If you’re down in North Devon this weekend then a visit to the Hunters Inn might be a pleasant chore, you can see my review of it in today’s Daily Telegraph. The picture was taken during its recent beer festival where amongst its offerings, including Rudgate Mild, I was surprised and pleased to see Punk IPA. Now I’m off to the Conwy Feast, where there’s a beer tent featuring the likes of Great Orme Brewery and Purple Moose (whose beers always seem to impress).
My only visit to the Hunters Inn was more than twenty years ago when I had a ploughman's which bizarrely was presented with grated cheese!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it's better now.
I have to say I like your pub reviews in the Telegraph as they put across what places are like as pubs rather than (as some others do) concentrating on the food and leaving everything else to an afterthought.
Cheers Curmudgeon — it’s nice to be appreciated.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of a Ploughmans with grated cheese reminds me of a hotel/pub in Carlisle I stayed in many years ago. I was doing something for the then BBC Travel magazine (the Des Lynam page of walks, I was Des and doing Hadrian’s wall). The local tourist board had booked me into this market place hotel which thought that I was also doing a report on them — just as well really, when they offered me a cheese sauce with the salad…
Worth mentioning this post about pubs that completely fail to get the idea of dishes they are serving. A cheeseburger with a heap of grated cheese is on a par with a ploughman's, really.
ReplyDeleteGood post, it’s depressing isn’t it? It’s not rocket science to get things right in pub food, but quite a few landlords (and ladies) get it wrong — when we are out and about and want to eat my wife tends to go for the Good Pub Guide and if I am driving (as I normally am) it doesn’t really matter apart from a few considerations (reserved signs on tables, and the menu description that includes pan-fried, does anyone ever say pot-boiled broccoli?). She got a rude awakening when we were first going out (how innocent that all sounds) and I took her for lunch to a GBG pub in Dorset — Christ it was grim and the food was inedible but the beer was lovely…I was driving though…
ReplyDelete