The Padwell Arms, Seal

We 'found' this pub today after landing a superb Xmas tree at Stonepitts farm (as usual). They have both Nordic and traditional varieties, all grown on site I believe - hugely popular with those in the know. In the summer this is the place for PYO fruit..

Anyway, back to the plot. Just a couple of minutes from the A25, the Padwell Arms is set amongst orchard farms within the beautiful undulating Kent landscape. To be honest, we had earlier tried calling a few places but no chance of a lunch booking on one of the busiest Sundays of the year. We are not really ones for battling to the bar anyway.
The tantalising smell of wood smoke outside the pub was duly rewarded by roaring fires inside one including next to our table. 6 or 7 real ales at the bar including 3 I'd not heard of before like Polar Express, which was very good. The Harveys was also well kept and excellent.
The menu range was spot on - a perfect variety of hearty meals and lighter bites. All the food was freshly made on the premises. I had Venison stew with dumplings (�9), made with Venison from next door Chart farm and served with fresh veg. Awesome. I was thankful the place was quiet as I surreptitiously looked either way before supping the last of the gravy from the bowl. My wife is being good ahead of xmas so just had a pint of very good Norwegian prawns with fresh granary bread & marie rose sauce (�4). Excellent. All the food is made on site. Unfortunately the scotch eggs (�2) were already all gone as we were both up for more!
For pud we tried the mince pies which were sitting temptingly on a plate behind the bar looking like little upside down puddings. Oh my! I honestly didn't know a mince pie could taste like that. Served warm with cream, enormous, made with savoury pastry and heavily infused with orange and essence of yum.

I hope the 'pad' will keep this up. Apparently the chef who has re-engineered the menu is on loan from The Snail restaurant up the road. This is a real pub with great beer and, today, some of best honest, fresh and delicious local pub food we have had in many years. A dying breed. We'll be bringing our friends here very soon.
It inspired me to register with BITE as I'm hoping with some wider support this place might be around so our son can one day enjoy it as much as we did today.

12 Dec 2010 21:29