Restaurant Review

When London broadsheet newspaper food critics are allowed out of the capital they are normally pretty scathing about the places they visit. And what us ordinary folk, who go to nice, expensive restaurants once in a blue moon, always have to bear in mind is that the sorts of places they are scathing about are the sorts of places we go to all the time. And the sorts of places they are nice about are not for the likes of us.

I wonder what they would make of a place we had lunch last week. Possibly they would see it as attempted murder.

On the A40 between Carmarthen and Llandeilo is a pub called The Half Way House. We stopped at it for lunch because it was cold and wet and we were hungry. There are no pubs round here in the Good Pub Guide. Not even in the lucky dip section. We used to think this was because the inspectors were too lazy to come out here.

We chose to stop because it was announced by a large brown sign on the main road. In England a large brown sign usually means historic coaching inn, or charming place worth visiting. Not so in Wales apparently.

There are many half-ways about this place. The first one is that it feels like a crash weld between a 1985 Little Chef and a Wetherspoons in a town where the only industry has closed.

We should have been more observant. In the warmer months it is the guardian at the gates of a caravan park, a place currently devoid of caravans and not even looking very parkish. It's second bit of halfwayness is therefore that it is between being a restaurant and a shop. It has a deli counter although today the cold cabinet held only wax-covered Snowdon cheese. The sort that is quite nice as long as you don't keep it too cold. I expect in the summer you could buy other stuff.

'Table for two?' This is not a normal greeting in a pub. I asked if we could see the menu first. It had a reassuring lunch sandwich menu as well as the à la carte. I am wary of à la cartes in these places as they are normally microwaved straight from a freezer. But it is hard to mess up a simple sandwich so we agreed to sit. We could have had two tables each and not crowded the place but we were shown to one of the two tables for only two people.

Do retain the phrase 'It is hard to mess up a simple sandwich'. We will revisit it.

There was one real ale which turned out to be local and not awful but I wouldn't have wanted two. The current Mrs Tilley had a glass of red wine and drank some of it, an act she regretted.

Our food order was a ploughman's and a coronation chicken sandwich, working on the basis that we both know what these things probably ought to taste of.

Surprise number one. The ploughman's was a sandwich too. Well it had been listed under the sandwich section of the menu but still. It was a cheese sandwich. It was surrounded by something that makes cheese wetter in a sandwich. Maybe something that evolved from mayonnaise. 'I wondered why they gave us forks' said TCMT. It was accompanied by chips, a green salad that included coriander and a pot of something red. More on that later.

We noticed that the piped music had moved from George Michael and other dead people to 'It's a wonderful, wonderful life.' It felt as if even the backing track was giving us the finger today. Our co-diners had smokers' complexions, the gait of the under-exercised and the build of people who ask for thanks to be sent to the chef for the wonderful gammon and pineapple.

Now. Coronation chicken is not that hard. It has about four ingredients but the recipe does involve the application of heat to some of them at some point. It was less of a surprise that this was a sandwich but the surpriseometer went into the red as I considered how little resemblance the product placed on my plate had to any sandwich I had ever eaten. Granary bread normally puts up more of a fight to contain the filling. As I lifted the thing to my mouth everything fell out of the bread. Again the provision of a fork was essential. The fries were not awful, only over-cooked and sliced too short suggesting that they had been cut from potatoes that were not completely ready for the compost heap, but the uncooked curry powder in the sandwich rendered it unfinishable. There are about three occasions in my whole life when I have failed to complete a sandwich.

My green salad was also based on micro-herbs. I suspect they had been over-ordered. Oh, and red onion. There was a lot of red onion about.

Which brings us to the pot of red stuff. I had one too. We turned our attention from finishing lunch to identifying the red stuff. Now red stuff is a narrow playing area. Our first guess, made well before tasting, was that it might be beetroot. Strike one. This pot - did I mention it was plastic and not unlike a communion glass in a free church - contained very unusual things. A few slices of cabbage, not red cabbage but cabbage that had become red, were in there. As was some dried fruit, maybe sultanas. There was an orangy taste. It had the consistency of under-set jelly. It smelled of pot pouri. Our final answer, Chris, is that it was the contents of the sink trap which neither citrus nor pine cleaning fluid had managed to disperse.

£19.45 in case you wondered. As we left the heavens opened and as we entered the car the Archers theme music began to play. Only the company and the laughter we were both holding desperately in, stopped it being the worst lunch ever.

More food critics should experience this sort of thing. 'Restaurants to avoid this month.' I'd read it.

Oh, and Good Pub Guide folk. You know what you're doing. Apologies.

The Glassmaker

Wetherspoons have opened a new pub, The Glassmaker, in Nailsea. Picking up on the available metaphor they have made it very glassy and shiny. One light fitting made out of old bottles is very nice.

The rest is full of tiles and a big glass skylight which I hope gets cleaned regularly. Wetherspoons don't so much modernise a pub as post-modernise it. All the chairs and tables are old and don't match each other. Last night there were too few chairs and people were constantly borrowing and moving them. A central display is made of old books.

