Devon Pub Review: The Fat Pig, Exeter

We went as a family (two adults, a daughter aged 14 and a son aged 12) to the Fat Pig in Exeter for Sunday lunch a few days ago.

It was great!  A relaxing hang out serving some top notch micro brewed ales.  My other half had the Steam Hammer Ale and really enjoyed that.  We were intrigued by all the hanging pictures.  They did tell a few stories as we asked the waitress (owner, I'm not sure) about one and heard a wonderful story about the man portrayed.

We shared a Smoked Garlic with toast to start with.  All four of us enjoyed that.  Like everything, it was  served on a board.  There was a whole bulb of soft and smokey garlic and plenty of toast.  We should have ordered two portions really as we were hungry and there was plenty of grabbing going on! 

For main courses, two of us had the smoked prawns and chips (the prawns were recommended to me by Countrywoodsmoke, a local foodie and BBQ/Smoker expert), my daughter had the Roast Pork and my husband had the Smoked Pheasant.  The pub has recently acquired a new 'smoker' and is making the most of it.

The prawns were smoked, but not overly so.  They were served whole - so we had to peel them but my son loved doing this.  Personally I could have done with a debris bowl or dish as I was quite messy, but this is splitting hairs.  The large quantity of serviettes and finger bowls were appreciated and used.

My daughter enjoyed the Roast Pork - there are some reviews on Tripadvisor to say the Sunday roast isn't great - it was good for her.  Plenty of meat, veg and gravy.  The only weird thing was that the roast potatoes were enormous and could have been smaller - that is a small gripe.  The meat, veg and gravy were all fine.  My husband liked the pheasant - of which there was a large quantity - and when I had a small 'taster', I managed to get the only piece of 'shot' in the whole dish.  Typical.

All four of us enjoyed our meal and we will be back to try lunch on a different day of the week.  I liked the vibe, the ethos, the decor and the food.  The place was very busy by 1pm so it's worthwhile reserving at the weekend.  They have a great system of chalking the reservations on the actual wood of the tables.  I liked that.

I was a guest, but I was free to write what I wished.  

Foodie Penpals - The UK Version - My Scrummy Parcel

I heard through the blogging grapevine that Rock Salt was arranging a Foodie Penpals scheme, based on the idea of the US blogger The Lean Green Bean .

Each person is allocated a penpal and sends them a parcel of food based items to the value of about £10 and you get sent one from someone else.

My parcel randomly and bizarrely came from Chilli and Chai.  Now I have to declare an interest....Chilli and Chai is a Devon mate of mine anyway so I felt secretly pleased that she would know the kind of stuff I liked and my hopes were certainly fulfilled.

 What a whole heap of wickedly interesting, quirky and cool food from Devon and beyond she had amassed:

A pat of smoked goats milk butter, goats milk from Pitmans Farm, smoked by Country Wood Smoke

Homemade oatcakes (using the goats butter) - these were fantastic and I was really touched that she had made me something - and a combination of three different Devon foodies' creative endeavours.

Montezuma's chocolate - two bars!

A carton of totally weird soya milk stuff that looks like Ribena but obviously isn't,

Thai soup paste - that'll definitely come in handy

and probably my joint favourite (with the oatcakes) a jar of Bacon Jam - after reading Eat Like a Girl's recipe, I have been very keen to try some of this.

Plus a heap of wild garlic

and to fulfil her 'chilli and chai' legacy:

Some sachets of Pukka Chai tea (ones I hadn't tried before - hoorah)
Some mega scary 1 million scoville chillis - bit worried about them - will I just need one square millimetre for an entire curry?

What an amazing parcel of very thoughtful produce.  Thanks, to my lovely foodie penpal!

I sent this parcel of stuff to Cider with Sophie - I hope she liked it.  I enjoyed putting it together with some of my homemade chutney, lemon curd, muffins, my own blend of Ras-al-hanout spice blend, Lahloo tea, Devon fruit leather, a vinegar 'starter' and other random stuff.

This scheme is becoming a regular event, so go here if you fancy taking part, (whether you have a blog or not) and please leave a comment if you also received a parcel so I can visit and take a look.