The Pomeroy Inn
131 White Lion Road, Little Chalfont, Amersham, HP7 9JY
Telephone: 01494 766845
When you know snow is imminent and you have a 5 hour motorway drive back home ahead of you, it's clearly necessary to dive into a lovely country inn, stock up on hearty warming fare (just in case you get stuck in the snow of course) and warm ones cockles...
So the tempting menu of this rather nice looking pub seemed perfect. AND the carb-rich veggie options sounded just the ticket for a winter's day.
On order 17.01.13:
Cauliflower Fritters
cauliflower fried in a curried batter, served with minted crème fraîche (V)
&
Macaroni Cheese
rigatoni pasta in Ford Farm cheddar cream with rich tomato and red pepper sauce,
served with watercress and balsamic vinegar (V)
&
Side order of Dressed Slaw
[fixed price menu - 2 courses £8.50, side £2.50]
How was it for me?
Crisp fragrant florets of cauliflower, rich creamy pasta bubbling brown on top with grilled cheese, fresh vibrant salad and the tang of a healthy vegetable slaw - mmm yumyum my daydreaming little head thought.
But then the 'food' arrived...
I've never been able to mask my facial expressions easily (somthing that has gotten me into a LOT of trouble over the years) and on this day my face must have changed from one resembling a 5 year old child in utter rapture at the thought of a longed-for xmas present who then opens the thing they most hate in the world.
The 5 cauliflower florets sliding about on a huge plate and held back from the edge only by some rather limp lambs lettuce were, I think it's fair to say, a bit of a dissappointment. But, ever the optimist I pulled myself together and started tucking in.
Now I've long since come to terms with the fact that deep fried foods are going to be cooked in the same oil that's been potentially used to fry fish and burgers in etc. But for the cauliflower fritters to taste more like the scampi on my mother-in-law's plate than her scampi probably did, was (theres no other way to say this) pretty gross. There was no hint of the advertised curry flavour in the batter or int in the creme fraiche.
End of round one.
Never mind I thought - macaroni cheese will lift my spirits again. Um, not so.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear poor Pomeroy - you're chef has lost the will to make the effort. This dish was, I suspect, a bowl of cold cooked pasta to which has been added a couple of slices of soggy red pepper, two halves of tomato and a bare minimum sprinkling of a less than flavoursome cheese. All microwaved and then thrown under the grill - not so much to gratin the cheese (as there wasn't any) but to brown the edges of the pasta thus making it chewy to the point of inedible. And all topped with a drizzle of balsamic (weird and a bit of a passee attempt to be chefy) and a reappearance of the dreaded wilted lambs lettuce - presumably the watercress was having a day off... The 'rich' sauce had absconded with the watercress...
The 'slaw' turned out to be possibly the most peculiar concoction I think I have ever seen mascarading as a side dish. It was a sticky goo that seemed to contain some minute pieces of carrot and broccoli and that tasted sweeter than a sweet thing even if you have a sweet tooth. [As my husband has diabetes I had to warn him off from trying this, as I feared he might go into bloodsugar hyperdrive with just one spoonful.] It was far far removed from the promsing 'fresh vegetable mix' (sans mayo) that the waiter had described.
And finally:
In terms of ambience, I do like the look of this pub, the decor is what I would call attractive 'contemporary rustic', it has lovely open fires and a nice
buzz about it. But it took 20 minutes for us to get seated (!) although
we did arive at 2pm at the end of the very busy lunch rush (they serve until 5pm though). The first
member of the team was really too busy to be friendly but she was
polite; the waiter who took pity on us and cleared us a table was very
good; and the lady who cheerfully and chatilly served our food was also
very good (NB she readily offered a refund when we complained about the
slaw).
Now I'm a girl who loves her grub - and if the first two rounds been delicious then I would no doubt have used a snowy excuse to partake of a pud as well. But I really didn't want to throw good money after bad. Yes, it could be argued that prices are cheap at the Pomeroy, but I still expected to get what was described, and there's no excuse for such simple food being such a let down.
4/10 - OK if desperate and heavy snow is falling.
The big (V) question.
Still relatively new to vegetarian eating it doesn't always occur to me to check the true vegetarian authenticity of foods when I eat out. When a restaurant adds that (v) in brackets you hope they know what they're talking about, but as I learned when Glynn Purnell's somelier insisted that animal products are never used in wine making, that isn't always the case.
So I have asked whether the creme fraiche in this case was (v) and indeed about the Ford Farm Cheddar!
I'll keep you posted!
Chantal Denny-Harrow
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