Broughton Arms, Balterley; traditional inn serving standard pub dinners in good style.

Wednesday, 22nd July 2015
I put the day in my header, because for a mid-week local inn-turned-restaurant, this was packed with enthusiastic locals. I did not get the chance to look in at lunchtime to find out if it was more like a pub, but this was so packed with diners at tables in the evening, that there was no room for drinkers, and no where I could see where they might be hidden. So my first word of advice is if you want to go there, book a table (which being foreigners to the area, we had).
According to the web site on https://broughtonarmsatbalterley.wordpress.com/about/ (not sure why it is an https address) it is on the Cheshire/Staffordshire border near the village of Weston. There is little local competition except for a hotel conference center and another pub about two or three miles away. The web site is a little strange as the home page is the set menus for functions, but if you dig, all the information is there. I chose this place on the basis of good tripadvisor reviews, which by and large were supported by my visit.
The place looks half traditional, half country pub restaurant cliche. Whilst this is not intended to be a negative comment, it is exactly what you would expect except for the lack of locals drinking at night. Food service stops at 2100, so do not go there late.
The menu for the restaurant is shown on the web site under the heading 'bar menu', presumably because seating is in the bar, and you order your meal at the bar. Drink also comes from the bar at pub prices. The menu is pretty predictable and fairly extensive.
For starter I had the garlic mushrooms.

I am guessing based on their uniformity, that they were not hand made on the premises. Nevertheless, they were numerous, fairly tasty, hot at at CHOF of 8.2 and came with a tartare sauce.

For main course I had steak and kidney pie.

As you can see this is a big portion with chips, and could have been home made. There was probably more steak than kidney and it was a hearty meal at a superlative temperature scoring a 9.5 on the scale. There were also accompanying vegetables which are out of shot.

For desert, I shared a creme brulee

This tasted very eggy and as if it had not been prepared in a big batch for consumption over a period of time. The top had been flamed recently.

There is no pretention factor for this establishment. It appears to be very popular with the older generation of locals and is clearly the place to come. It is exactly what it says on the box, and there were absolutely no surprises. It was middle of the road pricing, and a meal for two with a small cider and glass of wine came to about £50. Things shut down early, and by about 9 the place was emptying out. This is an ideal place to come if you are at the Wychwood Park Venue and want to eat somewhere else.

Steam Bake and Grill at Wychwood Park DeVere Resort, near Crewe: surprisingly good

21st July 2015
We had booked a bargain midweek break through TravelZoo. Amazing value - £99 for two for B and B for two nights, and one three course meal. This is one of a number of resort venues more geared up to conferences and training meeting, and I can only presume they sell off their spare capacity when there is not enough conference trade. I guess July is not a big conference month to spend in Crewe. Crewe is pretty well located for the pottery attractions of Stoke on Trent, and Ironbridge museums.
The restaurant is pretty minimalist, with no table cloths, no bread and I am guessing that all the food is pre-prepared, but I could not say where. The limited menu appearance and speed of service suggests that it is not cooked to order. Nevertheless, it turned out to be the star of this venue in my opinion. I thought I was only getting a two course meal, but it turned out to be three. You can find out more at http://www.deverevenues.co.uk/en/venues/wychwood-park/food-and-drink/ . There is a sort of open plan kitchen to see where the finishing touches are put to dishes. These were clearly the cooks that the management were happy for people to see.

For starter, I had garlic prawns

The dish was served on a weird pice of fake facsimile newspaper. It was well cooked, tasty and scored a 9 on the CHOF scale. A good start.

For main, I had a steak pie with mash, which looks a bit like a self assembly kit. There is a boat of gravy. You get the idea. This again was pretty good and also an 8.5 to 9 on the CHOF scale.

For desert, I chose the mixed chocolate roulade.

A tiny bit mass produced, but good nevertheless.

All in all this was a surprisingly good meal, at a good temperature. It has a minor pretention factor based on the over attention to appearance, but the surroundings and service negated that. We ordered a bottle of wine, but were provided with something other than what we ordered, and were told that this was what they decided to serve instead. I guess the customer is not always right. I gather that the rack rate for this meal without drink and service is £25/head. This is probably a bit overpriced for a TDH meal, but was a good deal as part of our package.