The Glassmakers, like most Wetherspoons pubs has no TV or live music. Last night it was noisy with conversation and ramming with people, especially the young. Three bouncers and many 'Are you 21?' badges didn't seem to have worked that well.

They are also cheap. I doubt if the £2.99 breakfast contains any well-treated animals but it is a bargain for the hungry. I gather they buy up large quantities of beer near its sell-by date which they can shift by having so many outlets. I've never had a magic pint in Wetherspoons but rarely had a bad one. Again the beer is cheap. Bath Ales Barnsey was fine but Mrs T's glass of pinot grigio, from a dispenser not a bottle, was horrid.

A good acquisition for Nailsea town centre. I hope it brings life and employment. It may get some tenants into the empty shops nearby. Will pop in again during the day this week and see how it changes. Had a nice chat to a guy waiting for a friend to turn up. Conversations with strangers in pubs is not very common in Nailsea. Hope it continues.

More members of our church communities should be in there. It is the place to be.

The New Inn, Backwell

Excellent, and fine value, lunch at the New Inn, Backwell today. Lamb bacon with red cabbage and dauphinoise potatoes followed by vanilla rice pudding and prunes, accompanied by a pint of Timothy Taylor's most excellent Landlord. Local food and drink definitely looking up.

The Old Joint Stock

Most people who haven't been to Birmingham think it sucks big time. Almost everyone who spends any time there begins to love it. The trees; there are many. The canals; more miles than Venice. I could go on. I will. The architecture; a picture of young and old getting on fine. The venues, the museums, the people - all great. The city is beginning to get dress sense too. There are a lot of cool people walking around town. People who know what it's all about and how to show it. I popped home today to have lunch with my boy and just loved it.

But the place we went, The Old Joint Stock next to St Phillip's Cathedral, is a delight. To start with it's a Fullers pub, one of the few outside the capital. The London Pride is lovely.

Secondly the menu is interesting. We shared a soupy beef casserole and bread. One big pot for two delivered to the table with a serving spoon. Very civilised.

Thirdly, it's a converted bank (the name's a clue). There can be no greater delight than going home to a place you love. Add to that two hours of good company with one of your own kind and the pleasure overflows. But the explosion of wonderfulness is complete when you go for a post pint pee and find that the toilets used to have another use. You are relieving yourself in a room that is labelled Bank Manager.

Loved it.

The Old Farmhouse

Just spent a delightful two hours in t'pub with three friends. Happy to report that the new landlord is a Geordie. All may very well be well. I think I'll try lunch there this week.

It's a Motto

The word motto has been hanging around for a couple of days. First I paid a visit to the Prince's Motto in Barrow Gurney, a remarkable pub which has enough quirks to keep you in quirks for a while. The car park spaces are marked with the names of the regulars. I thought they'd misspelled an abbreviation for 'disabled' but I had parked next to Des's space. Brilliant.

You see few original signs over pub doors but we liked this one:

In case of fire
Don't panic
Pay your bar bill
Then run like hell

Good beer and nice, simple food.

But secondly, we have a new game in staff meetings. When someone says something which, once dragged screaming out of context would be an alarming thing to admit to actually meaning, someone else will shout, 'That should be our motto.' Yes, our staff team is developing a sense of fun and personality. Don't worry. I'll put an end to it.

Today's motto offerings:

Sometimes better isn't right

Many things brilliantly done aren't worth doing

If I'm going down I'm taking you with me

I expect this will continue.

A Walk in the New Forest

I famously worked with an administrator once who assumed that if, say, two towns were on the east coast they would be easy to cover on successive days of the same tour. You know, Gillingham and Hull, or perhaps Great Yarmouth and Newcastle. After a while I became wary and used to check the schedules before I became committed to them. Her geography improved too which gives the lie to the idea you cannot educate someone with harsh looks and sarcasm.

Anyway I've been away for a couple of days to catch up on reading and my friend from Leamington Spa (let's call him Bob, mainly because that is his name) suggests Lyndhurst in the New Forest as a good place to meet. It's a longer journey for him but a bit trickier for me. Done deal.

Trickier? Every decent road in the south west goes in a direction other than north-west to south-east. I feel like I have crossed every major dual carriageway in the counties of Somerset and Wiltshire.

Even the RAC route-finder struggled, giving me a set of directions which included 'You are now leaving Bristol' twice and 'You are now leaving Bath' three times. And this was their attempt to find the quickest, not the shortest journey. A calculation of one millisecond should tell all normal, sensible people that Bristol and Bath were the two places most definitely to be avoided in planning the route for journey time rather than distance.

Anyway not being in a hurry I went the directest route (the quickest is to go up the M5, across the M4, down the A34 and M3 to M27 and then drive four more miles into Lyndhurst where the one-way system takes you 15 minutes to get to a hotel you can see 50 yards up a one-way street but have to go the long way round to reach.

Anyway here is a selection of the villages and towns with speed restrictions the directest route takes you through:

Wraxall
Flax Bourton
Barrow Gurney
Winford
Chew Magna
Midsomer Norton
Radstock
Writhlington
Frome
Warminster

Then every two miles on the A36 to Salisbury and quite a few the other side too. 72 miles in 3 hours 15 minutes plus an hour in Salisbury.

