We had planned to use our bus passes on the No.7 bus to Durley then walk the last half mile to the The Farmers Home, but it was raining, and Doug's wife offered us a lift as it was on her way to somewhere or other, so, despite our avowed intentions of being self-sufficient and not dependent on our good ladies to any extent, we took her up on her kind offer.
Unfortunately, Joe had to drop out of this Pie Club meeting, so it was Trev, Nick, Doug and Si who trudged through the rain all the way from the car parked on the streeet outside, into the pub, to be welcomed by a friendly barmaid and shown straight to our table.
First impressions were good. There was a nice friendly welcome, a cosy looking pub with not too many customers, and a choice of Steak & Mushroom Pie (£7.95), Creamy Chicken & Bacon Pie (£7.95), or Steak & Kidney Pudding (£8.95) on the menu. But we noticed straight away that the choice of ales was limited to Ringwood Best 3.8% or Gales HSB 4.8%, which was a bit disappointing, and maybe a warning of things to come.
Expecting a long session ahead, we decided to steer clear of the HSB. We settled down with pints of Ringwood Best while we considered the difficult matter of choosing our pies from the menu. This was complicated by the fact that there was a special deal available whereby you could have two courses for £8.95 if you chose your main course from the lunch menu (which included the two pies, but excluded the Steak & Kidney Pudding, as that was on the Specials menu). In the end, Trev and Nick both chose the Creamy Chicken & Bacon Pie, and Doug and Si opted for the Steak & Kidney Pudding.
We had barely started our second pints when the food arrived. Fast service!
The Creamy Chicken & Bacon Pie looked good, despite only having a shortcrust pastry topping instead of being fully enclosed in pastry as it should be, and despite being adorned with a totally-unnecessary sprig of parsley:
The Steak & Kidney Pudding looked good as well, being amply proportioned, but again having a totally-unnecessary large sprig of parsley:
The pies were served with an ample helping of nicely-cooked vegetables comprising mashed swede, brocolli, and carrots:
Doug, Trev and Nick all had a big helping of new potatoes with their meal:
Si thought that this showed dangerous signs of people going for the healthy option, stuck to his principles, and chose to have chips. This resulted in quite a pleasing visual effect:
As we ate our pies it became apparent that all was not well. The food was alright, but not great. The shortcrust pie pastry and the suet pudding pastry were both disappointing. The Steak & Kidney Pudding filling was thin, with not a lot of meat, and what meat there was was finely chopped instead of being chunky. But the main problem was that the beer was not going down very well. It was settling heavily in the stomach and putting us off our food. By the end of the second pint most of us had had enough, although some of us did manage a third pint. The beer was certainly too cold, which may explain the problem. We couldn't even manage any puddings.
The general ambience of the pub was initially quite good, but as time went by the place filled up with more and more people (mostly pensioners, probably drawn there by the special offer), and it got quite noisy. We quite like not having to share a pub with too many other customers.
So we ended up having quite a short session. We had intended to get the No.7 bus back again, but it's an hourly service and we'd just missed a bus, and it was coming on to rain again, so (despite our reservations) Nick persuaded his good wife to pick us up and give us all a lift home. She's very kind.
Scores (max. 5 in each category, 25
overall):
- Pastry 3.25
- Filling 3.375
- Beer
2.925
- Ambience 2.875
- Value 3.875
- Overall 16.3
This puts The Farmers Home in 6th place (out of 7) in
our rankings. The only pub worse than this was The White Horse, Beeches Hill (which has since had a change of landlord).
The next Pie Club meeting will be on 24th November. Trev to decide the venue.
Whilst taking a well-earned short break in Devon, Simon had a good meal at
The Ship Inn, Kingswear.
To make a change from fish (almost compulsory in this part of the world) Simon opted for the Cow Pie (this being the first time he had come across a Cow Pie on a menu anywhere). It was a great pie, let down by the puff pastry topping, as can be seen below:
The filling was perfect: 1" cubes of tender lean beef in a delicious gravy with nothing extraneous added, and lots of it! The accompanying vegetables were fresh perfectly cooked. The chips were hand-cut and cooked perfectly. The accompanying ales were excellent: there was a choice of 5, including the ever-tempting Otter Amber Ale 4%, which was nicely served at the correct temperature. The pub landlord, Colin, and the staff were very friendly and welcoming. The general ambience was very good. Value for money was fair, with the beer weighing in at only £2.80/pint.
But the whole thing was let down by the puff pastry topping. It wasn't even good puff pastry. It was dry and tasteless and stuck to the roof of your mouth. It was like eating a dry cream cracker, only not as tasty.
To make up for the disappointment of the first course, Simon had another pint, and some pudding - very good fruit crumble with custard:
After the meal Simon remonstrated with Colin about the poor quality of the pastry. The landlord was very apologetic, and explained that they'd tried using proper short-crust pastry but there were too many problems with it. Apparently it's something to do with the re-heating. To which Simon's only reply was "Huh!".
