Further adventures in and around Stoke.

Back in Stoke for a long weekend and a late Christmas of sorts with Josie, we thought we'd make the effort to try some new places to eat & drink. We failed at the first hurdle though, because for dinner on our first night we ended up back in the Steakhouse in Stone (see previous review of Stoke). Rather like last time, the staff were very friendly and highly professional, the food was very good and the beer was excellent. Josie and I had ribs, but Dee pushed the boat out and had ostrich steak. It's not often you see both ostrich and buffalo steak on a menu, is it! I had a pint of Cockahoop from the Lake District to wash my ribs down, it was light, lively and very easy to drink. Our third visit here, and our third excellent experience.

At Trentham Gardens we were delighted to find the ultimate foodie shop. Brown & Green stocks organic, local and ethical food of all types and varieties. Everything from local honey, lime curd and jams to fresh oven-ready game, sausage rolls, pies and cakes, fresh fruit, veg and bread. There are shelves full of interesting sauces and dips, spices and herbs, ales and spirits, all either locally, organically or ethically produced (or a combination of the three). I think they have other outlets at Derby and somewhere in Gloucestershire and I'd certainly recommend a look if there's one near you, because it's like all the best bits of every farm shop you've ever been in all rolled into one.

In complete contrast to the rubbish we were served on our last visit, we had a very good cooked breakfast in Frankie & Bennie's at Trentham. Ok, so it was only eggs and bacon on toasted muffins, but it was all piping hot, well cooked, nicely presented and very tasty indeed. So much so that we went back there for an evening meal (against my better judgement, after the last visit!) and either there is a new manager, a new chef, or perhaps both because the standard was much higher than I expected.

Another day we had a decidedly above average lunch at a place called Taybarns just north of Newcastle under Lyme. The Taybarns chain doesn't seem to have made it to Kent, but there are a few dotted about the midlands and the north, I believe. The idea is simple, it's a one-price eat as much as you like buffet. You pay your £8.99 per person on the way in and help yourself. The range of fresh food on offer is simply staggering! The sections start with fresh salad, then a choice of pasta dishes including vegetable lasagne, garlic bread and warm dough-balls, then on to fish, chicken, chips and mushy peas. After that is freshly cooked pizzas, either pepperoni, mushroom or margarita, then a selection of burgers and barbecued prawns, chicken, corn on the cob etc. Believe it or not, the buffet continues with a choice of three chinese dishes, a couple of curries, prawn crackers, breads and popadums (?...not sure how you spell that!) and other side dishes. Then there is a full carvery, offering gammon or turkey with all the trimmings. And finally, a selection of about a dozen cakes, puddings, fruit pies and gateaux with cream, custard or ice cream. Did I mention you can have as much as you want for £8.99? Everything is cooked and served in full view of the diners, the sheer number of diners means everything is kept fresh as it turns over very quickly. Your empty plates are cleared quickly between visits with a minimum of fuss, you collect a fresh plate and clean cutlery on each trip up to get more. It pleases me greatly to report that the food was tasty, fresh and well cooked. It is produced to a price, obviously, but somehow managed to achieve a high standard. Certainly worth a look if you are in a hurry or have a large group to feed, or even if you simply can't decide between you what you fancy.

We stumbled across a new English restaurant in the heart of Stoke called Baby Russets. We only dropped in on the off chance we could get a bite to eat fairly late on Saturday night and they couldn't have been more helpful! The house speciality seems to be traditional pies. Not the poor imitation pies you get in most places these days, which aren't really pies at all but bowls of stew with a flakey pastry lid, but real pies with crumbly short crust pastry and meaty fillings! I had a steak & kidney pie, Dee had the chicken supreme, and both were very very good indeed. We were also treated to a huge dish of red cabbage, broccoli, carrots, peas and new potatoes, as well as a dish of excellent hand-cut chips (it's sooooo nice not to get McCain or Brake Bros chips for a change!). All the produce is sourced locally, and the veg is bought from the traditional market just 50 yards away. Also on the menu were Scottish rainbow trout, haunch of venison, chicken pie and cheese and onion pie amongst other delicious sounding things. All the dishes were extremely good value, particularly given the enormous portions, with pies starting from just £6.95. They stocked a range of local beers from the Titanic brewery...I tried the Titanic Stout, which was very good but like a lot of bottled beers proved to be far too fizzy for me. We will certainly come back to Baby Russets next time we're up in Stoke, it turned out to be quite a find.

Back at Trentham Gardens, on our last morning we popped in to a café called "Capabilitea" presumably in honour of Capabilty Brown (designer of the famous Italian garden and landscaped the grounds at Trentham). It was particularly worthy of note for the delicious warm brownie I had and mixed fruit muffin Dee chose, and the coffee and hot chocolate were very good too. We sat on a huge old leather sofa and flicked through some magazines from the cafés rack while we drank our drinks and watched the world go by in very pretty and relaxed surroundings. All in all, Capabiliteas was an ideal place to round off a lovely weekend.

