When you’re planning a weekend outing in Cheshire you have
to remember, nearly everything exciting to do is outside, Chester Zoo, Go Ape,
Marbury Park, Tatton Park, all the other parks... Being born and bred in Cheshire
you would think I would remember this before planning to take a picnic up to
Beeston Castle without checking the weather, and surprise surprise, it rained.
What is there to do in Cheshire when it rains? Go to the pub, have a pint, and
wait for all this to blow over.
The Hazel Pear is a deceivingly small country pub in Acton
Bridge, lots of wooden floors, chalkboards and low ceilings, with a few little
quirky decorations and a comfy leather corner seat. Unfortunately this seat was
right in the corner and one of the light bulbs above our table had gone out so
it was a bit dim, reminiscent of Hollister. Someone joking remarked that ‘maybe
they were trying to save on electricity bills’, but the pub was packed so
clearly people don’t mind a bit of mood lighting.
Both knowing that we were having standard Sunday roasts
later, we decided we’d have a light lunch, although the roasts going past us definitely
whetted out appetites. Sandwiches are a no go on a Sunday, so we settled for
the Hazel Pear Pub Platter, being the only one we could agree on: the fish
platter, quite obviously, had a lot of fish on it, which neither of us fancied,
and the summer platter had goats cheese. I’m not a fan of goats cheese.
The chicken and pepper skewers were so yummy we ended up
arguing over who got the last one and you can’t really go wrong with cold meats
and salad can you? And the scotch egg... it’s not something that I would ever
crave or think of to ask for, but my god... perfectly cooked so only the yolk
was a little bit gooey, not runny, and the meat around the egg was just
heavenly. The nicest scotch egg I've ever tried.
I have never tried spam before. I have never wanted to try
spam before. My dad used to tell me tales of coming home from school in Essex and
having spam and eggs for tea. He then went on to describe to me exactly what
spam was (which I won’t do now). That, doubled with the Monty Python sketch
going round and round my head, I was not keen to try the spam fritters. All I have
to say is: WHY HAVE I NEVER HAD THIS BEFORE?! It was kind of like a salty deep
fried pate, and one of the nicest things I can think of to ‘fritter’, and now a
major staple in my everyday diet.
The sharing platter not being quite enough for our light
lunch, we decided to order the thrice baked chips and garlic bread as well.
Probably the best decision we could have made. I usually overload my chips with
salt and black pepper till my tongue tingles, but these, these chips didn’t
need anything added to them. Evidently baking potatoes three times instead of
just once or twice turns them into fluffy bites of heaven in a crispy case. And
the garlic ciabatta... I will admit I have a little obsession with garlic,
there is never enough of it in food and when I cook you can smell my breath for
days. So I’m pretty hard to please with garlic bread, it’s never garlic-y
enough! But this ciabatta had whole flecks of garlic on top of the mouth-watering
butter soaked bread. I died and went to where a garlic-y buttery heaven.
CRAVING OF THE DAY: Tesco’s Finest Belgian Chocolate and Valencia Orange Melting Middle Pudding. Been day dreaming about this bad boy all day.
No comments:
Post a Comment