PS Simon was accompanied on this trip by his good wife Jean, who had Whole Plaice and Chips, which she said was excellent.
PPS On this same trip Simon visited The Cherub Inn in Dartmouth with Jean:
It's a fine pub, but when Simon asked "What's the Pie of the Day?" the answer was "Fish Pie". Enough said.
Please note that Simon visited the pub without any other members of the Club, so opinions expressed above are purely personal and not representative of the Club.
Pieman has recently received this photo of a typical Australian gourmet pie from an associate currently working down under:
It looks pretty good, although Pieman has his doubts about the dollop of ketchup on top, and, what's more, he thought Australian pies were traditionally served upside down, and surrounded by a generous helping of mushy peas (what the Australians charmingly refer to as a "pie floater").
Some Pie Club members will be visiting Australia early next year, so expect to see some pie reviews from down under soon.
All Australian beer is rubbish, of course, so there's no danger of the Aussies doing better than the Poms in our ongoing quest for the perfect Pie/Pint combination.
Whilst researching possible venues for the next Pie Club outing, Pieman (accompanied by his long-suffering wife) undertook the hazardous task of visiting all the pubs on the No 17 bus route, which runs from Bishops Waltham to Petersfield, to try to find a pub that serves a pie worthy of our attention. The results were mixed, and largely disappointing:
The Bakers Arms, Droxford
May be worth a visit because we know the food here is seriously good, but there was no pie on the menu when Pieman visited, although their web site says there is a Chicken & Mushroom Pie with mashed potato at £12.95 (expensive).
The Bucks Head, Meonstoke
Possibly worth a visit. One "big and hearty" Steak & Ale Pie with shortcrust pastry @ £9.50
The Shoe, Exton
Doubtful, and expensive. A Steak & Wine Pie with mash and puff pastry @ £12.50. The service here is still as bad as ever, even on a quiet day.
The George & Falcon, Warnford
Might be interesting, but it's a large pub with poor ambience, and expensive. Their "Pie of the Day" when Pieman visited was Pork & Apple with a puff pastry lid and shortcrust pastry lining @ 12.50
Thomas Lord, West Meon
Nice looking pub, but no pies. Disappointing!
The Olde George Inn, East Meon
Nice looking pub, but no pies. Disappointing!
The Isaac Walton, East Meon
No pies
Seven Stars, Stroud
Doubtful, big family pub with poor ambience. Steak & Ale pie @ £9.45
The Good Intent, Petersfield
Pub closed down.
The Square Brewery, Petersfield
Nice pub, but no pies
The Folly, Petersfield
Nice pub, but no pies
Other pubs in Petersfield
There was not enough time to visit all the other pubs in Petersfield, but a quick tour failed to find any that would justify the long bus trip from Bishops Waltham. It didn't look as if any served pies.
On a warm sultry summer's day, Nick, Trev, Si undertook the arduous 2.1 mile walk to The Black Dog, Waltham Chase. They were joined halfway by Doug, and a lively conversation ensued as we worked up a fine thirst. Unfortunately Joe was unable to join us for this outing as he was enjoying his usual summer break in Canada. The Black Dog is a nice looking pub (tied to Greene King) with extensive gardens:
We could have sat outside in the garden, but opted instead for the cool interior. There were 3 ales available: Ruddles County 4.3%, Greene King IPA 3.5%, and Old Speckled Hen 4.5%. We felt that after such a long walk, through all the heat, this was a difficult choice. After some hesitation Doug chose the IPA, and the others chose the County. The beers were quickly served up by the very attractive barmaid, and very enjoyable they were too, being served at exactly the right temperature - just what we needed after that long walk. For our second pint we all moved on to the IPA, and we stuck with that for the rest of the session (We felt that the Old Speckled Hen might be a bit too heavy for the summer conditions).
There was a Steak & Ale Pie (with puff pastry) on the menu, but we were rather put off by the puff pastry so, in a radical departure for the Pie Club, and despite the warm sultry conditions, we all chose to have the Steak & Kidney Pudding with Suet Pastry, served with fresh vegetables (brocolli and home-grown carrots) and hand-cut chips:
This was an excellent choice. Notice in the photo above how Nick is rubbing his stomach in eager anticipation of the delights that lie ahead. The pudding was massive. The suet pastry was near-perfect - thin, light, crisp and tasty. The filling was maybe of not such a high standard: It was tasty but didn't have enough large chunks of meat, and had rather too much gravy (although to be fair, some pointed out that maybe steak and kidney puddings are supposed to be like that. This being our first experience of a steak and kidney pudding we have no basis for comparison, so we shall have to wait and see). The ratio of filling to pastry was very good. The vegetables were cooked perfectly. At first sight it seemed that the vegetable portions were rather small, but in fact, given the massive size of the puddings, we could not have managed any more. The meal was served with gravy already applied (generally not a good idea), and we couldn't help noticing that the puddings had a sprinkling of finely chopped parsley on them, which was impossible to remove.
