This return visit only served to confirm my impressions as stated in my first post about "The Pigs".
We were up in Holt for an afternoon, and happened to be unable to avoid a visit to "The Pigs", so we stopped off en route and decided on a light lunch(!).
I drank "The Pigs" own beer "Edgefield Old Spot" brewed on their behalf by the local Wolf brewery. A wonderful, flavoursome citrus & hoppy ale. The Darling Wife drank good old "Aspalls Draught Cider".
We chose to nibble on a helping of home cooked scratchings while waiting for our food. These were delicious, though they were mildly overcooked so there was more a flavour of burnt skin than scratchings. Still, they were tasty!
As a starter we decided to share a portion of "Piggy Pieces" a dish which varies from portion to portion, depending on what food is in stock. It tends to consist of a selection of sausage, kidney, liver, pigs ear, crackling, pork rillette, with some sort of chutney or sauce. All cooked to perfection, hugely flavoursome and well seasoned. It does tend to take you by surprise when the plate arrives and you see how much food there is! You thank your lucky stars that you are sharing one between two!
So, for main course the Darling Wife chose the splendid sounding "
Perfick Porks Pork, Apple and Sage Burger" served in a toasted english muffin, apple chutney, baby gem, egdefield slaw and hand-cut chips. This went down with great relish and I know that the Darling Wife felt that it was the best, most flavoursome burger she had ever had. The meat was not only excellent tasting, but also pleasantly moist and of excellent consistency. I failed to take up the offer of a mouthful to try ( I had more than enough food to keep me occupied), so cannot comment for myself, though I did try the chips; these tasted heavenly, a really good fresh potato flavour, enhanced by the skins being left on. However I did feel that they needed a bit more crunch.
I repeated my order of last the time we visited; "The Three Pigs" Slow cooked belly of perfick pork served with smokey bacon beans, apple chutney, black pudding & crackling. This is the pigs signature dish, and wow what a dish! There is little more to say about this dish than I did last time, so for a full review, I simply direct you to my earlier posting. How they manage to achieve such perfection in the belly, I do not know, the meat simply falls apart when you show it the knife, it tasted sublime, with its excellent balance of salt and fat. The Black pudding is like none other that I have ever tasted!
As we munched our way through this feast I ruminated on how to tell the Darling Wife that after we had been to our (incredible) concert that evening we would not be returning to base. I had decided that we were to stay at The Pigs and had booked their new room at the top of the Pub called "The Pig Sty" (or "The Sty in the Sky" as it says on the bedroom door).
The room was large with a huge bathroom and an eight foot bed. Apparently the only 8ft bed in Norfolk. Well, yes, the bed was wonderfully huge, and extraordinarily comfortable, but the room, being in the attic of an old pub had sloping ceilings which meant that one could only really get into the bed via the foot of the bed.
The bathroom was great, with underfloor heating and a large bath with separate drench shower. There was a Bang and Olufsen radio hardwired into the bathroom. The only real let-down was the bath itself; although it was quite large and obviously intended for two, it wasn't quite large enough to be comfortable. The main disappointment was the fact that it was made in plastic and not enamelled. This was a distinct let down as the whole quality of the rest of the room was really good, it was very comfortable and pleasantly decorated, spacious and well equipped.
Good tea and coffee was available in the room, with a kettle and other bits and pieces. There was just one problem, good milk was available in the fridge on the first floor landing, which is of course preferable to UHT milk, but it does mean that one must be dressed to go to the fridge, it would be handy if a dressing gown was supplied in the bathroom.
One fantastic little quirk was that there was a beer pump serving "Edgefield Old Spot" on the first floor landing with an honesty box. This proved splendid for quenching the thirst first thing in the morning before tea and before going down to breakfast! Not sure the Darling Wife approved, but one couldn't possibly not make use of the facility while it was on offer.
So, Breakfast! We both chose the 15 mile breakfast - a cooked breakfast where all ingredients are sourced from within a 15 mile radius. This consists of delicious flavoursome sausage, black pudding, a free range double yolker and smokey bacon beans on toast. The egg was perfectly cooked in butter, keeping the yolks nicely runny. However, neither of us were truly satisfied with it, the smokey bacon beans could definitely have done with more bacon. I had hoped to enjoy more of a traditional English fry-up and missed the bacon, and tomato etc etc. Darling Wife felt she would have been happier with the pancake or rarebit. It was while eating breakfast that we spied the lunch time offering - full beef or pork roast! How could we possibly not!
So we went for a not terribly long walk from Blakeney to Cley across the marshes and back via the road. Although it was only about 4 miles, we did walk at quite a speed so it was better exercise than it might have been. We had a bit of a potter about in the car and then returned mid afternoon to "The Pigs" for our roast sirloin of beef, served with all the usual trimmings - cabbage, red cabbage, roast potatoes, roast carrots and assorted root veg, home made horseradish cream, yorkshire pudding, all swimming in a delicious beef sauce.
This was the best Pub "Sunday roast" I have ever had, but it did serve to remind me that roasts are best had at home. Unfortunately it is nigh impossible for pubs and restaurants to consistently serve a roast to punters arriving in drips and drabs the whole afternoon, and to retain that home cooked quality. The potatoes tasted wonderful, but were soft and had lost their crunch, the yorkshire puds were well done on the outside but were stodgy and semi cooked inside, they still tasted wonderful, but it was a little bit heavy going to swallow them. I take my hat off to the chefs for turning out such perfectly cooked beef - still nicely rare, full of flavour. The cabbages were served at perfection, the red cabbage (not usually a favourite for me) was al dente, not too vinegary and still a vibrant purple colour. Again we were nearly beaten by the substantial portion sizes, but we battled through and were somewhat upset by the realisation that we ought not go for a pudding.
The guilt we felt at the thought of not being able to sample a Pigs Pudding for the third visit in a row, was eventually put behind us when we ordered "The Pigs hot chocolate fudge sundae" to share. We waited a good while before placing our order in order to make space... and it was definitely the best decision! When it arrived we both groaned at the sheer size of the thing; a vast serving of home made vanilla ice cream, with hot chocolate sauce, chocolate brownies, salted peanuts, cinder toffee and popping candy. Utterly divine - nothing else to say about it!
My Rating: Food: 8.5/10, Accommodation: 8/10, Drink: 8/10
Go to
http://www.thepigs.co.uk/See
http://www.wolfbrewery.com/See
http://www.norfolkconcerts.org/See
http://www.aspall.co.uk/
