Will be prowling the the middle reaches of the A5 on Wednesday or Thursday, somewhere say between Weedon Bec and Milton keynes, prefer around Towcester.
So I need a recommendation for a luncheon stop.
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buddiesrestaurants.com/
If its your kinda food, its well recommended locally, a local success story infact in business terms and well deserved. Theres one at Towcester.
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Mmmm... Toaster.... need I say more?
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Work colleague spoke highly of Buddies too. Not Towcester but one on A45 east of town; he'd been diverted off the M1 onto the A45/A14 and found them coping well in very busy circs.
If you want somewhere more upmarket The Wharf in Bugbrooke is a local treat but not cheap www.the-wharf.co.uk/
The Olde Red Lion in Kislingbury www.theolderedlion.net/ is also very good though like The Wharf prices match - but I think they do bar meals as well as the full monty in the restaurant.
The Narrowboat at the Heyford turn on the A5 has recently re-opened under new ownership.
Been there under previous owners and enjoyed it but when Miss B worked there it looked a bit chaotic below decks and more so in the cashflow dept.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 16 Jan 12 at 20:27
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Having glanced through Buddie's menu and noted the American emphasis I think one needs to eat sparingly and/or ensure a supply of statins.
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>> If you want somewhere more upmarket The Wharf in Bugbrooke is a local treat but
>> not cheap www.the-wharf.co.uk/
The wharf it was. Its not a pretty part of the grand union, might look better on a summer day, the building itself is redbrick prefab unattractive from the outside, the inside not unwelcoming but no natural charm, but has a log fire. The staff are attentive and friendly. The food is very very good, not over priced, and the Steak and Ale pie in tortilla parcels is to die for, a recipe idea I shamelessly intend to steal for home.
All in all, that's a thumbs up guys. Thanks.
Edit, oh and they have an India Pale Ale on draught.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 19 Jan 12 at 21:18
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Glad you enjoyed it. Can't remember the history now but it's been through several owners and themes in the 22 years we've lived round here. Was in there for a pint on Boxing Day. The BiL enjoyed the IPA - I found a rather tasty Welsh guest ale.
Forgot to mention the bit of local history that might have been of interest to you - the Radar Memorial between Bugbrooke and Litchborough
www.rafcaa.org.uk/daventry.html
airfields.pikfu.net/set1717571/
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 19 Jan 12 at 21:47
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Not the Purple Moose BP ?
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>> Not the Purple Moose BP ?
Took about 10 secs to realise that was about the beer and not radar!!
It was a South Walean brew but not Brains. quite dark and very tasty. The PM is filed for when I'm next in North Wales.
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>> Forgot to mention the bit of local history that might have been of interest to
>> you - the Radar Memorial between Bugbrooke and Litchborough
bugbeds! Would have liked to have seen that.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 19 Jan 12 at 21:53
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Been at the Wharf tonight marking The Lad's 18th.
Very good indeed. Shared bread/olive/feta thing for starters and a variety of meat heavy mains. Lamb chops with black pud were excellent as was Mrs B's duck. Puds for three, I'm not a dessert person, plus a reasonable Cav Sau and a couple of digestifs and a few pence over £130 for the lot.
Kids knew half the staff which made it more homely.
PiXXed down just as we were leaving so Shanks's Pony was left to graze & Miss B piloted the 'lingo - thanks J!!
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 13 Oct 12 at 22:12
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>the Steak and Ale pie in tortilla parcels is to die for, a recipe idea I shamelessly intend to steal for home.
I missed this in January.
More details please!
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>> >the Steak and Ale pie in tortilla parcels is to die for, a recipe idea
>> I shamelessly intend to steal for home.
>>
>> I missed this in January.
>>
>> More details please!
Oh! right.
Well essentially its any of your favourite steak pie recipe, but rather than pastry you use a large flour tortilla to wrap it in. Mine goes like this.
