Having left Thanet for a couple of days, I was hoping to eat out a bit - just in pubs, but to experience some new and different food.
Mark my husband is entirely sceptical of the famous British Food Rennaissance "Remember Shropshire" he says.
His new word is going to be "Watchet" - see below.
We headed for South Molton in Devon to see his uncle Jeffrey. En route turned off the dual carriageway and meandered down some lanes and couldn't find a settlement. We turned back to the dual carriageway took a wrong turning, turned back and saw a board advertising a pub.
When we found the pub, The Stag, it was delightful, thatched, cob construction dating to 1197 huge fireplace, flagged floor, local beer and cider and a Ramsay-trained chef. Landed on our feet or what?
In fact the Ramsay-trained chef was not there, there was nothing especially remarkable on the menu - usual ham eggs and chips (locally sourced eggs - but frankly, does it make that much difference as long as they are fresh?), beef burger, sausage and mash (good burger, good sausages - although unappealing presentation). There were a few specials, but the laminated bar menu offered mussels - which were "off". So I had the fishcakes with chili dressing, which were perfectly nice and came with chips and an undressed salad. The chips were just frozen chips. The pub is written up in one of those Alastair Sawday pub guides. They praise the Farrow and Ball paint. Of course ambience is important, but you can't eat the decor scheme.
So in short, a perfectly nice meal, with drinks and crisp it was just under £50 for 4 of us. What I couldn't understand was why it was thought to be so great.... I think Watchet provided the answer.
I suppose the Stag would count as a gastro-pub.... in a small way. I am arguing that competently cooked standard pub food is what you should expect everywhere and that it should be no big deal.
On the way back we took a detour across Exmoor - the other side of Exmoor is the coast which we hit at a place called Blue Anchor Bay - it was a vast caravan park - with a large pub called "The Blue Anchor" - we passed by - we know something about pubs near caravan parks - there are some around Thanet. We hoped that the next town, Watchet would be good - it was a seaside town, nice fish surely?
Watchet, despite the brightly coloured banners provided by the local council, was a place of such poverty and greyness, with an ugly harbour set in the reddish, turbid sea, that I immediately realised we should not eat here - unless we were very lucky.
There was a large grim hotel - with a completely microwaved menu - of what we call "ding" food. No - there was a pub opposite the harbour - with an almost identical menu - the giveaway is "breaded whitebait". Fresh whitebait isn't breaded, that's a crust designed to protect the tiny fish in their frozen state. It looked grim, and opposite was another pub, called The London Inn - there was a notice about fresh crab in the window (but it didn't appear on the dinner menu) - and it promised a view of the harbour .
The landlord was about as welcoming as a traffic warden - the pub had been redecorated rather imaginatively. The menu was 100% ding - Ned had scampi, Finn had curry, Mark had Sea Bass fish cakes and I had "fish medley" which enabled me to try 4 different types of flabby breaded and battered fish - the cod was quite nice, the salmon I recognised by its colour and dryness and the other two were unguessable. There was a basket of sauces, which included the worst tomato sauce I've had, no mayo, some tartare type sauce and some salad cream. The boys said their coke had been watered.
The restaurant was a high ceilinged double bay windowed room. Unless you sat in the bay window you did not see the harbour - and when we managed to move, we had a great view of local youth eating chips on the jetty. And a distant prospect of Port Talbot. The room was painted salmon pink - it was a nice room architecturally.
The ding ingredients were bad, my fish came with satisfactory peas, adequate chips and a spoonful of undressed mixed salad. The meal with drinks was £43. I didn't enjoy it, it just made me feel sad. I felt full - but not in a good way. I yearned for proper vegetables and fresh fish and properly dressed salad.
But people who are staying in campsites and caravans need a nice tasty hot meal at the end of the day - and that is presumably what is being provided. The place was full - and people were remarking "Oh - that looks nice!" about the menu.
We had a discussion about it on the way home. Finn was very annoyed that I was complaining about the food - why didn't I do it publicly? I said I didn't want to upset the people around who were presumably enjoying it. I said it was possible that a lot of people would enjoy that food (although I wondered about the Belgians behind us drinking red wine and having lamb shank with gloopy sauce). He didn't understand why I was upset. I said it was because if you wanted to take people's hard earned money from them they deserved to have something good in exchange. If you couldn't cook - didn't have a chef, you should buy really good ham, cheese and bread and sell ploughman's lunches and sandwiches and give people something decent and delicious. I also said that it was infuriating that a seaside town right next to a harbour that appeared to operate fishing boats didn't have any fresh fish on the menu.
I immediately engaged in a fantasy about turning Watchet into the new Etaples - opening up a weekly Friday/Saturday fish market - and running a pub which would serve that fish, allow people to buy their own fish and cook it for them - and encourage art events connected with fish and fishing to attract visitors.
I thought about what I would do if I owned the London Inn - I would redecorate, I would run a short menu - 3 or 4 starters, more main courses to accommodate all tastes, some really decent home made ice cream, or buy it from a local producer, two or 3 really good pudds. There would be one adventurous selection every day. In the winter it would only really operate food at the weekends, but there would always be a travellers' meal - potluck - something like a really nice chicken pie, fish pie, a veggie pasta bake, or a ploughman's.
Sample menu?
Starters: Tomato and pepper soup, prawn cocktail with local prawns (if any), fresh whitebait, a plate of smoked fish and salad/pickle, something involving local cheese (twice baked souffle)
Main: Cod and chips, slab of whatever local fish was available, cooked meuniere or some other simple way, slab of more exotic fish (e.g. monkfish/octopus/squid), a meat pie, home made pork pie and salad, burger/sausage, a meat stew, a veg dish, e.g. veg couscous. - and of course ploughman's lunches.
Puddings: ice cream, eton mess, tarte tatin, chocolate fontant etc. fruit tarts, steamed pudds in winter,
No - it's not earth shattering - but it would give local people somewhere different to go - it would attract people from beyond the immediate area, and get into the guidebooks. It would provide something delicious and local and there would be lots of vegetables and salads, and no packets of sauce, just pots of tomato sauce, mayo and mustard. :Well kept beer, a short and decently priced wine list. It isn't rocket science, but the problem is....
Are people so used to ding food that they think this is better and more "tasty" than the fresh, unbreadcrumbed thing - will food that isn't orange appeal as much? This area is very sparsely populated and not very wealthy - would there be enough people to enjoy it in the winter at the weekends? I would absolutely hate to live in Watchet - but part of me would so love to take that pub by the scruff of the neck and have a go at it. But I doubt whether I have the energy to carry out such an experiment - or the money.
No comments:
Post a Comment