'I tried a Marmite burger at a Lancashire pub that's always packed but it was another dish that won the day'
I've always thought that a packed pub car park is as good a recommendation as any TripAdvisor review.
So whenever I've driven past the Cross Keys in Slyne, and clocked the number of cars parked up, I've told myself that I need to try it out. And last weekend I did just that.
My daughter was - as always - delighted when I told her we were going to 'go out' for tea and with it being a Sunday she was chattering away about whether or not she would have a roast dinner as I parked up the car.
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So you can imagine our disappointment when, as we arrived at the Cross Keys for our pre-booked table, we were told that "there's no Sunday roasts left". But, the barman added, "there's plenty of other things to choose from".
By my reckoning though, the menu I was given only gave me the option of maybe five or six dishes. Having had an amazing experience at another Chef & Brewer pub - the Spread Eagle at Mellor - I was somewhat disappointed.
I opted for the burger which the menu stated was served with gravy. I'm not averse to the idea of gravy to dip my chips into but I felt the need to clarify that it would be in a separate dish and not poured over my burger.
And there was one other unusual element to the dish. The burger contained a Marmite sauce.
I'm a lover, not a hater, and to me there are few more comforting snacks than a piece of toast smothered with butter and Marmite. But on a burger?
So when my burger arrived I immediately pulled off the bun to examine the sauce. After taking a tentative taste I couldn't help but wonder why anyone would think this was a good idea.
It didn't taste bad - but it didn't taste good either. And that's not what you expect with Marmite.
However, I was impressed with my daughter's chicken burger from the children's menu. It wasn't a bland, flat breaded fillet you typically find on a burger and even the menu's description of 'crispy chicken strips' didn't do it justice.
But the star of the show was my daughter's dessert - a 'build your own cheesecake sundae'. It was very reasonably priced at just £1.75 and was more than enough for both of us.
The ingredients included a dish of strawberries, clotted cream, wedges of cheesecake, frozen strawberry yoghurt and raspberry coulis. Although the strawberries looked somewhat anaemic they tasted wonderfully ripe and I suspect you couldn't make this dish at home for as little as £1.75.
While I wasn't blown away by the Masterchef-style addition of Marmite on my burger I still enjoyed it (after scraping off said sauce) and we had no complaints overall. And although I probably wouldn't go out of my way to go back to the Cross Keys I can completely understand why the car park is always packed.