Saute gently some chopped onions, sliced mushroom and chopped crushed garlic in a casserole on the hob, then brown your cubed steak in the casserole. Pour in your ale of choice along with sliced carrot and peas, simmer for 5 minutes while crumbling in a couple of beef oxo cubes, and a couple of vegetable stock cubes ( I use an italian porchini stock cube). Throw in some thyme and if you like it a bit hot some chilli powder. Put your lid ont he casserole, and put it in the oven on 140c for two hours.
Using a large hole sieve, empty the contents of the casserole, draining the gravy into a saucepan, the filling needs to be as dry as you can make it.
Spoon the filling into the centre of some large flour tortillas, fold over two sides, then the other two sides, making a parcel you pin in place with a cocktail stick. The bake int he over at 180 for 20 minutes or until the parcel is crisp.
Serve with new potatoes, and the gravy you saved warmed up.
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Ah, very much like the vegetarian parcelly things that Mrs K. makes but she uses filo pastry.
The feta and spinach ones are very good but I suppose you could put just about anything in them. Even a mars bar if you had to have some scotch people around for lunch and wanted to impress them.
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>> Ah, very much like the vegetarian parcelly things that Mrs K. makes but she uses
>> filo pastry.
>>
>> The feta and spinach ones are very good but I suppose you could put just
>> about anything in them. Even a mars bar if you had to have some scotch
>> people around for lunch and wanted to impress them.
You can modify the approach using filo rather than ordinary pastry and using mince - in effect creating a giant pie shaped samosa
Talking of Mars Bars, try this, - getting a mars bar from the fridge, slice it thinly, distribute it in your apple pie before baking - gives the apple pie a delicious caramel/chocolate twist.
That tip came out of the pub the mclaren team use on Friday lunchtimes.
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>That tip came out of the pub the mclaren team use on Friday lunchtimes.
That would explain the race results then.
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>> The wharf it was.
And then it was gone. Closed sometime before Xmas according to Mrs B's mate Louise.
If a place like that, bar and restaurant well filled, cannot succeed there's something very wrong with the pub ownership regime in England and Wales. Maybe in Jockland and NI too - but perhaps the devolved admins are nearer to being on top of it.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 5 Jan 15 at 23:01
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>> If a place like that, bar and restaurant well filled, cannot succeed there's something very
>> wrong with the pub ownership regime in England and Wales. Maybe in Jockland and NI
>> too - but perhaps the devolved admins are nearer to being on top of it.
Well, fairly obviously there is something wrong somewhere. Which is it? Pub management? Staffing? High rents? Or what?
Wetherspoons manage to continue to open new pubs on a weekly basis. If they can provide a wide selection of well kept beers and good food, all at very reasonable prices, why can't other chains?
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>> Wetherspoons manage to continue to open new pubs on a weekly basis. If they can
>> provide a wide selection of well kept beers and good food, Insert^ and rough clientele and early morning drunks ^end insert all at very reasonable
>> prices, why can't other chains?
>>
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 6 Jan 15 at 09:40
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@ Zero 09:38
So, you aren't disputing that the beer is well kept and the food is good, all at very reasonable prices?
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>> @ Zero 09:38
>>
>> So, you aren't disputing that the beer is well kept and the food is good,
>> all at very reasonable prices?
note the crossed through well kept & good
I'm convinced the spoons in Walton is pumping beer through lead pipes, everyone who goes there seems to display signs of Alzheimer's.
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 6 Jan 15 at 09:56
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To be fair some Wetherspoons drinking houses are better than others but it's a model that can only be applied where you have a density of population and large cheap premises available and attracts, shall we say, the more, price concious drinker.
The reason so many traditional pubs are shutting down is simply that people don't go out for a drink like they used to any more. The only way to survive is to go up market and become part restaurant. The days of the little village pub or corner pubs in cities are frankly doomed. it's a great shame but ultimately a pub cannot survive without customers.
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>> To be fair some Wetherspoons drinking houses are better than others but it's a model
>> that can only be applied where you have a density of population and large cheap
>> premises available and attracts, shall we say, the more, price concious drinker.
Spoons does do one good thing. It has renovated, preserved and saved some buildings of architectural or historical merit.
