It's pouring down, it's Sunday, you're in a fairly unfamiliar town and you need stodge on a budget. What do you look for on a pub's outdoor chalkboard? Sunday carvery, that's what.
In meeting some friends halfway to record a podcast (which you can listen to here: www.castalavista.com), we found ourselves in Buxton looking to get fed and stay warm and sheltered. The Railway was the closest pub in what was becoming a sheet of increasingly violent drizzle, and the promise of a roast for less than a tenner was just what we needed. So in we went, and instantly the place had an oldy worldy feel. It's a traditional pub, but then when you head to the back room where the carvery is, it feels kind of like a social club. Salt of the earth folks behind the bar where you grab your tickets (tickets!), then you take them to the lady who's chopping up the meat and pile your plate with as many roasties and vegetables you can absorb before sploding.
Our clever trick, considering I don't eat meat, was for me to ask for gammon while Chris got beef, then I could pile mine onto his plate and nick some of his veggies. (The veggies were always my favourite part of the roast, even when I ate meat.) There were crispy parsnips, roasties, carrots, peas, giant Yorkshires and a mash that was unanimously labelled as one of the finest we'd ever tasted. So buttery and creamy and well-seasoned, with not a single lump. The Yorkies were great value, the parsnips were delish but the carrots looked a little sorry and tasted a tad lifeless, the roasties had got to that difficult to cut stage and the beef-eaters found it a little chewy. The gammon however went down a storm.
Afterwards our companion Katie had to order her coffee about three times to have it delivered unfortunately, but she was met with many apologies and she got a coconut macaroon too. Oh, and they sell that Winter Rekorderlig, which is now... my favourite thing EVER. It's so tasty! There was plenty of other stuff on the menu to keep diners happy, and it's simple family fare really. Not a bad place for a stop-off - if the weather was better I could have seen us exploring Buxton far more for a different kind of place, but it did us alright, and kept the rain off. Not bad. read more