The Swynnerton Arms, Rough Close: Alan Cookman's restaurant review

I WAS told about a restaurant where they'd given up asking a couple of habitually awkward customers if everything was all right with their meals.

Instead the waiter would ask: "Is anything all right with your meals?"

Have you guessed where I'm going with this? Let's just say that if I'd been scrupulously honest my reply on this occasion would have been: "Nice turkey, shame about the trimmings."

This Christmas meal was a turkey, but it wasn't the turkey's fault.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the trimmings did not so much complement and enhance the bird as profoundly embarrass it. The sprouts were hard and chewy; the woody carrots grimly reminiscent of school dinners; the boiled potatoes anaemic and tasteless; the peas rendered grey and mushy through overcooking.

It was our considered opinion that these vegetables had probably not been freshly prepared for our delectation.

The roast potatoes were passable, although they did not appear to have been roasted in an oven, and the pigs in blankets were relatively inoffensive.

But if anything salvaged this main course from complete disaster, it was the bird itself. I'm not a big lover of turkey, but this one seemed well-cooked, moist, tender and pleasantly flavoured. In short, a credit to the festive table.

The sleet was horizontal and hostile with it when we stepped into The Swynnerton Arms, a roadside inn that was serving hearty meals when you had to settle for a bag of potato-flavoured crisps at some pubs.

Renowned for its grills, pies and chunky chips, the venue still has a loyal clientele. "See you next week," the barmaid said as one couple paid up and left.

It's an inviting place at the best of times, quintessentially English with its toby jugs, hunting prints, bed-warmers, and lanterns.

Colourfuly decorated for the festive season, it's an even cosier refuge on a foul night in December.

For starters, I ordered the delicious coarse paté flavoured with port and served with plenty of warm toast, salad and a fruity chutney.

Herself had the cream of broccoli and cauliflower soup, which tasted of neither broccoli nor cauliflower and was watery, not creamy.

For mains, the choice is between T&ATT; roast beef and Yorkshire pudding; mushroom, Brie and cranberry wellington; grilled rump steak or tuna steak.

At any other time, I'd have looked no further than the rump steak. But as it was this column's Christmas party, it had to be T&ATT.

Which is why, after the deeply disappointing main course, I chose Christmas pudding and brandy sauce.

The Christmas pud was suitably sticky and nutty and the sauce was smooth and warm, if not exactly reeking of brandy.

Herself's cheesecake was a bit sickly in parts, but better in others.

At £17.95 a head, the Christmas Fayre menu at The Swynnerton Arms is not cheap, and we felt that people going out for a festive celebration deserved better.