A Tale of Two Ploughman’s

I spent the bank holiday weekend just gone down in The New Forest, cycling, walking and taking in the sights – the sights in question being mostly country pubs! Whilst I got to visit a fair few different boozers in the four days I was down there, my experience in two of the them illustrated what can separate a good pub from a truly great pub. Let me explain….

First of all there was The Oak Inn at Bank.

Now, this is a genuinely nice pub, certainly one of the better ones in the forest, but it isn’t quite a great pub. As a distant outpost of the Fuller’s empire it is a managed tied house, staffed by efficient but disinterested Eastern Europeans. The beer is well kept but fairly mundane – the usual Fuller’s fare. The pub is one big room, and at lunchtime it has the feeling of a canteen, the tables clearly laid out for dining and a whiff of chips in the air. The food was decent, but the menu impossibly huge for what must have been a tiny kitchen. As a country pub it of course offered a ploughman’s lunch and I of course couldn’t resist ordering it.

It wasn’t good. Far too much cheese, that didn’t taste of all that much, and an apple cut into little slices. Whoever thinks that, in days gone by, a hearty farmer would take his packed lunch into the fields with his apple cut into neat little pieces is, quite frankly, mad. If there is to be an apple in a ploughman’s, then it just has to be a whole apple!

Contrast this with The Royal Oak at Fritham.

This pub is the real deal, a brilliant example of what makes the perfect country pub. A independent free house, owned and managed by people with a direct stake in the local community, staffed by disinterested local youngsters and efficient ladies of a certain age. The pub is small and poky, divided up into little rooms that flow to give the feel of a real pub that lends itself to both drinking and eating. The beer on offer is fantastic, a range of six interesting and local real ales served straight from the cask. The food was spot on; simple dishes prepared using the best of local ingredients (and yes, whole apples). As a country pub, it offered almost nothing but ploughman’s, whether you are a ham & cheese, a pork-pie or a coarse country pâté type of man, there is a ploughman’s there for you. I was so taken by their menu, I couldn’t help but order three, just to try them out!

If you are ever in or around the New Forest, The Royal Oak is definitely worth checking out. A real country pub with soul.

Looking for my latest recipe attempt? See my post:  Beetroot Salad with Grapefruit and Goat’s Cheese