My usual go to when eating at a National Trust property cafe is a cheese scone, or soup, or even both. On a recent visit to Killerton House in Devon, in the Killerton Kitchen Cafe they had a range of lunch items, including one I hadn’t seen before, which was a Ploughman’s Lunch.
I did like the sound of that, and I thought for £11 was good value for money for somewhere like a National Trust cafe.
I ordered my ploughman’s and took a seat. They had a buzzer system, which I have seen before, but rather than go and collect my food when it buzzes, they use the system to bring the food to your table. Yes, you could use wooden spoons, but this means you don’t need to wait around or hope no one nicks your table when you collect your food.
This was a large plate of food, and let’s get the initial disappointment out of the way which was the three pieces of celery. Not that for some people this isn’t an issue, I have never been a fan of celery, raw or cooked. I guess for most aficionados of the ploughman’s lunch (or even cheese and biscuits) celery is seen as a natural accompaniment. For me, no it isn’t. Well that’s leave that and see what else was on the plate.
There were two chunks of cheese, one cheddar, and one stilton. There was some sliced apple chunks, some sliced sausage roll (guess that was standing in for the pork pie), coleslaw, a few lost leaves of salad, red onion chutney, two pickled onions, and a pickled gherkin. Alongside was some bread and butter.
Overall I was pleased with the plate of food, well obviously not pleased with the celery, but the rest of it was looking good.
Both pieces of cheese were delicious, this was a lovely piece of mature cheddar and I also enjoyed the stilton. If you don’t like stilton then this isn’t going to be the best ploughman’s lunch for you.
The sausage roll was a good stand in for a pork pie and was full of meaty flavour. I liked the pickles and the fresh apple as well.
I probably could have done with some more bread, but that (and the celery) is my only criticism.
This was a nice plate of food and it made for a delicious lunch.