http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/nov/30/stornoway-black-pudding-bible

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Nov 2010

Address: Church Road, Little Marlow, Bucks SL7 3RZ

Telephone number: 01628 484407

Website: http://www.kingsheadlittlemarlow.co.uk/

Date of visit: 30 November 2010

Approximate cost per head: Around £20 for 2 courses.

Comments on wine list/beer: Rebellion and Fullers London Pride on tap. Very basic wine list with all wines available by the glass (2 sizes) or by the bottle. All wines under £20 a bottle except the champagne at £28.

Summary:

The King’s Head is another pub (see reviews on The Qeen’s Head :19 October and 9 November 2010) in Little Marlow. They have 2 car parks with one in front of the pub and another one via A4155.

The building is 16 century. Upon entry, there is a bar area with tables and a restaurant in another room. Most diners seemed to prefer sitting in the bar (lunch time) which offered a wood burning fire. The restaurant serves similar food on tables with table cloths.

There are several blackboards outlining: starters, main courses (£9.75 onwards), steaks (from rump £11.95 to filet £16.95) and desserts (around £4).

The food on offer is quite traditional when it comes to the main courses. You can have a salad (£9.50) and also with various toppings e.g. steak (£13.45), various smoked and unsmoked fishes and shell fishes (£11.90) or scampi, steak, grilled salmon etc with vegetables and chips

The starters were a different matter and on offer today were grilled goats cheese (£4.75) or smoke salmon – not quite traditional pub food (to me traditional means what they have been offering a few generations back) although goats cheese, pasta and curry seemed to have crept onto most pub menus and are now deemed traditional pub food.

I settled for a pint of Rebellion (£2.80) and the steak and kidney pie (£9.75). When I was here a year ago, I had the scampi (£9.75) which was fine.

The Rebellion was all right but to me it was a bit weak in taste.

The steak and kidney pie was home made and came as a huge portion with chips and a bean and pea medley. The chips were fat chips but they were well cooked and had a hard and crispy edge to it. The steak and kidney pie had good and bad points. To start with, there were loads of well cooked chunks of meat that were trimmed – no fat, no gristle. The down side was that the pastry was a bit crumbly and it was neither flaky nor short crust. The best way to describe it was that it was a cross between a suet pudding skin and a crumbly cheese cake bottom but it was definitely savoury and baked. The sauce that came in the pie tasted of a heavily reduced sauce but was a bit too sweet for me and then the kidneys – they were sliced thin and there were not a lot of it. Overall, no bad but also not brilliant. The vegetables were cooked al daunte.

It is very difficult to compare The Queen’s Head with The King’s Head. The former cooking is perhaps a bit more refined and the chef likes to put a twist into the food. The dishes were presented better in the Queen’s Head but in The King’s Head, it is good honest pub cooking (large portions) in the way you expect from a pub and they do not have the word gastropub in any of their literature.

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