Telephone: 01547 540298
Address: Leintwardine, Shropshire
Rating: 16.5/20
It can have been no accident that PG Wodehouse chose to set Blandings Castle in Shropshire. Even now, the county has a timeless air about it - hedgerows, winding lanes, sleepy villages, half-timbered houses and half-timbered cars and all the rest.
In spite of this, the area supports a disproportionate number of very good eating places at each level of the gastro scale, from pukka restaurant to humble teashop. And there we were, nine of us in all, sitting down to lunch in the shade at the back of the Jolly Frog.
OK, so it's another bloody gastro-pub, but there's nothing wrong with gastro-pubs. Do we go to France and say, "Oh, God, not another brasserie", or to Italy and moan, "Oh for heaven's sake, not another damned trattoria"? We should give thanks that there are people out there who are prepared to put up with long hours, backbreaking labour and financial uncertainties in order to serve us decent grub in friendly surroundings.
Having got that off my chest, I should say that the Jolly Frog is more gastro than pub - or "country pub and restaurant", as it describes itself - although the beer was a tiptop tipple. But then, so was the sancerre and so was the chardonnay-semillon. And so was the food.
To be truthful, it hadn't originally been on my research agenda. Tucker Thompson and I had driven up from Wales to join our respective financial controllers, my daughter and sundry other souls for a weekend in Salop. "Be at the Jolly Frog for lunch" was the order. We arrived after the main party, and found them already in a marked state of celebration.
The Jolly Frog specialises in fish - from Newlyn, Whitby and Scotland no less, all "purchased daily and delivered overnight", the menu declared - and so there was fish: very good oysters (and this in June); turbot with bouillabaisse; scallop salad with beetroot vinaigrette; lemon sole meunière; battered cod and chips; and so on. But it is not simply an ichthyologist's platter.
On the more permanent menu were the likes of free-range duck egg on toast with ceps, parsley and garlic; Shropshire blue and asparagus tart; roast rabbit with tarragon, seed mustard and honey sauce with mash; ribeye on the bone with béarnaise sauce; and homemade sausages with mash and red onion gravy.
The fish may come from far afield, but the more earthy ingredients are sensibly sourced from the surrounding demesne. Even the vegetables showed signs of thought: "thick-cut" chips, which were just that; crushed new potatoes with mint and olive oil; tomato and red onion salad; wok-fried spinach with lemon oil. These are not everyday side orders.
I cannot speak for every dish that our party saw off over a long lunch. There was far too much bright conversation and laughter for forensic analysis. But I can comment on the ceps on toast with a fried duck's egg, which was as bourgeois and rustic as you like. The ceps were thick, slippery and scented with parsley. The egg was just a touch richer than the average hen's egg, and the bread chewy sourdough. In its bright, summery way, it was a bit of a rib-sticker.
Then it was on to turbot with bouillabaisse. If I were a stickler for authenticity, I might question the appropriateness of that "bouillabaisse", but it was a fine fish soup in which sat a splendid piece of turbot, cooked to pearly perfection. I tried my neighbour's fish and chips, which were admirably done; I had to be beaten off the chips. And I borrowed a scallop off another plate with a smear of its beetroot vinaigrette, but never paid it back.
There were excellent sausages and mash with gladdening onion gravy, and a brace of lemon soles, thick as a Jonathan Franzen novel (although not as thick as a Harry Potter), the consumers of which said were just about the best soles they had ever eaten. There were bowls of spinach and samphire, too, and much else besides, including, I believe, puddings, although I have no memory of puddings. The sun had got to me by then and it was time for a lie down.
But not before we had paid the bill, which was £322.95 all in; £211.80 for food and £111.15 for liquids. As the most expensive bottle, of which we drank three, was £18.95, the drink side of things was more reasonable than it might otherwise have been. Anyway, £35 a head for several hours of seamless pleasure on a blissful summer's day in Shropshire did not seem too high a price to pay.
· Open Tues-Sun, lunch, 12 noon-2.30pm; dinner, 6-10.30pm. Menus Menu prix fixe (lunch and evenings by 7pm), £9.95 for two courses, £12.95 for three.
