pumpkinstrokemarrow

Second call was the Kit Cat Cafe just inside the dunes from Zone C of Camber beach itself (see May 26th). Teas plus a steak pie advertised as a Pukka Pie but I was not so sure. It was one of those pies with very flaky pastry which flies all over the place. Not like the Pukka Pies I remember at all.

Third call was the Coastguard Tearooms at Fairlight (see http://www.coastguardtearooms.co.uk/), an establishment which was doing a steady, local looking trade the Tuesday we were there and which looked to be doing very well out of visitors to the Hastings Country Park, which is what we were, being on the Hunt hunt mentioned on May 27th. Now we had previously noticed some extensive crayfish lagoons on the map, just south of Tenterden, and here we found crayfish salad on the menu. So we go for the local crayfish and get a nicely presented salad which amounted to a crayfish version of a prawn cocktail served on a plate rather than in a sundae glass. Rather a lot of mayo but not bad at all. Followed up by a respectable bit of victoria jam sponge.

Sadly, when I get around to asking Mr. Google, it seems that the crayfish lagoons are long abandoned and the outfit which used to run them is now a potato shop (see http://www.thepotatoshop.com/estate.html). Which would explain why the waitress looked a bit puzzled when I suggested that her crayfish might have come from the crayfish lagoons.

Fourth call was the Coach House Coffee House in New Romney (by popular demand, now open on Sundays) where we had baked potatoes. Friendly staff and the potatoes had been baked in one of those retro contraptions rather than steamed in a microwave. Designed to look like solid and ancient cast iron in black, trimmed with gold, but never been close enough one to find out what they are really made of. But they were let down by having a lot of cheese twiglets sprinkled over them. Far too chunky to melt down a bit in the way that they should.

That apart, most of our eating took place in the Gallivant Hotel, a place which we are now happy to recommend (see http://thegallivanthotel.com/index.php). Good location, nice rooms and public spaces, food and drink trying hard.

Hot on potted prawns, Rye bay scallops, Dexter beef and Romney Marsh lamb. Wine fine but beer cold. Nice white wine from Pays du Gard, a place with which I confused the waiter by confusing it with the flash new bridge over the Tarn. The pitfalls of airing one's knowledge when a few beers down. But they could only manage one room temperature bottle of Shepherd Neame before I was reduced to cold Grolsch. It seems that warm beer was only kept for the kitchen, not really for the customers at all. Some of the portions of food were a bit odd. So BH got monster portions of hot smoked salmon (not like its cold smoked cousin at all) and Marsh lamb while I got miniscule portions of Dexter beef (hors d'œuvre format) and turbot. Cheese following turbot was very good - a cheddar and a blue cheese - but served with some very thin brown biscuity things and some sort of chutney. Would have done better with some thinly sliced white bread - but this place would not be the first place to get this all wrong.

Dexter beef served as cow chop very good - something like that served in Florence, but served off the bone and without the tail they leave on the chop in Florence; cutlet fashion rather than chop.

Breakfasts good. Scrambled eggs on toast excellent with or without bacon, tea a bit feeble and no kippers. A good mushrooms on toast. An attempt to supply proper bread, an attempt which did not really succeed as not enough people wanted the stuff for it to be fresh.

We were agreeably surprised, given the tone of the place, that there were no shiny white plates of various shapes and sizes and that there was very little in the way of drizzles. But they made up a bit by serving some of the food on wooden boards. Plank life.