Lunch at The Felin Fach Griffin

For a change of pace a bit of food.  The Felin Fach Griffin, near Brecon, is a place I visited a year or so ago and was very impressed with the set evening meal, the main problem encountered on that visit was that I had had lunch at 4pm and so by 7.30 I was still quite full.  The courses that followed were all very generous and there was unlimited soda bread which resulted in an unfinished pudding.  Returning in January for the set lunch I was sure to only have a smallish breakfast but was still concerned, turns out I needed to be.

We arrived at 12.50 for our booking at 1, I had in fact promised to be there by 12.30 but failed quite badly.  The restaurant is very inviting and as you walk in there is a large fireplace, sofas and a small bar offering refreshing jugs of ginger beer and elderflower.  At 1 we were taken through to eat and brought a huge slab of slate with the dangerous soda bread stomach filler, I made the mistake of getting very involved with the bread although it didn't cost me dearly until the evening when massive stretching pain and bloatedness struck.  For starter I had rich and buttery potted shrimp with toast, again a dangerous amount especially when I was allowed to finish for someone else as well.

 

 The other starter was a pleasing mushroom soup, the sensible choice for unbloated preference.

For the main course we all opted for the venison stew.  The sauce was intense and meaty and while looking quite simple the dish was exceptionally flavoured.  I did find the tiny carrots annoying as they needed the tops removing but they tasted good and are grown in the garden outside the restaurant.

Pudding presented me with problems, the one I wanted had nuts and the one I ordered also had nuts.  Didn't think about the cheese option but maybe I should have.  I had to do a swap of puddings to the one that only had almonds, this was some sort of apple and custard cake and was very nice, quite light in fact so was probably the needed selection.  The pudding I ordered but had to trade was a sort of treacle tart but more moussey and covered in nuts, I was given a small sample to try that was clear of nuts and it tasted incredible so I was a little disappointed in the whole situation.  I guess I could be happy for the person who got my tart but it was hard when I was eating a fruit (healthy) pudding that still required chewing almonds. 

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All in all a very nice and good value meal, only £18 for 3 courses with excellent service, food, ambiance and wine.  The owners also run 2 places in Cornwall which I may visit if I ever go that far away from Wales.  So the main thing to conisder is you should go but you should resist eating al;l the soda bread as they will keep bringing more until you die.

Felin Fach Griffin