The Bucks Head, Meonstoke, 27th April 2017

Several of our members have fond memories of our last visit to The Bucks Head, Meonstoke, which we last visited in 2014, which remains unique in the annals of the Pie Club as it was the only time where we have been presented with 2 pies. On that occasion the Bucks Head was (sadly from their point of view) pipped at the post in the final reckonings for 2014, coming 2nd to our all-time favourite pub, The Wheatsheaf in Shedfield, by a mere 0.02 points. Ever since then some of us have felt that it would be the decent thing to do, to give the Bucks Head another shot for glory, so here we were!

It being a lovely sunny day, Eric, Nigel, Lord North, Mike & Si set off on the long cross-country trek from  Bishops Waltham, ably led by Nick along a 7km route carefully avoiding The Hampshire Bowman for all the obvious reasons.  It was a long walk, and certainly when we crested the brow of the last hill and saw the pub in front of us we had worked up quite a thirst and an appetite, so we sped down the hill as fast as we could.

We were joined in the pub by fellow member Gordon, who is lucky enough to count this pub as his local, and who organised this outing.  We immediately set about deciding which beers to try first. 

There was a choice of  Greene King IPA, and 2 ales which were new to us: Belhaven Wembley 67 and Oakham Ales JHB. Most of us followed what has become our usual convention of choosing to try the lightest ale first, then working our way up to the stronger stuff.  So we tried the JHB (Jeffrey Hudson Bitter) first, and found that it was very acceptable (as, indeed, were the other ales).  By now we were beginning to worry about our vegan member, who had told us that he would definitely be taking time off from work to join us for this outing, but there was not yet any sign of him.

As we were quenching our thirst, our lovely host Nicki explained what she had in store for us this time. It was a pulled lamb pie served with roast and mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables.  Just as it was about to be brought to the table a car pulled up outside, and out tumbled our vegan friend, who had been given a lift to the pub by his boss! He was only just in time. After that commotion we all quickly settled down at the table to wait for the pie. As we took our seats we noticed with approval the condiments which had already been set out on the table, including two types of mustard, and some mint sauce.

When the pie arrived there were gasps of appreciation from all around.  The chef had been expecting 11 of us, so he had prepared a pie large enough to satisfy 11 hungry men. But only 7 of us had turned up! Would we be able to handle it?

The pie came with ample accompaniments: 

Two dishes of mixed vegetables, gravy served separately in jugs (just the way we like it), and mashed and roasted potatoes.  Nobody felt confident enough to have a go at dividing the pie up into 7 equal portions (Joe would normally volunteer for this job, but sadly he is no longer with us as he has fled the country), so we summoned the chef, and after to congratulating him on his magnificent pie, asked him to do the honours.

 When served out, the final result was a dish fit for kings.

And we were 7 happy men.

As for the question that was raised earlier - would we be able to handle such a big pie? - Of course we would!

Our considered opinion was that the pie was excellent. It was in a deep 12" dish, lined and capped with perfectly-cooked pastry,  packed with tender lean meat and just the right amount of gravy, and the roast potatoes were the best ever. The vegetables were so good that we ate nearly all of them.  Some felt that the pie filling was a bit too sweet, but that was easily remedied by adding mint sauce to cut through the sweetness.

You might think that after such a satisfying meal, we'd have no room for puddings, but as there was such a good choice, of course we did.

We all thought the meal was excellent, and we really appreciated the effort that Nicki, Shaun, and the chef made for us.  The pub itself has a very good ambience, having recently been refurbished very tastefully. The food and beer were reasonably priced, with the beer at around £3.95/pint, and the pies at £13 each, so we felt it was good value for money, although we noticed that prices had gone up a bit since our previous visit. Nicki took the edge off the pricing by presenting us with complimentary glasses of port as she gave us the bill. We were pleased to see that she'd taken some notice of the advice we gave her on our previous visit, when we suggested that a round of port would finish us off nicely!  

Scores (max of 5 in each category, 25 overall):

• Pastry 4.79
• Filling 4.64
• Beer 4.61
• Ambience 4.64
• Value 4.6
• Overall 23.29

Congratulations to Nicki & Shaun, your score in 2014 was 22.32, so once again you have excelled yourselves and raised the quality of your pies to another level.  Thank you for a most enjoyable meal.

