The last time I stayed at the Brasenose Arms in Cropredy I went with the chicken. I really enjoyed the meal, it was beautifully cooked and full of flavour.
On this visit, and having missed lunch, I was feeling quite peckish, so decided to treat myself to a starter as well as a main course.
There was a nice choice of starters and I was tempted by the mussels, however I had a suspicion that these would not be fresh mussels, but from a sealed bag (as one gets from a supermarket). That’s not really a surprise, lots of places do that, they’re also not too bad in terms of flavour, nowhere near as good as fresh, but okay. So in the end I chose the grilled halloumi – Cypriot cheese grilled and served with oven roasted cherry tomatoes, olives and tsatsiki.
The cheese was nicely cooked, crisp edges, good texture and flavour. It looked nice on the plate and was tasty.
For my main course I decided on an 8oz Sirloin. There is a large selection for the mains and in addition there are specials available too. At the time I was there they had a track of ribs as the special. The steaks are all supplied locally and come with frites and mixed leaf salad, with a choice of either red wine and caramelised red onion, or peppercorn sauce.
The steak was cooked well and had a great flavour. It was tender and tasty. My only slight criticism would be that the menu talked about frites, but my steak came with maris piper chips.
I did order the red wine and caramelised red onion, thinking that this would be a sauce, but it was chutney. It was nice, but I did think I would be getting a red wine sauce for the steak so was a little surprised. Next time I would go for the peppercorn sauce.
I didn’t have a pudding, but they have a really nice selection and from the ones I saw going to the tables of other diners, they looked really nice.
Also should point out that they have a nice selection of beers to go alongside the food.
As with my last visit to the Brasenose Arms, I had a really nice meal in a pleasant environment.