The Cornish Arms, St Merryn

On Valentines day I visited this pub for Sunday lunch together with my Wife, Daughter and her family. The Sunday roast was probably the best pub roast I have ever enjoyed. The beef was lean, tender and cooked to perfection (pinkish but not running with blood). Roast potatoes, onion gravy and a selection of five vegetables. The price was reasonable and there was no salad garnish that is so unsuitable with hot dishes but ubiquitous in most pubs these days. The beers were excellent too, considering they were Cornish ales!. The service was efficient and very friendly.
After returning home I found some holiday pictures from 7 years ago taken in the bar area. Apart from the colour of the walls behind the bar little has changed in this area.

Well done Rick Stein. Would you like to open a similar establishment in Bristol?

16 Feb 2010 19:08

The New Inn, Gloucester

My Wife and I ate in the restaurant of this pub on 19th April 2008. The chips were pale and undercooked. The battered fish was pale and limp and heaving with grease. The plate was swimming in fat. The worst plate of fish and chips ever endured in my life. We were offered Bass beer and this turned out to be Bass Creamflow. A disgusting way to finish off a an appalling meal. It was better when Berni operated it!!

20 Apr 2008 13:32

The Pot Kiln, Frilsham

My Mother-in-Law has been watching the TV series about the refurbishment of this pub into a �gastropub� for a long time. She has seen most episodes at least three times and has salivated over the food that was being prepared on screen by Mike Robinson. As a treat my Wife and I decided to take my Mother-in Law out to the Pot Kiln on the Tuesday following Easter.
We found the pub easily following the directions found on the website. I gather some food critics have had difficulty with them which says rather a lot about many food critics!

The location is tranquil and the building is what I would consider to be a perfect country pub. So many refurbishments are horrendous. This one has been completed sympathetically and despite the comments of a small number of disaffected �locals� the bar area was unspoilt. As a first time visitor there was nothing to show that this had not been the layout for at least fifty years or more. A film crew were evident and therefore we assumed that the proprietor would be on site. The bar staff greeted us on entry and were cheery, friendly and efficient. The beers we tried were excellent and reasonably priced. So far so good.
Although we booked a table in the restaurant for midday, we were told that as Easter had been so busy they had run out of certain food and the kitchen staff were delayed completing their prep. We would have to wait for fifteen minutes or so. No problem.

Our order was taken by an efficient and personable waitress. I ordered the pave of venison, my Wife ordered a confit of duck with creamed flageolet beans and my Mother-in-Law ordered the slow roast pork with red cabbage. She had seen the episode where Mike prepared the slow roast pork with rosemary and garlic and assumed that the pork would be equally well cooked with plenty of crackling and virtually no fat.

After about fifteen minutes a party of three who ordered after us had their starter delivered. The waitress took the trouble to explain to us that our order would take slightly longer as we had only ordered mains. After another fifteen minutes the other table�s main courses turned up but still no sign of ours. After five or ten minutes our main courses arrived. My pave of venison with smoked garlic sauce was as I had expected. My Wife�s duck was a solitary duck leg that had a blackened bone sticking out from it where it appeared to have been enthusiastically flashed under a grill. The sole accompaniment to this was a spoonful of flageolet beans that were the bullet hard end of al dente and no potatoes. My Mother-in-Law�s pork was barely cooked with great seams of colourless fat running though the meat and the skin had not crackled. There was a single piece of crackling perched on top of the meat obviously belonging to some other piece of meat. The promised red cabbage was missing and was replaced by flageolet beans which my Mother-in-Law detests like no other vegetable. We wondered whether the delay in our main courses was caused by a quick forty minutes in a catering oven rather than the promised four hour slow roast? I followed this course with a pigeon, black pudding and bacon salad which was excellent and my Wife tried the raspberry and apple crumble. Although the filling was quite pleasant the crumble was appalling. It looked like a sprinkling of granola that had been inexpertly flashed under a grill. No taste and reduced to powder in the mouth.

Whilst sitting in the restaurant we noticed that although all the other tables were taken, there was no buzz amongst the diners and they were not smiling with pleasure. We overheard another table saying that they did not enjoy their meals at all. There was also a constant traffic of staff walking through the restaurant with little apparent motive. We could not work out whether the front of house manager was actually working or whether she was helping out from time to time on her day off!

When we left we saw Mike in the garden talking with some customers and the front of house manager and he said goodbye to us and wished us a safe journey. He looked as if a heavy weekend was taking its toll on him. The film crew were filming a shot of the pub and an assistant was holding a branch of fruit blossom over the camera lens in the middle of a field to produce an illusionary view of the pub.

You might ask why we did not complain to Mike at the time. If it would have been possible to speak to the manager or to Mike in a quiet place I might have done. However I never like people to gain the impression that I am angling for a discount, a free bottle of wine or a free meal. Normally I just don�t recommend the establishment to others and never take my custom there again.

Despite all the above adverse comments we originally decided to give the pub another chance later this year. The location is superb. The bar, the garden the beer and the staff are all first class. Mike and his Wife appear on television to be dedicated to providing a variety of quality local food cooked to a high standard. Hopefully we just picked the wrong day. However as we did not even have the courtesy of an acknowledgement to our e-mail we have changed our minds!

25 Apr 2006 21:43