Fine dining in Devon

Notice of our various meals out during our recent stay in Devon.

The Rock Inn, Yelverton

Yelverton was built up in the mid nineteenth century as a higher grade satellite of Plymouth. A bolt hole away from the big town. This included upgrading a big old farm house to what is now the Rock Inn. A place which still seems quite grand, with lots of brown wood, inside, even if chunks of the outside have been sublet to various other retail operations.

A memorable lunch for me in that I had a rabbit stew, possibly made from small local rabbit rather than big rabbit imported frozen from China. Served with some kind of flat pasta. The first time I recall having rabbit in a restaurant.

Augmented by a spot of eye-candy for the older gentlemen - a good proportion of the clientèle this Monday lunchtime - in the form of a young lady waitress with a strikingly short skirt and a reasonably low cut blouse. All very decorative.

The Sea Trout Inn, Staverton

Staverton being a place on the Dart where the Bishop of Exeter once went to law with Buckfast Abbey over fishing rights. There is still a very old and narrow bridge, wide enough for one car at a time and liberally supplied with those triangular refuges for pedestrians who might get caught.

Another first, in that the Sea Trout Inn actually managed to serve sea trout, which we were told had been fetched that day from the fish market at Brixham. An Inn which had clearly decided to up its game from when we last visited 18 months ago, a visit noticed at reference 7.

The soup. Rather good, despite the rather pretentious presentation.

The trout. One of our number had fish and chips which came on a piece of artfully printed waxed paper on a regular plate. One might think that when one has a proper plate, one does not need the paper. But clearly one does. The paper, as I recall, was decorated with a complicated patchwork of bits of image of newsprint and advertisements, with some of the advertisements so years adrift from the newsprint they came with.

The pudding. After the fruit had been transferred to BH, an interesting take on rice pudding. Again, rather good.

Finn McCool's nosh bar, Teignmouth

Traditional fish and chips. I thought my haddock rather good and asked the waitress where it came from and without missing a beat she told me that it had been frozen out in the Atlantic. None of this nonsense about local caught fish here - nonsense in the sense that small fishermen like to sell to a market which is always going to take their catch and nosh bars like to buy in a market which is always going to have what they want. Cutting out the middleman doesn't really work.

I thought perhaps a chain, but Bing suggests otherwise. There is a scattering of eateries of this name across the world, but no chain.

But I have been reminded that Finn McCool is the anglicised version of an Irish giant, mixed up with  with the Giants Causeway and a hunter-gatherer of Irish mythology associated with An Fhiannaíocht, or the Fenian cycle. Names which also get mixed up with the names of Irish political parties - which, from this side of the water, sounds a bit like us naming our political parties after characters from Beowulf. Perhaps the sort of thing German Wagner nuts went in for in the 1930's.

And I learn that this particular legend was first written down properly in the 1840's - about the same sort of time as the Finns were creating their national epic, the Kalevala. For which see reference 8. Not got any further in my reading since then.

Not clear what is going to happen to the chap stretched out on a table in the snap above. What kind of operation do the officiants have in mind?

Unfortunately, I can't now find where I got it from. All Google image search can offer is a French site about druids old and new and a version of the snap without the Irish branding.

The Royal Lion, Lyme Regis

A hotel we have stayed in several times over the years, a place with a resident proprietrix, but which has recently been taken over by Hall  & Woodhouse, the people that have the pub-hotel we stay in from time to time in Poundbury. And we have learned now that at one time the place was run by Charringtons, whose bitter I was rather fond of in the late 1960's. A good session beer, not too much flavour and not too much alcohol.

Not busy enough to justify opening up the grand Oak Room upstairs, so we ate in the bar.

The wine list had been slimmed down a bit since our last visit. But this Sancerre, from the 2018 vintage, from Le Petit Broux, Caves des Vins de Sancerre, was perfectly satisfactory. Even if I have failed to track down the place where it was made. No problem finding people who will sell it to me.

I started with mushrooms on toast, which were OK, except that the toast was soggy. Followed by a moderately expensive steak, adequate if not great, and served with half a giant tomato, which looked rather odd on the plate. Perhaps I should have asked them to take it away.

I didn't fancy any of the desserts on offer, so settled for white bread and butter. Which turned out to be sour dough, lightly toasted. Presumably not fit to be sold cold, perhaps because it was not very fresh, perhaps because it was fresh out of the freezer. I bored BH with talk of how when I was little, more or less any decent hotel could serve decent white rolls. I wonder if place like Claridge's can manage decent rolls, or have they caught the sour dough disease too?

Wound up with a spot of Paddy in a pub up the road.

The Five Bells, Whitchurch Canonicorum

A friendly, mainly locals pub, out in the country. Sadly, the lamb shank they served me, alleged to be a special of the day, was not very nice at all. Not very big, overcooked  and covered in some rather fierce sauce. Mashed potato rather stale looking and rather stale tasting. Probably left over from lunch, that is to say it had all been standing around for maybe five hours.

The people with me did rather better for themselves.

We were entertained by a young man who had been parachuted in from Kent to help Waitrose Bridport with their deliveries. About to be joined by his parents who had decided to retire to Dorset, to a house in Whitchurch. Both he and his dad were rather keen on fast cars, but its seems that to scratch that one, they will have to get themselves back to Thruxton. Which Bing tells me is just about 30 miles, or an hour, so well within reach for a day's outing. I would have guessed much bigger numbers.

We learned that there was no question of his taking his van home, for which he probably had parking space. All vans must be returned to base at night, not least because their chiller cabinets need to be plugged into the power overnight. I guess from the Waitrose point of view, probably better not to have their vans dotted about the country overnight, quite possibly clocking up private  miles. Possibly even drink driving.

A teetotal occasion, so I did not think to challenge the barmaid about the lack of Bell's whisky. Which all houses with a bell in their name ought to stock, out of respect.

PS: 21:44: I remember about Edge history, which takes me back to reference 9 and I get the Irish branding of the first snap back. But not much else. All looks a bit half baked, amateurish.

References

Reference 1: http://therockinnyelverton.pub/. The Rock.

Reference 2: http://seatroutinn.co.uk/. The Trout.

Reference 3: http://www.finnmccools.co.uk/. McCool.

Reference 4: https://www.royallionhotel.com/. The Lion.

Reference 5: https://www.thefivebellsinn.pub/. The Bells.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/05/fake-143.html.

Reference 7: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/10/critical-national-infrastructure.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/03/through-glass-ceiling-again.html.

Reference 9: https://teanganadraoithealbainnua.wordpress.com/.