The Stile Bridge, Linton / Marden

How nice it is to come across somewhere new that ticks all the boxes!  Having asked for suggestions earlier in the week (see my last post) I got a handful of suggestions, many of which I'd tried before, including a couple of ringing endorsements for The Stile Bridge at the bottom of Linton Hill on the way to Marden.  It's well over ten years since I last visited The Stile Bridge, so I thought it was probably time to give it another try.

The Stile Bridge fronts right onto the road between Maidstone and Staplehurst in the middle of nowhere.  It's a welcome sight on a cold, dark, winters night, a feeling that grows as you enter to find a roaring open fire and a busy little bar.  The walls and ceilings are covered in pub, brewery and booze memorabilia, including a fine collection of miniatures in a nice old display cabinet and a collection of printed pub mirrors.  There are five real ales, several unusual lagers and one cider on draught and a selection of more than forty bottled beers from which to choose.  Sorry about the blurry picture, but you get the idea...

Having ordered our drinks (a pint of Horsham ale for me!) we were seated straight away in a cosy side room just off the bar.  The menu was short enough to suggest minimal use of the freezer, but long enough to contain a number of unusual and interesting choices.  I'd never heard of Onglet steak before, but the waitress was able to explain that it is a cut of beef taken from just behind the rib.  I'll give it a try on our next visit, sounds good.

We started with deep fried brie with cranberry sauce for Liz and chicken liver parfait for me.  The brie was rich and creamy, and the parfait was as light as a feather.  We were off to an excellent start.

As well as a well balanced menu there were a number of specials on offer, including a pie of the day.  Now, I have a real problem with what most pubs seem to think passes for a pie.  (For the record, a bowl of stew with a flaky pastry lid is not a pie!)  Imagine my delight, then, on being told that the special was a short crust pastry mixed game pie of generous proportions!  How could I refuse?  It was lovely!  If I was being hyper-critical, it could have had a bit more meat inside, but it was delicious, filling and definitely a real pie.  The accompanying veggies were cooked to perfection and the skin-on chips were crispy.

Liz chose the lamb leg steak with rosemary butter and roasted winter vegetables.  This turned out to be a big slab of melt in the mouth lamb smothered in melted butter with a stack of mixed beetroot, potato, carrot and parsnip chips that added a lovely earthy dimension and a few unusual flavours.  We also had a bowl of the best beer battered onion rings either of us had ever had to share.  As it turns out, there was no need to order side dishes as the main meals were more than filling enough, but we'll certainly be ordering them again, maybe with a house special burger or freshly made pizza next time.

We both chose desserts from the specials board, in the hope that we'd manage to squeeze them in.  Liz fancied the chocolate pot, which was dark, delicious, and came with a lovely little filo basket of red berries to cut through the richness.  I had a blood orange posset with shortbread, mostly because I'd never had it before. It was sweet and creamy with a citrus twist, the perfect end to a very good meal.

 I think it won't be long before we're back.  The beer was excellent, the food was good, the staff were friendly and knowledgeable.  I'm told there might even be some house brewed beer on offer soon and I'd certainly like to try that.  We are very lucky here in Kent, we have a number of genuinely nice pubs that go the extra mile.  This is certainly one of them. 

Goddard's Pie & Mash and Greenwich Market

Greenwich market is one of those places I can wander round for ages. I love the variety of stalls and little shops around the edges, the mixture of arts and crafts as well as clothes and antiques is always interesting. But the thing I like most is the huge variety of food available there. A truly international mix of authentic street food stalls at the river end of the market provides a mouthwatering scent in the background as you pick your way between the rows of stalls. More of that later though.

Pie, mash & green liquor is about as regional as food gets. Peculiar to East London, traditional pies are minced beef in flakey pastry. Personally, I like two pies, one mash and plenty of green liquor with a liberal sprinkling of white pepper and vinegar on everything. Originally the liquor was made using the juice of the eels that had been jellied, but these days it's pretty much just a gravey-like parsley sauce. Goddard's and Manzie's have been the two main rivals in south east London since the 1890's, both have their fans and both have their strong points. I always thought Goddard's had better pies but Manzie's did better liquor. It's been many years since I've had either, so when Josie suggested pie & mash for lunch today I was delighted! Inside Goddard's was exactly as I remember the Deptford shop looking nearly thirty years ago, with the traditional refectory style long wooden tables and benches, cream tiled walls, and real fast food. Josie chose a steak & kidney pie with mash and gravy, while Dee opted for a chicken & mushroom pie with mash and gravy (philistines...gravy. Really?) while I stuck with my traditional choice. It was every bit as good as I remember, and as good as I hoped.

If pie & mash doesn't appeal then wander along to the river end of the market. There you will find such a variety of food stalls I guarantee you'll find something to tickle your taste buds. There is everything from paella to dim sum, pizza to Moroccan cuisine, crepes to sushi, cupcakes to South African wurst. On a previous visit we tried the teriyaki, fresh tempura prawn and cooked to order chicken teriyaki on sticky rice was the stand out choice. Next time we're there I think I'll try the dim sum, it all looked so good it's really difficult to choose though. It's great to see some slightly more unusual food on offer as well, with Italian fried rice balls stuffed with all sorts of fillings, Ethiopian vegetarian dishes, Moroccan fusion food, as well as some slightly more mainstream things like fresh crepes and fruit with chocolate fondue poured over the top. There is a cupcake stand featuring a vast array of full sized and miniature vegan cupcakes, all beautifully decorated and presented, and a really good baker selling lots of different breads, cakes, pastries and macaroons.

Churros are Mexican straight donuts. Very tasty, covered in sugar and cinnamon.