Fatfoodie adventures in Stoke!

Yes, I know it's not in Kent.  Again.  But there was good food to be had in Stoke!  Well....I say "in" Stoke, obviously I don't actually mean "in Stoke"....I mean near Stoke.  Alright, so not in Stoke at all, in Trentham and in Stone....but they're close enough, ok?

Anyway....the food.  Dee and I took the last few bits Josie needed for the start of her last year at Staffordshire University last weekend.  We stayed in the Travelodge (don't ask, and certainly don't go there!) at Trentham on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent.  Trentham Gardens is home to a great little place called The Pie Minister, a sort of modern take on the old pie and mash shops of my youth!  It was a light, airy, log cabin type unit with brightly coloured posters and info about their pies around the walls.

For a very reasonable price (about a fiver) they do a home cooked pie of your choice from a list of about a dozen with mash and red wine gravy.  For about £7.20 they do something called "The Mothership".  To my surprise Josie (who hasn't got the largest appetite) opted for the Mothership with a Thai Chook pie.  This comprised a lovely thai chicken green curry pie, a double helping of mash, a dollop of minted mushy peas, red wine gravy and sprinkles of crispy fried onions and grated cheddar.  Quite a plate-full.  I was even more surprised when she came very close indeed to finishing off the lot!  I opted for a PM pie mothership, but with a single helping of mash.  The PM pie is their signature dish, it's a sort of cross between steak and kidney and beef and veg pie.  Good decision to go for single mash, I can tell you.  There was still plenty of it.  Dee wasn't all that hungry, but she still managed to put away a large sausage roll with mash and gravy.

They sell t-shirts with "Keep Calm & Eat More Pies" on the front, and all the staff wear them as uniform.  I would have bought one, but they were so flimsy I didn't feel they were worth the tenner asking price.  All in all, very good quality and fantastic value food.  An ideal lunch stop on an autumn shopping day, hot and filling, lots of choice, worth a visit!

I've done this in the wrong order really, because Pie Minister was Sunday lunch, but dinner Saturday night turned out to be pretty good too.  We went to a village a few miles outside Stoke called Stone to revisit a pub / steakhouse that Ben and Jen took us to on our last visit.  Sadly for them, the ovens weren't working on that occasion so the menu choice was seriously limited.  Not so this time!

 The pub is in two halves with a large central bar area.  To one side is a very modern feeling disco type pub, complete with bar stocked with several fruit flavoured ciders, alcopops and any number of fizzy beers.  The other side though is a rather nice, modern feeling restaurant which feels much more like a wine bar than a pub.  Fortunately for me, there were a couple of good real ales on, Marsden's Pedigree and Jenning's Cocker Hoop (which I felt it was in the interest of my loyal readers to try).

The menu was also in two halves.  On one side was a selection of fish dishes, ribs, and the usual gastro-pub type offerings, and on the back was a grill and hot-stones menu.  As you'd expect, prices ranged from
around £7 to £16 for main courses.  We dispensed with starters in the vain hope that we might have room for a desert, and dived straight in to the main courses.  Our waiter and waitress were friendly, chatty, and knowledgeable.  They explained the menu and the three steak specials on offer.  We could have chosen an ostrich steak, a buffalo steak or something called a bistro steak.  Dee opted for the latter, which turned out to be a nice thick beef rump steak cut from a particular part of the rump that makes it almost as tender as fillet but with all the meaty flavour of rump.  This came topped with a fried duck egg, chips and mushrooms.  Josie and I weren't in the mood to be refined, so we both chose the rack of pork ribs, but with different sauces.  I went for Jack Daniels BBQ, while Josie chose hoi-sin.  I have to admit, although they were both good, her sauce was better.

It's hard to do anything too imaginative with ribs, but putting a good sauce on them is a great start!  If there's one thing I love it's slow cooked ribs where the meat just falls off the bone.  I cut the end one off the rack, picked up the end of the rib itself, and by the time I'd got it to my mouth the meat was back on the plate leaving just the clean bone in my hand!  Spot on.  The coleslaw was very good too, high quality supplier or home made, I'm not sure which.  I've never been a big fan of the whole hot stones idea, I'm not sure I want to pay extra for the joy of still having to cook my own dinner.  I want chef to cook it for me please, I'm sure he'll do a better job of it.

In spite of a good choice of deserts, we only had room to share one between the three of us.  We had the house speciality, a hot baked cookie still in the iron skillet it was cooked in with a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.  The waitress warned us that the skillet was still very hot indeed, but both the girls still managed to burn themselves on it!  They both agreed it was worth it though.

Next time we visit Stoke we will probably revisit both the Steakhouse and the Pie Minister again.  If you're in the area and hungry you could do worse than do the same.