All posts tagged: Sunday lunch

Sunday Lunch at The “Old Vol”, Caythorpe

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Well, well, another great pub. Thinking I am on a bit of a roll here and it must all go horribly wrong before much longer. Still for now, we visited the lovely Old Volunteer in Caythorpe with the FWH for Father’s Day. The pub is set in the pretty village of Caythorpe in the heart of the Nottinghamshire Countryside and within striking distance of some great walks along the Trent. As it was Father’s Day it was extremely busy, inside and out (weather was good) and the service was a masterclass in organisation (with the aid of technology – earpieces for the staff and communications with the kitchen – pretty impressive operation for a village pub). Jo, the landlady greeted every guest individually whilst simultaneously coordinating the food and the staff as well as noticing any slip in service (and making known she had spotted it…..), and even when I began to make a move on ordering my gravy on the side (as I had forgotten to ask when I first ordered) she was on it without a blink. In …

The Railway, Lowdham

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The Railway (formerly the Railway Inn) has had some serious money thrown at it and it shows.  A once tired local pub is now a really rather cool, contemporary pub/restaurant with some great nods in the decor to its railway heritage, a wood burning stove and an open pass to the kitchen as well as some brilliant space outside, including a raised deck. And, it feels great when you walk in. On my continued quest for a decent pub Sunday lunch it seemed worth a punt. I know I get a bit tiresome on the old Sunday Lunch theme, but as I hadn’t eat a Sunday roast in a pub for about 20 years as they had become so bloody awful and my own were so much better, I am now on something of a mission, and I always have the beef – even if the non-traditional Sunday menu looks more inviting, because beef is the hardest to cook well and keep and because its a fairer comparison (I know there is no real science …

Spare me your side of despair. Sunday Lunch in Shelford.

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The Earl of Chesterfield in Shelford is an odd sort of pub. For a start it doesn’t look like a pub, it looks like a house with bits added. Secondly, it has had an odd couple of years, being a pub then closing then being bought by the village as a community owned asset and then latterly by a partnership that includes the ex England cricketer Chris Board. It is a fairly popular place – particularly good for dog walking and horse-riding types who can get straight to the door from the surrounding fields and down a quick half before ambling, or trotting, off. But how is its Sunday Lunch? I wish you hadn’t asked, because I really, really wanted to like this odd little place. I’ll keep it brief. Service was fine, although there seemed to be too many staff for the number of customers and we were asked perhaps 5 times by different people if wanted a bottle of wine with our meal – even while we examined the wine menu. One poor …

Sunday Lunch – hold the red cabbage and don’t pretend your Aunt Bessie didn’t make those Yorkshires.

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As you may know, I get properly fed up with poor Sunday Lunches in pubs and, God forbid, “carveries”. So poor had many of these offerings become that I pretty much stopped eating Sunday lunch out, especially since my own version made at home was, even if I do say so myself, pretty damn good. Anyway, in the interests of research I have begun to venture out again on a Sunday, not least because I had a fairly good one in a local pub and, so surprised was I, I decided the time had come to bite that bullet (which pretty much was my former experience of most pub roasts). I always go for beef. I do this because I think it is the hardest to cook well and the hardest to keep well during service. I know, mean eh? Anyway, I am going to give a shout out to two of my local pubs, the Chestnut and the Royal Oak Pub and Kitchen (part of the Moleface Pub group) in Radcliffe on Trent. All …

Does this crumble look cooked to you?

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Oh my word it has been a long time since I was here. Things have been so hectic this last 3 months. Not the least of which is that the Fishwife’s team expanded to include a puppy. This, I have now remembered, is not all cuteness and stolen toilet rolls. Nope, it is also sleepless nights, chewed chairs, ripped curtains and full-on attention seeking. These facts, long forgotten since my last dog, are exacerbated by the fact that the Fishwife’s pup is a Vizsla (known as Velcro dogs for very good reason). Anyway, I have managed to  discover a few gems over this time, and there has been one rather unfortunate pub Sunday lunch. I know, I know, as someone tweeted me recently, I never learn. To be fair, on this occasion, the pub in question had asked me to come along and try their Sunday Lunch as the new owners of said pub had been trying very hard to get the food right and wanted some feedback. So being rather a game bird, I …

Can cook, but didn’t cook. A venture into (rather lovely) pre-prepared meals.

