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The perfect pub meal at a Rutland Inn.
'The best chips bar none' Chips. It’s unfair to rate any eatery by them alone, so I won’t do that. Still, if I needed just one reason to go back to the Coach House Inn, they’re it. Hand-cut, perfectly crispy on the outside and flawlessly white and fluffy on the inside – the chips were the best I’ve ever had. There was no sickening sheen of grease, no ugly discoloured edges, none of that twig-thin, fried-to-death nonsense served up in so many places. These chips were so good, in fact, that calling them chips seems like a mean understatement. FIVE-STAR VERDICT The only thing missing was a pair of bikini-clad women to fan me with palm leaves as I ate. Just kidding. The setting at this pretty country pub was just fine. So was the service. My girlfriend and I were greeted at the door by a beaming waitress who pointed us to our table and helpfully introduced us to the barmen before giving us plenty of time to think about what to order. All the staff were consistently pleasant and quick, and they seemed proud to be working there. We had opted for a meal in the bar rather than the restaurant, for no reason other than that I liked the look of the sample bar food menu on the website. Traditional favourites such as cheese ploughman’s, local sausages and beef casserole caught our eyes. Nothing looked wrong with the adjoining restaurant, Ostler’s, either, but maybe we’ll give that a go another day. We both fancied steak, so I went for the 10oz rib-eye and Helen had the 8oz fillet. They came with tomatoes, mushrooms and those chips. |
For Helen, who is not a fan of funghi, the chef kindly replaced the mushrooms with fried onions. I went for a side order of onion rings too, but I was only expecting a handful of those tiny, breaded things which taste fine but aren’t exactly gourmet. When our food arrived, I must have looked particularly greedy, because these onion rings were huge. They tasted beautiful. My steak, too, was massive, and the chips and mushrooms came in equally generous portions. Sometimes I order steak and chips and feel guilty, but this food was so good, it almost seemed healthy. At the very least, it was clearly made with the produce of the highest standard. The steaks came medium-rare, as promised, and were succulent, juicy and pretty much faultless. The tomatoes were fresh and my mushrooms could not have been better. I suppose the only complaint we had was that there was only one sauce on offer with the steaks – peppercorn. After that you were on your own, or stuck with bowls of what tasted like bottled mayonnaise and ketchup. Still, I wolfed it all down with delight and was so stuffed, I had to turn away the pudding. At first. Then, I spotted the strawberry cheesecake and couldn’t resist. It tasted like it looked – superb. Helen’s crème brulee got her pretty excited too. There seems little else to say about the Coach House Inn apart form a) our excellent meal came to just over £50 with three drinks and b) go there.’ Source: Leicester Mercury, the week – Thursday August 23, 2007 |