Afterwards we were all so full that we could not manage any pudding, although there was a tempting choice of 9 puddings available.
The ambience of the pub was not cosy but very pleasant: The pub was busy but not too crowded; the table service was good; the pub was clean; there were flowers in the loos and on some of the tables; there were no fruit machines but unfortunately some background music appeared halfway through the session. At 2:45 the pub was due to close so we were asked to settle the bill and finish our drinks outside in the garden, which we were happy to do.
We thought the value for money was about average: The meals were £9.35 each. Puddings (if we had had any) were £4.35 or £4.95 each. A pint of ale was £3.35.
Scores (max. 5 in each category, 25 overall):
- Pastry 4.575
- Filling 3.4
- Beer 3.975
- Ambience 4.0
- Value 3.7
- Overall 19.65
This puts The Black Dog in 3rd place in our rankings, after the Bowman and the Barleycorn. Nevertheless, this was a good meal out.
During the course of the meal we discussed various possible amendments to the Pie Club constitution, but we agreed that nothing could be decided unless all members were present, so we deferred any decisions until Joe returns to this country. The issues discussed included:
- drinks: beer only, or should cider be allowed?
- year-end award to the best pie (or best overall score?)
- touring
- new members/guest days/affiliated pie clubs, eg Botley
- penalties
- members' pie competition in November for charity
After many unfortunate delays Trev, Nick, Si, and Joe met for the 5th meeting of the Pie Club at The Barleycorn Inn, Bishops Waltham, a fine local pub which we should visit more often.
Doug failed to turn up for this meeting, offering some excuse about having to go to hospital, so he will of course have to pay the usual forfeit at our next meeting.
Trev and Joe arrived early at 11.30 in order to take advantage of the happy hour, which runs from 11:00 to 12:00 every weekday. Simon arrived at 11:58, just in time to buy the 2nd round of Ringwood Best 3.8%. at the reduced price of £2.50/pt (normal price £3.20). We all agreed that this was a fine pint of beer, and stuck with it for the remainder of the session (other beers available were Old Speckled Hen 4.5% and Greene King IPA 3.6% ), although unfortunately the barman Sean was quick to point out to us that we weren't able to buy beers in advance at the reduced price for consumption after 12:00, and once the clock turned 12:00 we had to pay full price. Despite this, we were very impressed by Sean, who continued to give good service at all times.
Nick joined us at 12:30. After a 3rd pint we ordered the pie. There was only one pie available, but it had been especially prepared for us that day after a request from Joe. It was a minced beef with stilton pie, made with suet pastry:
It was served with (frozen) peas and chips (or mashed potatoes) and gravy, to make a fine looking plateful:
The food was brought to our table by the excellent Sean, and it was piping hot. Inexplicably, the pie was garnished with a sprig of parsley: Most of us didn't know what to do with this - Si was the only one to eat his (He was brought up to eat whatever is put in front of him).
A number of comments were made about the pie:
- The suet pastry was lovely, but it was a controversial choice.
- The filling was lovely, but the use of minced beef instead of chunky meat was another controversial choice.
- The taste of the Stilton was barely discernable.
Despite this, we all thought that the pie was delicious, so perhaps we were just being a bit too traditionalist. We need to keep an open mind about such things. The vegetables were fine, and the gravy was very tasty. The servings was more than ample in size.
There was a huge array of puddings available. The ever-excellent Sean even brought us a supplementary pudding menu to consider. Despite being full of pie, we couldn't resist them.
Trev had flaked chocolate cookies with ice cream:
Nick had Hot Whisky & Marmalade Sponge with Custard:
Joe had cheese & biscuits:
Si had good old Spotted Dick with Custard, inexplicably garnished with a sprig of mint (which he didn't eat):
The puddings were all very large and delicious.
The ambience of the pub was very good:our hosts Marie and Pete came and chatted with us, which is always a nice touch; the pub was busy but not too crowded; Sean the barman gave excellent service; the table service was good; the pub was clean; and there were no unnecessary distractions such as music or fruit machines. We especially liked the Happy Hour. We didn't get an itemised bill. but the puddings were around £4 each, and the pies were around £8 each We felt that was very good value for money.
Scores (max. 5 in each category, 25 overall):
- Pastry 4.375
- Filling 3.75
- Beer 4.125
- Ambience 4.25
- Value 3.875
- Overall 20.375
So The Barleycorn leaps into 2nd place in our rankings, just behind the Bowman. Well done Marie, Pete and Sean.
Pie Man's true identity has to remain a closely guarded secret in order to protect him from possible corruption by over-eager pub landladies, some of whom will stop at nothing to secure improved ratings for their pies.