Unfortunately the taxi that was supposed to take us all home failed to turn up, so we had to walk all the way back home - another 7km walk after such a big meal! But it wasn't such a hardship - this time we stopped that the Hampshire Bowman, but that's another story.

The Bucks Head, Meonstoke, 25th September 2014

We've often considered going for an outing to The Bucks Head, Meonstoke, having heard many good reports about it, but we've been put off by the difficulty of getting there. the simple fact is that unless a pub is in walking distance, there are no public transport links that allow us to visit any pubs in (or to the East of) the Meon Valley. We really should write to our MP about it.  This particular pub got flooded out during the storms last winter, and has recently re-opened under new management after a major refurbishment, so we felt it was time to make the effort.

In a fit of irrational over-exuberance brought on by the fine summer weather, most of our members decided to walk there, taking a cross-country route devised earlier by Nick.  Most such routes involve passing one of our favourite pubs, The Hampshire Bowman, but we knew that if we went that way we'd be quite unable to go past without popping in to sample their fare, and there was a good chance that we'd never come out again, so Nick cleverly worked out a route that avoided this hazard. It was a very pleasant 7km walk (or, according to Trev's pedometer, 11200 steps) which took us 90 minutes and (again, according to Trev's pedometer),  meant that we each burnt off 577 calories. We saw this as ample justification for what was to follow.

When we finally caught our first glimpse of our final destination the pace noticeably picked up as we had by now worked up quite a thirst and an appetite. 

On arrival we were given a warm welcome by our hosts, Nicki & Shaun, who had been expecting us, and were probably worried that some of us may have fallen by the wayside, exhausted by the undue exertion of the walk.

Happily we all made it to the pub, where we met up with Stephen, who had got there by some other means, probably not involving any exertion at all. This being a Greene King pub, we had a choice of Greene King ales: Greene King IPA 3.6%, Old Speckled Hen 4.5%, and a seasonal ale Old Nutty Hen 4.5%.  We started with the IPA, which we all agreed was in exceptionally good condition, except for Tall Paul, who as usual stuck to Guinness, but he said that that was in good condition as well.  Later on we found that the other ales were also very good. Of course, we had just walked 7km in the summer heat, so we had worked up quite a thirst and we would have drunk anything.

As we were supping our first pint, Nicki explained what lay in store for us. They'd made some Game Pies and Pork & Cider Pies for us especially, but rather than expect us to make a difficult choice, each of us having to choose on or the other, they'd made small individual pies of both varieties for each of us. So we had two pies each! And this is how they looked when they were brought to the table:

The pies came with mixed vegetables and either mashed potato or chips, and this is how they looked on our plates:

The gravy was served in the approved manner, separately, in jugs on the side. To be honest, it was a bit of a plateful, and several of us left some of the pastry as there seemed to be quite a lot of it - an unintended consequence of simple geometry which shows that the ratio of pastry to filling increases as the pie gets smaller.  But the the chef assured us that the pies were hand-made using hand-made pastry, and they tasted delicious.

We were so stuffed that we weren't going to bother with puddings, but then we looked at the pudding menu:

This is quite an unusual menu, and when we noticed the "Sweet Temptation Platter" we ordered 2 of them, to be shared between the 8 of us. This is how they looked when they were served:

There was a bit of difficulty, and some argument, when we tried to share these out equally, but we all agreed that the puddings were delicious.

We all thought the meal was excellent, and we really appreciated the effort that Nicki, Shaun, and the chef made for us.  The pub itself has a very good ambience, having recently been refurbished very tastefully. The food and beer very reasonably priced, with the beer at around £3.70/pint, and the pies at £10.50, so we felt it was very good value for money. Clearly we were in no fit state to walk all the way back to Bishops Waltham, and we just had time to finish up our beer, and pay the bill when our taxi arrived. 

Scores (max of 5 in each category, 25 overall):

• Pastry 4.3
• Filling 4.55
• Beer 4.34
• Ambience 4.53
• Value 4.6
• Overall 22.32

Congratulations to Nicki & Shaun, with your bold innovation of presenting us with 2 pies each you've raised the competition to a whole new level. Your score puts you straight in at number 1 in our charts, a whole 0.7 points clear of the previous leader, and puts you in a very strong position to scoop the "Pie of the Year" award this year.  Don't forget the helpful hint that we gave you just before we left, when we suggested that the only way you could have improved this meal would be if you have left a decanter of port on our table at the end, as one of your competitors did earlier in the year!