A great place to eat when exploring the many walking routes in the area.
There is no shortage of places in Poynton’s Park Lane for the hungry traveller to tarry a while. We headed for one, but ended up in another.
The original plan had been to top off a mining-themed walk with a mining-themed lunch. The Snap Tin in Park Lane, Poynton is named in honour of the metal lunch box which a miner would take underground with him.
Word is that this newish eatery dishes up Cheshire’s best pies. Sadly that word is well and truly out. Despite assurances that we would have no trouble finding a table outside, we arrived post-walk on a sunny day to find no room at the Tin.
Where on earth could we go to find a world-beating pie to fortify us after a metaphorical shift at the coal face? Just across the road, as it happened, at The Farmers Arms.
The Farmers Arms (yes, another one to have consigned the apostrophe to the scrap heap) is an 18th century village inn, which was lauded in these very pages six years ago after a dramatic refurbishment. That collision of the rustic and the flamboyant, remarked upon by our writer then, still pertains. It’s a village pub but with very stylish knobs on.
One of those stylish additions is an orangery overlooking the carpark, which is where we found ourselves. A starter of salt and pepper calamari (£5.50) was a juicy helping of battered rings with a garlic mayo and a salad of rocket and red chilli peppers. My companion’s fish cakes (£5.95) were a good texture (flaky not soggy), boasted at least a smattering of salmon and came with a good home-made tartare sauce.
A warm goat’s cheese salad (£11.95) proved a substantial and well put-together main, livened up with a red onion marmalade. And then there was the pie for which we crossed the road: a cheese and onion (£12.95) billed as ‘award-winning’ and ‘handmade’. It was indeed lovely: dark shortcrust pastry oozing with luscious brownish molten cheese and onion, just like the local bakery pies of one’s youth, well, mine at least. A little enamel cup of cheese sauce came on the side, and the pie sat on a bed of mash which, if I were quibbling, could have been a bit more generous.
Able to manage only one pud between us, we plumped for lemon meringue pie (£5.45), a thick wedge done in a hearteningly traditional style. Two good old-fashioned pies in one lunch time; what hungry miner could ask for more?
The Farmers Arms, 90 Park Lane, Poynton, Stockport, Cheshire, SK12 1RE, 01625 875858 www.farmersarms.pub
