I went to Longparish in Hampshire as part of an extended photography project. It’s a lovely place. A string of houses set along a very long road. Beyond the houses there are fields. Beyond the fields there are woods. It is in fact a beautiful place. The town follows the wiered and forded way of the river Test that splits hither and thither, flows along the sides of roads and under countless bridges and when you look closely trout keep pace with the water, facing upstream.
Just the place if you work in draw-bridge sales.
It’s an affluent area, the place to live if you can afford a car luxurious enough to take you comfortably and daily into and out of one of the nearby cities or even all the way into London. The two inns, the Cricketers and the Plough, are the only two down the long Longparish road and they compete for the pockets of the local residents who don’t want to cook of an evening at home and both insist proudly “weekend booking is essential”. They are sublime examples of the Gastro-Pub.
As my extended project is self funded I travel on rather a strict budget and on night one, had a strict supper of Pot-noodle, cup-a-soup, tea and digestive biscuits. Mmmmm.
Chicken and mushroom pot noodle was all that the little local Londis had. There was more selection in the cup-a-soups however they’ve recently rebranded themselves as “some annoying yet familiar and common, stressful -but not too stressful- event – a – soup” I eyed up tasty options but their slogans were just too annoying in the end I settled for “I Accidentally Taped Over The Wedding Video – a – soup” which is cup-a-soup for chicken and mushroom. When I had breakfast I could still taste the mushroominess of dinner the night before.
On night two, knowing that I had another pot noodle and more moron-a-soup sachets waiting next to the kettle in my B&B I went into the Cricketers Inn. I had had a good day and I had a sunburnt nose. The sun had shone bright on the trouted tributaries of the Test and in the cool of the evening, roe deer stepped out of the woodland to fill their bellies on the spring grass growing by the stubbly fields of wheat, barley and corn.
The Cricketers was busy and I had not reserved a table. There was high chatter and the bar was propped by the well fed and the well watered. It seemed no-one in Longparish wanted to cook on that Saturday. The food was expensive, the cheapest, a pub favourite, was cod and chips so I had that. With a pint. Came to £15 or thereabouts. That’s much more expensive than my local and very good fish and chip shop fish or my local bar’s beer. The fillet had bones in, the peas were tough and I had to ask for tartar sauce. I thought I would remedy this initial bad impression with an attempt at their homemade deserts menu.
I had the chocolate and amaretto pot topped with toasted flaked almonds. The top was covered with almonds at least two flakes thick and I resisted the temptation to stir them in and treat the whole thing like a crunch corner. The chocolate was smooth and sweet but had a Cadbury like ordinariness about it, there was a hint of amaretto masked by the whack of crunchy almonds on top. Why add amaretto? It makes the whole thing sound swankier. A trick also used in the considerably higher quality William Curley, ooh you say, sponge soaked in Kirsch, how swanky! It’s an unnecessary addition.
You could eat and eat and eat a thousand portions of the chocolate pot, but only because it lacked any real richness or sumptuousness. No exciting tang of raspberry hidden underneath, no strong sweet coffee to compliment the almond and chocolate, it was in fact little more than a crunch corner.
I had no chance to try The Plough Inn although I did have one sandwich there for lunch. It had the similar unsatisfactory ratio of cost to quality. They had napkins rolled and decoratively peaked in the wine glasses on one laid table. I expect it’s much the same.