The guys on this sushi stall were making california rolls and maki rolls while we watched. If it wasn't for the fact that we had sushi Saturday night I would have given it a try.

The food being produced on this dim sum stall looked particularly good. A wide variety of steamed buns, fried and steamed dumplings, char siu pork, all sorts of yummy looking things.

Greenwich is certainly worth a visit just for the history. The National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory, the Royal Park, and soon to reopen phoenix-like from her own ashes the Cutty Sark (one of the fastest tea clippers ever to set sail) in her fully restored glory are all worth the trip alone. Grab lunch from one of the market stalls, or perhaps one of the little independent tea rooms or restaurants around the town in preference to the generic chain places like Nandos or Zizzi. I don't have anything against them, it's just that there is better, fresher, more imaginative food available at very reasonable prices right there in the market.

The Plough at Langley

This isn't really a review, just a quick comment or two. We stopped at The Plough at Langley for lunch while we were out and about today, and I'm rather glad we did! It's a lovely old building with a little garden area at the front with half a dozen picnic tables with umbrellas on it where you can sit and watch the world go by. It's one of those places I've always liked the look of, but never actually been to.

Although the interior decor is quite dated, the excellent selection of real ales (including a house ale brewed just done the road in Tonbridge) on offer and a menu of really traditional pub grub classics more than makes up for it.

Dee had ham, eggs & chips. A couple of nice lightly fried eggs on a vast amount of Yorkshire style ham and a pile of fat, crispy chips. Not too imaginative, but very tasty! I think I came out ahead though because I had The Plough Burger, which was just great. A big, juicy, homemade burger in a nice bun with a pile of salad and a handful of chips. It was delicious! As a burger maker of some experience myself, I must say I was impressed. It had a generous amount of herbs mixed in with the beef, giving it an interesting twist and plenty of flavour.

Pick a sunny day, have a pint of something you've never tried before, order a burger (a bargain at just £7.50) and sit out the front. Make sure you grab a proper bottle of ketchup from the bar on the way out though, because the cheap nasty stuff in sachets they give if you sit outside you is awful.

Imaginative, fun, interesting food at last! Mu Mu's in Maidstone

At last! Really fun, really tasty food - and it was right on my doorstep all the time! Last weekend I went out to help a couple of friends celebrate their birthdays. When they told me they were holding it at Mu Mu's nightclub and bar in Maidstone I thought twice about going, I'm not really a nightclub person, but a few people told me the food was really good and how can you say no to a birthday bash, eh?

At first I thought £35 for three courses was a bit on the steep side, but actually it turned out to be an absolute bargain. We had a couple of drinks in the bar while we waited for everyone to arrive, draught Japanese lager seemed the best bet from a fairly limited choice, then we were shown to the restaurant in what was once a pub next door. The birthday girls were seated in gilded thrones in the middle of our long table, in a room decorated in a gothic style - could have been a bit tacky, but it wasn't and I loved it.

We had chosen our food in advance, so things started to come to the table fairly quickly. First of all we were given a tall glass of rum and fruit punch each (included in the price of the meal) and then a waiter came along with a massive teapot. He poured us all cups of cucumber water to refresh our pallets during dinner. A bit odd....and we did wonder if it was for cleaning our fingers with rather than drinking, but as it was served in an eclectic mix of bone china teacups on mismatched saucers we eventually plumped for drinking it.

I had chosen fish cakes on wilted spinach as my starter, which arrived very quickly. It was nicely presented, and very tasty indeed. As soon as the smoked chicken wings starters began coming to the table I knew I'd chosen the wrong thing. They were on a wooden base with a long metal frame attached, from which hung a skewer of wings. On the base was a little jar of barbecue sauce and a large lidded jar full of smoke. Yes, you read that right, smoke! The idea being that you tip the smoke onto your wings to make them as strongly smoked as you like. Great fun!

And the fun didn't end at the starters, either. My burger came on a large wooden board covered in interesting stuff. The burger itself was big and juicy and came on a brioche style bun with a heap of coleslaw, some salad, cheese, crispy bacon, a tub of sliced pickles, a dish of ketchup and a little bottle of burger sauce - allowing you to build the burger just how you like it. There were a a couple of crispy onion rings and a mini frying basket of absolutely delicious chips on the side. The basket looked just like the ones they get cooked in, but a fraction of the size! Paul said his burger was a bit dry, and it did look like it was a bit more well done than mine, which was just about medium and tasted lovely. I would order the burger again without a moments hesitation.

Desert was also a fun take on a classic dish. I had a selection of three mini cornettos, served in a little lacquered wooden rack, with a selection of toppings to roll them in. There were little piles of hundreds and thousands, chocolate vermicelli and finally (and best of all!) popping candy. The three chocolate waffle cones each had a little scoop of a different flavour ice cream inside. Don't ask me what flavours, I don't know, and it doesn't really matter because they were all very tasty.

The staff were friendly, the food turned up in a timely fashion and was both interesting and tasty, and the meal finished with an ice cold glass of limoncello liqueur. We weren't exactly rushed from our seats, but we were aware that there was another party booked in after us so we didn't linger at the table. The £35 per head covered the rum punch, three courses chosen from a fairly short but interesting menu, the glass of limoncello and entry to the nightclub afterwards with use of a private booth big enough for all of us.

The birthday girls had a great evening, everyone enjoyed their food, and one or two of us had a glass or two too many in the process. It's a long time since I enjoyed a meal this much. I've eaten fancier food, but nothing as interesting or as much fun as this. Go and have a look for yourself, order the wings and the burger, enjoy yourself and see if you laugh as much as we did.