Nice mini-break though. Ringwood Best is excellent, Rob Bell's book Sex God is outstanding and Jonathan Raban's novel Surveillance is a joy.

The Oak at Bank just outside Lyndhurst served me the best plate of food I've eaten this year - medallions of pork and venison in mustard sauce on a leek mash with green beans. Scrummy.

Birth Certificates and Pub Lunches

Delightful walk and pub lunch with new friend John last Thursday, another one who lurks silently (see comments on this post).

As we talked about where we might eat lunch he mentioned a pub where, on certain days, over 50s can get two meals for the price of one. John won't mind me saying that he can probably pass for over 50 without challenge but, having had to produce ID in pubs right up to and even slightly beyond, my 21st birthday I now realise that taking advantage of this offer would probably involve me producing ID once again.

We ended up in a pub called The Dew Drop which is on the A370 between Backwell and Bristol. It is one in a chain of pubs with a forgetable generic name. Had a fine pint of a Marstons' special called Wulvers which I enjoyed drinking as I expect they brewed it especially to go with Wolves promotion push which we terminated on Wednesday.

However the menu, eight sides of A4, which included tapas, pie of the day, various burgers, a wine list and endless steaks and chips, had no sandwiches. From the tapas menu John had mozarella brucetta and I had duck spring rolls. How very Spanish.

Local Life

I don't know exactly why but I sort of suspected that such a white, middle-class suburban environment as this might be hiding some pretty nasty racism. Last night at the bar I heard a Scottish accent announce, loudly and unashamedly to his neighbour (but so that everyone else could hear his opinion) that, 'I don't mind the Indians 'cos they work hard but I can't stand the Pakis.'

I tried to make my look in his direction as contemptuous as possible without tripping into threatening. I don't have the physique or the attitude to do threatening in any meaningful way so it would only ever lead to a beating.

The guys at the bar then, gleefully, chose to misunderstand (deliberately) the use of the word 'girlfriend' by the Russian woman who works at the pub. She was describing a friend who is female. They were enjoying the lesbian undertones. Pint of Sussex pulled I left the gathering. Must return alone soon.

I realise that I have spent insufficient time alone in the pub. It is almost impossible to make new relationships in a pub if you go in with company. I wonder how long it will take?

A pub I used to go to had the expression 'You're only a stranger here once' on the wall. Someone had removed the word 'once'.

Perfect Thursday Lunch Hour

12.50 Walk into Cask and Bottle. Say Hi to regular Chris and chat briefly. Order pint of Brains and a ham sandwich.
12.52 Part with £4.05. Londoners be very jealous.
12.53 England bowling change.
12.54 Panesar takes wicket with third ball.
12.55 Sit down and read paper
12.56 Another wicket. Harmison. Pakistan now 95 for 4.
13.05 Sandwich arrives with generous side order of salad. Eat it while reading paper.
13.30 Finish. Chat to friend George briefly who has crept in while I was reading.
13.40 Home drinking iced coffee.
13.45 Check spelling of Panesar on-line and find he has taken another wicket.
13.47 Back to work.

Fine Beer

Just a brief hymn in praise of Greene King's Triumph; pale and weakish (we have so much in common) and the guest ale at Leamington's excellent Cask and Bottle. Lovingly served by Fred Mclaren, drummer with Post War Years and fine human being. Consumed in the company of his Royal Bobness and an all-day breakfast while Lizzie took my mother on holiday because, 'If you do it you'll probably kill her.' Freelance days don't come much better than this. Did some work as well.

Simes

I have written about Church of England induction services before. That was an archdeacon. See 10/5. Last night I attended the licensing and installation of my friend Simes to be Team Vicar for St Michael's in the Solihull Team Ministry and Director of Mission in the Team. He did well and everyone likes him, as you would expect if you know him even vaguely.

Although there were lots of old hymns, and robed choirs, robed clergy and robed readers pranced about a fair bit, Bishop of Birmingham and Archbishop of York Designate (see how we love our words) John Sentamu managed to inject a bit of informality and humour into the occasion. He preached well on becoming like a child although he used the expression 'gracious magnanimity' about which I am stilll pondering. A minister should be noble, generous and not petty.

Taking that seriously I will not mock the service. But I do want to.

Bishop John asked the congregation, formally, if we would support and pray for Simon and his household in his ministry. When we said we would he said, 'If you don't; I'll be back.' I think a few more Bishops ought to do the 'Groundforce one year on' visit to see if their work is still being cared for.

Joke of the night from my friend Mark. When the Gospel was read by a man, despite the order of service telling us that we should expect the Rev'd Margaret Jones to read it, Mark turned to me and whispered, 'I expect Margaret is his weekend name.'

Simes, Mark, Bob (also present) and I all cut our ministry teeth on CYFA ventures so it seemed apt that after wine and food (not bad, plenty of quiche; no rice salad) we ended up carrying a desk across a car-park.

Bit weary but perfect end to the evening in The Case is Altered at Five Ways which just happened to be on the way home. It is the unspoilt pub of the year almost every year.