Mel finds herself in the country and likes it

So it seems everyone has been banging on about how good the Parkers Arms up in Lancashire is in the last few months, I have to say its been on my list to try for a couple of years now.

They have picked up two consecutive Taste of Lancashire winner awards, 2013 & 2014, and none other than Mr Jay Rayner off the telly had been a couple of times and wrote rather good reviews, so we thought we'd have a change and do the trip out into the hills.

Boy was it worth it.

The Parkers is located in small village in the Trough of Bowland, about less than an hour from Manchester (with my foot down).
We stayed in a lovely B & B up the road (recommended by the way), and walked back down to the Parkers. Now from the warm welcome to the lovely wine to the fantastic food, it was all bang on.

We sat in front of the fire and picked from the menu, some pub classics feature along side a few more adventurous dishes. I went for sardines and pheasant (not having had before, well you've got to try things eh). Cathy our host told us about each dish, lots of it is sourced really locally, I know everyone says that, but these guys mean it, their tag line is using 'bounty from the county'.

The sardines came hot in a science lab jar with lots of bread, they were awesome, and I would have been happy just eating more of them, but having ordered the pheasant one felt I should give it a go. In between Cathy brought us out a couple of tasters of the menu, flat breads and some gnocchi were beautiful ('Stosie thought you might like to try them' and we did).

The pheasant looked great, and was really well cooked - a very hearty winter dish, perfect for the setting and cold winter night.

Everyone else was raving about there choices, Skirt Steak, Steak Pie and another Pheasant. We shared a 'Wet Nelly' for pudding I believe it was called, an old traditional pudding (Nelson liked it I hear), given a modern take by Stosie. It was almost Christmassy, very filling and rich.

After the meal Stosie, the chef, came out for a chat and her enthusiasm for Lancashire and the Pakers Arms is infectious, they obviously care deeply about what they put out and it shows.

A few drinks later and we stumbled back up to our B&B, and cancelled the full English for breakfast, it was going to be many more hours before I would need to eat again.

Have a change from the usual Italian or wherever you are going this weekend, get in the car and go and see this beautiful part of our country and best of all try some of Stosie's food.

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The B & B can be found at http://clerklaithe.co.uk, Tell Matthew, Mel from Onionring sent you.

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Posted: Friday 5th December 2014
ID: 5482 - 1260