Hand and Shears, Church Hanborough

The portents weren't good.  A burnt-out motherboard put both money and time in short supply, and attempts at communication had proved fruitless.  With a pub with bad reviews our only Plan B (which clearly isn't a Plan B at all), the good lady, the little one, housemate and I drove towards Church Hanborough with a sense of fate being very much in the balance.

Still, with parking space right in front of the pub our hopes rose, and indeed luck was on our side.  The telephone fault that had prevented us booking had prevented others too, so provided we could pay in cash (and we could) lunch was on.

The Hand and Shears was, I imagine, once a snug little public house, but is now transformed.  The pub expands into a spacious dining room, set mostly under the ancient beams of a converted barn.  It felt like an exclusive lunch club, and one where we weren't necessarily the best deported guests.  Still, the price was acceptable (a penny short of a tenner), so the good lady and the housemate plumped for the beef, and the little one and I for the pork.

And so it arrived, looking every inch the gastro pub lunch, and oh. my. god.  First on my tastebuds was the gravy.  Fruity sweet gravy, heavy and generous.  Then the potatoes.  Oh wow.  So fluffy, yet crispy, exactly as the perfect roasty should be.  The pork was succulent, finely sliced, beautiful.  The crackling was even crackly.

We swiftly came to the conclusion that we had stumbled on something special here.  Exclusively locally sourced, the Sunday lunch at the Hand and Shears sets a very high standard indeed.  Such was the quality that housemate quickly branched out into pudding, and the good lady rashly spake the words 'ice cream'.  If you know the little one, you'll know that you better deliver on words like that.  I had a tiny taste, and oh it was rich and creamy and Cornish.  The good lady and I shared the cheese board, and the cheeses were so good.  A glass of port accompanied raisin bread, and by the time we'd got through that I was in such a delirium of satisfaction I had to be prised off the ceiling.

 The little one wolfed her way through hers, putting her performance at previous pubs to shame.  She knows a good thing when she sees it.  Unfortunately the good temper that had taken her so far through the day fell away once the ice cream took effect, and suddenly she had way more energy than she knew what to do with.

A gentle walk downhill to a bluebell wood gave her what she needed, and the rest of us a bucolic coda to a gorgeous lunch.  Any down side?  Well, Charles Wells aren't the most adventurous brewers in the world, so a pint of Bombadier in even the best state isn't that great.  And the younger staff seemed short on customer skills, but it was the end of the session.  Perhaps they just didn't understand what a joy they have at their hands.

9/10.

Dave