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Yes, the old Corn Hall in Bury St Edmunds springs to mind. They have bouncers on the doors there to keep out the riff raff. You could say the same for the Old Bell Hotel in Norwich but their clientele there is more or less exclusively riff-raff.
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>> Yes, the old Corn Hall in Bury St Edmunds springs to mind. They have bouncers
>> on the doors there to keep out the riff raff. You could say the same
>> for the Old Bell Hotel in Norwich but their clientele there is more or less
>> exclusively riff-raff.
I know one spoons where the bouncers go out scouring the area for rif raf to drag them in.
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"Yes, the old Corn Hall in Bury St Edmunds springs to mind. They have bouncers on the doors there to keep out the riff raff."
WHAT!!! They let you in??? I must have words!
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I've only been in there a couple of times and I doubt that I will be going back any time soon so you are safe. Food look pretty awful and its not the sort of place I'd go for a pint but they have done a nice job on the building to give them credit.
More likely to find me in the Old Canon down Canon street or for a swift half, the Nutshell where the size of the place forces a sociability you don't get in a Spoons. I like the mummified cat..
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>> I like the mummified cat..
Got any tasting notes? Thats the thing about these real ale types, they insist on stupid names for the brew.
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>> >> I like the mummified cat..
>>
>> Got any tasting notes? Thats the thing about these real ale types, they insist on
>> stupid names for the brew.
>>
Rather dry and with a lingering aftertaste. Keeps well.
i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/01/27/article-2092663-0082838E1000044C-32_634x424.jpg
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Talking of pubs again in Norwich, CGN what was the name of that tiny pub in Norwich I think it was labeled the smallest pub in england, somewhere the city centre. I can't remember the name of it for the life of me.
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I think you men the Vine or as it is now the VIne Thai restaurant Claims to be the smallest in Norwich
www.vinethai.co.uk/
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>> I think you men the Vine or as it is now the VIne Thai restaurant
>> Claims to be the smallest in Norwich
>>
>>
>> www.vinethai.co.uk/
>>
I think that's it yes, thanks.
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Small pub in Norwich is not the smallest in England, this is:
www.thenutshellpub.co.uk/
The Norwich one is this:
www.vinethai.co.uk/
But it's been gastropubbed!
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"I've only been in there a couple of times........................"
To be honest, I can hardly call myself a regular either, but I can take my wife, my 2 sons + girlfriend for lunch and a good beer and still get ample change out of two twenties. It also gives me the opportunity to regale them with tales about how I used to play there with the band when it was still the Corn Exchange. On a particular setting, my mate's wah-wah pedal used to pick up the signals from the taxi-rank outside. When we played there, we used to nip out to the Nutshell for a swift one.
I usually drink at the Old Cannon; I like the best bitter, but it doesn't like me - it gives me a headache, so I drink the Adnams bitter. Apparently the previous brewer was similarly sensitive to his own best brew.
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>> To be fair some Wetherspoons drinking houses are better than others
No complaints about the Moon in the Square in Bournemouth. Touch wood I've always had a good meal there when I go down the coast in the summer. Always packed out too, but still manage to provide meals quickly.
tinyurl.com/pps7r3j - trip advisor
www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pubs/the-moon-in-the-square
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 6 Jan 15 at 10:19
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>> Well, fairly obviously there is something wrong somewhere. Which is it? Pub management? Staffing? High
>> rents? Or what?
A friend of Miss B's who'd worked there suggests somebody was snorting the profits.
Anyway, it re-opened around Easter as part of the locally owned McManus chain. The Lad has been in a couple of times and speaks well of the range of real ale and the standard to which it's kept. Last night, marking the now rare event of both offspring being at home at same time, we went for a meal.
Dining room gas been re-furbed in a 'rustic' style with some tables in bays. Menu is slightly more standard pub fare than before but some nice specials including pigeon breast starter. Four different mains (steak, trout, moules mariniere and pasta chicken) were all excellent, Hot, tasty, well presented and the steak bloodily medium rare as requested.
