surely go for the biggest dish on the menu, a mega mixed grill (£12.95) featuring sirloin steak, gammon, lamb cutlet, pork chop, black pudding, Lincolnshire sausage all served with chunky chips, beer battered onion rings, grilled tomato, mushrooms, fried egg, garden peas and salad garnish.
Pie lovers might find themselves drawn like a moth to a flame to the chef’s homemade steak, Black Sheep bitter and mushroom pie served with either chunky chips, mashed or new potatoes, vegetables and a gravy boat (£7.95). Now that’s pushing the boat out.
Feeling the need for something spicy? Then there’s chicken tikka masala (£7.50).
Thursday is steak night with two sirloin or rump steaks and a bottle of wine for £22.95 while Friday is fish night with two giant beer-battered fish and a bottle of wine for £19.95.
We toyed with the idea of the toblerone and almond tart for pudding but, in the end, couldn’t have it anyway as it was 10pm and the chef had finished.
Golden Fleece
Lindley Road, Blackley, Elland, HX5 0TE
Tel - 01422 372704
Website - www.goldenfleeceblackley.co.uk
Opening hours - Food served Tuesday to Friday 12-2pm and 5-9pm. Saturdays 12-9pm and Sundays 12-8pm. Closed Mondays.
Disabled access - One step but no disabled toilet
The bill - £33.25
Would you go back? - Yes
