A Real Reason To Be Cheerful

Of course we all have read that the economy is now wonderful, everything is bouncing back and there's no need to worry ever again. In case you don't quite believe everything you read, for February we've prepared a special 'Credit Crunch' menu.

For just £12 you get a cracking two-course meal, with a choice of three starters and three mains. And, given that one of the starter choices is the chef's soup of the day, there's even more variety than just six different dishes.

You can tuck in at lunch time, dinner time or both, throughout February, Monday-Thursday.

Tempt your taste-buds - click here to see the full menu.

A February Ale

Continuing with the monthly guest ales, for February we've Ringwood Brewery's 'Young Scrum-per'. They say it's 'blonde hoppy happiness' – we're keen to try it and see.  At 4%, and on the citrus side of the flavour range, it should go well with plenty of types of food, not least fish.  (And no, it's not a cider, which is what we first thought from the name!)

Fresh Fish

Something we keep meaning to mention (as it seems not everyone's aware of it) – don't forget that every Wednesday is our Fish 'n' Chip day – where we have fish delivered and served the very same day. Short of living in a port, you'll be hard-pushed to get fresher.  What fish?  As it should be, that's a variable, depending on what's been caught and what our fishmonger selects from the catch. What you can be sure of is that this is fish 'n' chips as it should be.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve was a great success - and as always, a big 'thank you' to everyone who came along.  Here's to the coming year.

We had 50 for the dinner itself and then some locals came in too, to join in with Auld Lang Syne ... and Dancing Queen thereafter!  The resident DJ, known to himself as 'Mixmaster Blandy' but to everyone else as 'The Landlord', kept the music going until 2.30, when Frank Sinatra's 'New York' finished the night. 

I presume there were some serious hangovers the next morning - the last customers departed into the night at about 4.30 - but for once I behaved myself. We had 110
booked-in for New Year's Day so I had to!

 

A Dog Of Taste And Discernment

No, this is not a shaggy dog tale!

One of our customers decided to take his dog out for a walk in the morning, before coming along to the Maltsters to meet up with an old friend for lunch.  In the course of
the walk the dog vanished. He shouted himself hoarse trying to find it but had no luck. Very reluctantly, he gave up the search and went home to prepare to come along to the pub.

In the meantime, we were opening for lunch and found a stray dog in the car park.  We 'phoned the number on the collar and, as you might have guessed, found ourselves speaking to our dog-less customer. It seems the dog had simply decided to get to the pub ahead of its owner - showing all the good sense you'd expect!