We were looking for a place to eat in this town as we were going to see Irish comedian Tommy…read moreTiernan in a nearby hotel so we chose this town centre pub.
It's on Main Street, it is like an old church or castle keep inside with some wonderful wooden floors and on different levels with a few stairs to negotiate as you go in and around. While Its charming I'm not sure it's disabled friendly, particularly with the toilets two floors down.
We were welcomed literally as we walked in the front door, given our choice of tables to sit at, we chose near a front window down 2 or 3 stairs and our drinks order taken with menus handed over and explained to us, all with panache. Now we thought that's the way to do it right.
We both opted for their buttermilk southern fried chicken supreme, which came with wonderful chunky chips, my favourite tobacco onions and a robust lemon pepper mayonnaise.
Essentially we had an upmarket lightly seasoned chicken breast burger & chips with heavily flavoured mayonnaise from a jar, but don't get me wrong, it was beautiful tasty food with every element cooked perfectly, and we enjoyed it very much. If you are going to use mayo from a jar it really needs to be well flavoured as it's only a vehicle for other flavours.
Everything on the plate was delicious, and most importantly done with thought and done well - this is a confident cook.
I asked for and got Colman's English mustard, the worlds greatest mustard bar none.
Service was great, seating cosy, the pub filled up with dinner guests as we sat and my cappuccino was very good too.
It was obvious from conversations that some were regulars, which is also a good sign. We wouldn't hesitate to return here.
Finally being a bit of a food snob and I self admit to being a general pain in the derrière there's two things I'd add.
This chef is so confident (and skilled) why not make mayo in-house; a rapeseed oil mayonnaise would be marvellous, and
it may just have been my misfortune but my chicken burger was served with a knife through the top with the tobacco onions held on the top of the bread bun, but this made the handle of my knife oily. I had to wipe oil of the handle and my hands as I started to eat. This is minor and a nuisance but hey-ho first world problems.
