More about the holiday later, the next thing I want to talk about is about what we did on the way home (and you may find this slightly strange), when we reached the M3 instead of joining the throng, we turned around and headed back the way we came, our destination? A Little Chef restaurant...
...specifically the Little Chef at Popham, to eat a spot of breakfast...
As you can see, the decor is certainly different, and I will get on to the food in a little while, but I do owe you a bit of an explaination as to why stopping for breakfast (in this particular location) is worthy of note...
Back at the tail end of 2008, Heston Blumenthal (and a number of other celebrity chefs) signed a big deal with Channel 4 to make a series of culinary TV shows, Heston's brief was a particularly interesting concept - to step in and see if he could save the ailing restaurant chain in question by revamping the menu (as only Heston could)...
The idea, or so Heston thought, was for him to develop clever ways to use a griddle pan (all they had by way of a "kitchen") to create something approaching fine dining (yep, you would have to be crazy, or Heston)...and then Little Chef head office would shake him by the hand and roll the menu out across the entire chain (fireworks/balloons/people cheering/etc)...as it actually worked out, here we are litterally *years* later and *still* the only Little Chef restaurant in the country bearing any mark of Heston's influence is the very same one, sitting all on it's lonesome attached to Popham Services, just off the M3 near Winchester...
For obvious reasons, this store, and this store alone has become a bit of a foodie mecca (or at the very least a curiosity), meaning when we did discover it was practically on our way home, it was a no-brainer but to go and see...my memory of the show was a little hazy, it being so long ago, but there was no doubt that it has deviated significantly from Heston's original brief (and subsequent work), there is, for example, a fully appointed kitchen...if the pitch to Heston had included a complete working kitchen to be installed I think his interest in the project would have fallen away quite sharply...there is also a wine cooler on the wall (bit odd for a travel cafe!) and one of those machines that pulps oranges for "freshly squeezed" - Little Chef of old, this is not - but it is also not what Heston left behind, his influence, if it is here, is now very, very diluted...
The food is, however, really rather nice -
- the eggs were, I think, the best I have ever eaten, the sausage was creditable (not quite Porky Whites, but pretty good), the mushroom was buttery and wonderful, it was only the black pudding that let the plate down, being a bit overcooked, tasteless and crunchy, but this was a distrinctly above average fare, combined with a pot of (nice fresh) Earl Grey and a nice cold glass of freshly squeezed oranges...overall - excellent...I was almost tempted to stay to sample the lamb shank lunch... ;)
It's not all perfect though, the toilet in the disabled loo played random movie quotes when a little sensor detected you sitting down (which was fun - and so Flyingpops seemed to think, a remaining original Heston invention) but in the Gents the sensor was broken...and the "meet and greet" system at the door left one table of three requesting their cups of tea and coffee around six times, only to throw their hands up in frustration and leave (all the six memebers of staff completely ignoring them as they walked out through the door)...
Although had they persisted they may be been charmed into forgiveness by the proper "Jelly Belly" flavoured American jelly beans that arrived with the bill...nice touch...We'll probably be back (next time we head home from Cornwall)... ;)
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