Maxine Gordon heads into the country for a posh Sunday lunch.

IT'S hard to beat Sunday dinner - those tender slices of meat smothered in thick, salty gravy, a giant Yorkshire pudding, crisp roast potatoes and enough veg to fill you up until teatime on Tuesday.

But I've found a worthy rival.

At the newly-opened Blackwell Ox Inn at Sutton-on-the-Forest, the Sunday lunch menu is worth the eight-mile drive out of York. In fact, it would be worth walking the eight miles out of York for.

Taste buds at attention? Well saviour this...

For starters the pub's menu boasts crispy duck leg with fennel and orange salad or poached eggs or Serrano ham on toast with Hollandaise sauce; for mains, confit of bacon with sherry lentils and vanilla apple salad or cod baked with chorizo, tomato and garlic; for puds, baked vanilla cheesecake with blueberry sauce or pear and ginger steamed sponge pudding with custard.

Go get yourself a hanky... because there is more drooling to come: I haven't told you what it all tasted like yet.

For the more traditional diner, Sunday lunch staples are also available. Last Sunday, the choice was roast leg of lamb or roast sirloin of beef.

Each menu item is priced individually or you can opt for a two-course lunch for £11.50 or three courses for £14.50, which is good value.

First things first. When we arrive at the pub which opened six weeks ago we ordered drinks in the smart bar area and studied the menu.

There were four in my party - including my husband Nick, our daughter Eva, two, and our friend Vanessa. As soon as the waitress clocked Eva, she asked if we would like a high chair then disappeared to set one up at our table.

After drinks, we were shown next door into a cosy dining room with about half a dozen tables. Next door was another small dining room. The dcor struck the right balance between cosy and formal, with the cream and wine-coloured interior set against the stark white linen table settings.

We agreed to give the menu a good working over and chose a selection of dishes.

Eva had the soup of the day - leek and potato with poached smoked haddock (£3.50) - which was thick, creamy and had a lovely salty-oakiness from the fish, although I would have liked more haddock in the broth.

Nick had the poached eggs with Serrano ham and Hollandaise sauce and declared it faultless. My praise was equally high for the crispy duck leg with fennel and orange. The meat was fall-off-the bone perfect and the crispy skin impossible to resist. I'm not a fan of fennel, but its strong aniseed flavour had been mellowed by the orange of the salad.

By contrast Vanessa felt a little short changed by her Caesar salad with crispy bacon - not that there was anything wrong with it, it just seemed so ordinary when compared to our knock-out choices.

Never mind, revenge was hers in the next round. Nick and I had plumped for roast dinners - beef for Nick, lamb for me, while Vanessa picked the confit of bacon with lentils. And what a good choice it was. So good, in fact, I was cross with myself for not bagging it first.

The lentils were small and nutty and beautifully sweetened by the sherry, a theme enhanced by the thin crisps of apples flavoured with vanilla. They were the perfect base for the salty thick bacon chops which adorned the dish. Absolutely brilliant.

It was hard to fault our roast dinners, which featured tender meat - and plenty of it - with a lovely Yorkshire and crisp and crunchy veggies, but it all seemed a bit pedestrian compared to the flourish of flavours on Vanessa's plate.

Our puddings were winners too. We tried the lemon meringue roulade with raspberry sorbet (a creamy concoction with a zesty tang); the milk chocolate brule (thick and near mousse-like and not too sweet) and the pear and ginger sponge pudding (which would have benefited from a bit more ginger and a lots more custard - however a request to staff resulted in an extra jug of the creamy stuff being delivered).

Our waitress told us that the Blackwell Ox is already building up a reputation and a regular clientele, so booking is recommended. She also told us the menus change often, sometimes daily. But the most intriguing thing she told us was that the two men in charge of the kitchen have recently departed from Melton's, arguably the best restaurant in York.

So that explains why the Blackwell Ox is charging ahead only weeks after opening.

Blackwell Ox Inn. Huby Road, Sutton-on-the-Forest

Telephone: 01347 810328

Food: delicious

Service: friendly

Value: good

Ambience: posh pub

Disabled access: Yes

Maxine visited on Sunday, April 24, 2005

Updated: 09:05 Saturday, April 30, 2005