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I think I can pretty much say we never eat “ready meals”. I am not averse to a good steak pie from a farm-shop or similar but ready-meals generally, nope. That is not because I am a food snob necessarily, (although I am, natch) we just generally don’t like the taste and my own food always tastes better. However, I made an exception this weekend, with a complicated Sunday of taxiing and trying to provide food, I decided extreme measures were called for to ensure we all got something decent for Sunday lunch. So I ventured over to “Cook” in West Bridgford. Cook is a frozen food specialist that claims they make “remarkable food for your freezer, made like you would at home” . I know, what you’re thinking  – posh “Iceland”. But you’d be wrong. Cook has a huge range of meals, mains, puddings, party food, even your entire Christmas lunch if you really wanted to push the boat out. The shop in West Bridgford is tidy, friendly and well designed, there is 2 …

A Proper Sunday Lunch

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I have a confession to make, I make a damn decent Sunday lunch. Yep, even if I do say so myself. Such has been my disappointment with the traditional pub Sunday Lunch that I can honestly say it must be upwards of 5 years since I last forced myself through the ritual of eating tough beef, dry chicken and a plate loaded with steamed and tasteless veg (or worse a melange of boiled, unseasoned veg served alongside in ceramic bowl which will inevitably be returned to the kitchen, untouched, in exactly the same state as it arrived) swamped in gravy and with a Yorkshire Pudding plopped on top, regardless of the meat below. No, I don’t like pub Sunday Lunches. Love the idea of them, but the reality is usually a huge  disappointment. Well, I am here to report that a couple of weeks ago, I decided to tip my toe in the “Traditional Sunday Lunch in a pub is Never as Good as I Make at Home” club again, and venture to our Local, fairly recently under new ownership and …

Unforgivably neglected Old Fashioned Puddings

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Last Autumn we visited the Melton Mowbray Food Festival, one of the few food festivals in this region that is really worth the effort to visit and doesn’t charge you a small fortune for the privilege of traipsing around a few stalls by the usual suspects, many of them resentful at giving out free samples (I have a thing about this, dear reader).  Anyway, we came home with bumper haul and some of it, inevitably, ended up in the freezer. Fast forward to last Sunday and a traditional family Sunday lunch. Having got up at the crack of dawn to get my pork shoulder in the oven to slow roast for 5 hours, I felt justified in not doing a pudding too and instead rooted around in the bottom of the freezer for the two Old Fashioned Pudding Company puddings I knew had been languishing there since September. The puddings (once defrosted) can be steamed (40 mins) or microwaved for 2 mins. I went with the 2 mins I’m afraid. They did look a bit …

Zaap, Nottingham, again

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My first experience of Zaap was a bit mixed and the team kindly offered us a couple of vouchers to use on our next visit in recompense. We appreciated the gesture and so last Sunday, abandoned the traditional Sunday lunch and went a bit street food instead, and this time we were really glad we did. The place was packed and the lively, chaotic décor, designed to give a flavour of the Maeklong Railway, with Tuk Tuks, market stalls, and even a full blown train coming down the tracks was brought to life by so many full tables and animated conversations.            The daughter hit the Chai Bubble Tea and the husband and I had the Chang and Beerlao. Bubble tea – I know a lot of people love it, in fact the daughter dragged me all the way to Soho last summer just to try out Bubblicious. But no, just no, I cannot get this stuff – chewy tapioca in a cold brew – no thanks. Still, the daughter loved this version and we enjoyed the …

6 Hour Roasted Pork with best-ever crackling

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Slow Roasted Pork, with the best ever crackling! Oh so simple and so luxurious, melt in the mouth meat, with a kick. I served this with bead rolls, homemade coleslaw and a drizzle made from the meat juices left in the roasting dish, fresh chopped red chillies, crushed garlic and a slug of red wine. Mixed together and gently heated to infuse. This beautiful piece of pork was boned shoulder (many recipes suggest bone in is more juicy, but to be honest this couldn’t have been sweeter or juicier and the crackling was to die for). I rubbed the skin (already scored and sliced through by the Butcher) with olive oil, salt and pepper, generous amounts of smoked paprika and probably a tablespoon of cayenne pepper, after massaging this well into the skin and all around the meat, I sprinkled a generous couple of tablespoons of Demerara sugar onto the crackling. Pop in the oven (set at its highest heat  – 230C for me – and then immediately turn it down to 150C) leave to …