Four starters, four mains and three puds plus two bottles of Shiraz, a glass of white and a couple of other drinks came to a tad under £150.00.
Needless to say we walked home....
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Are we talking fine dining, or greasy spoon, or something in between?
Jacks Hill Cafe is a truck stop on the A5, on your left just after you cross the A43.
www.jackshill.co.uk/
I have used it as a breakfast stop on early runs north.
An alternative is The Narrow Boat at Weedon, on your left going north just over the Grand Union canal a bit before you get to Weedon cross roads. I haven't been for a while, but it seems to have been done up.
www.narrowboatatweedon.co.uk/
I've never been in, but I mean to look in at the Saracen's Head in Towcester sometime - only because it's a nice looking old coaching inn - I don't know what it's like.
You might like the Boat Inn at Stoke Bruerne - just off the A508, and you can cut back across to Towcester after. We used it whenever we passed in our boating days. Usually open fire in the small canalside bar and good food and ale.
www.boatinn.co.uk/
EDIT - I notice that while I have been composing this masterpiece, Bromp has also mentioned the Narrow Boat. If I'm not mistaken the erstwhile proprietors of that pub are now running the Old Red Lion at Kislingbury?
Last edited by: Manatee on Mon 16 Jan 12 at 20:47
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We may be at crossed boats here Manatee. The one I'm thinking of is on the left going south ie right going north. It's on the corner of a junction signposted Heyford & Bugbrooke (different subject but I wouldn't go that way for Bugbrooke).
I'd forgotten Jacks Hill cafe which may well be best for Z's purpose.
EDIT - It is the same one. It closed for a bit last year and the previous owners, Debbie and Mark, are now partners in the Red Lion at Kislingbury
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 16 Jan 12 at 20:59
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Not in for greasy spoon this trip out. Somewhere that has something healthy on the menu.
Cholesterol and Chips next time maybe.
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>>Somewhere that has something healthy on the menu.
Just south of MK near the A5 is Woburn - I haven't been to the Black Horse in its current incarnation but it's proper food by all accounts (not Brake's) and a nice location to wander about for a few minutes.
www.blackhorsewoburn.co.uk/
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Buddies are quite menu flexible in that if you want say some grilled chicken with salad, they pick something on the menu thats close and swap things around. There are afew healthier options on the menu as my wife often orders something which appears to me to defeat the object of eating out!
Ive never yet known them refuse a reasonable request. Food is also freshly cooked and tastes it.
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No, it's I who have it on the wrong side of the road!
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Never tried Jacks Hill Cafe (too near home) but it's very busy with bikers and/or classic cars depending on the Silverstone calendar.
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I'd normally suggest the Five Bells in Bugbrooke as an unpretentious pub with food.
Unfortunately it's 'between landlords' atm.
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Jacks Hill is ok as a cafe but not the best by far.
I much prefer the menu at The Narrow Boat;)
Pat
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You are a train spotter.
You have to take sandwiches and a tartan flask.
Last edited by: Iffy on Tue 17 Jan 12 at 07:29
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His tartan flask has declared independence and run off with a rug !
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Do let us know where you eventually go and how you get on.
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Miss B was in Towcester this afternoon. Reports road works in vicinity of Jacks Hill Cafe with temp lights and alternate one way working.
Shouldn't be too bad off peak.
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Going to try the warf in Bugville Bugbrooke
Last edited by: Zero on Tue 17 Jan 12 at 19:24
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The natives will be on lancer watch!!
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"Need a lunch recommendation"
A bacon roll or three does it for me.
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>> "Need a lunch recommendation"
A tin of Branston beans and a decent portion of mushrooms.
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I don't know where I was when Zero was looking for his lunch stop, asleep probably.
I am sorry The Wharf has shut. Is anyone taking it over? That chap Tim Martin is always looking for new pubs to develop!
Anyway this place comes highly recommended. Not far away.
The Saracens Head at Daventry
tinyurl.com/o7k9gk6
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Need a lunch recomendation - Stuu
