Eating Out: Greyhound Inn, Pope's Hill

Thursday, 04 November 2010

New taste of the Med adds to Deano's diet

THE Greyhound Inn’s new owner, Sheila Whyment, has upped sticks from Corfu and has brought along with her the Greek sunshine to warm up our British autumnal evenings.

For more than 24 years, Sheila has lived and worked in Corfu, but due to the tough Greek economic climate has moved back over to the UK.

The friendly landlady is new to the area and says that locals have given her a true Forest welcome.

Since her arrival two months ago, Sheila has been running a tight ship with staff and her close friend of 34 years, Chris Harrison, to make sure they “give locals their inn back”.

Sheila has been offering people a free welcome drink and good value for money pub favourites. Soon she hopes to introduce some tasty Mediterranean food to the menu, with the help of ex-army chef Gary Brain.

And her plan to breathe new life into the inn doesn’t stop at the front door.

Even the well-known dinosaur Horace has been renamed based on what a young girl who visited said that he should be called Deano.

When we visited, it was busy, with people eating and socialising. We looked at the menu which was mainly pub favourites and two Greek starters of salami and cheese and olives and bread.

For starters, we ordered a sharing platter containing an array of spicy chicken wings, scampi, chicken nuggets, onion rings, melted cheese goujons, garlic bread and dips.

Soon after our mains arrived, I didn’t expect my portion of chilli con carne, homemade chips and warm tortilla chips to be as generous.

The chilli was quite mild and had plenty of flavour which made for a superb meal. While my partner’s gammon steak, sourced from Pete at Littledean Butchers, was just as plentiful and came served with chips, salad, pineapple, peas and an egg.

We decided to skip trying one of the tempting puddings, including the ever popular treacle tart, in favour of coming back to try one of the puddings made by an Italian company Sheila is working with at the moment.

You can have a pub favourite or try something different, which lately have been the smoked haddock and crayfish tails, corn beef hash and local faggots. On a Sunday, Gary cooks up a choice of roast pheasant or duck with diced plums and oranges.

Atmosphere 8/10 Service 9/10 Food 8/10 Value for money 9/10

Disabled access: no OAP discount: yes (two-course and coffee/tea for £5.75) Kid’s meals: yes Outdoor smoking area: yes

Opening hours: Tues-Sat 12-2pm and 6-8pm, Sun 12-2.30pm, 7pm-8.30pm Contact details: 01452 760344

THE BILL Starters: 1X sharing platter £5

Mains: 1x Chilli £7.95 1x Gammon steak £9

Drinks: 2x Stowford Press £5.20 1x Small glass of Rose wine £2.60 1x Small diet coke £1.15

Total: £30.95

Copyright Tindle Newspapers Ltd Monday, 20 May 2013