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August 2010
What is going on... the Summer is coming and going at the moment which means noone knows what the conditions will be next. One minute the temperature is lovely and everyone wants to eat outside, the next minute it is cold and possible wet too and one has to stay in. However, I feel sure that the sun will shine on our Bank Holiday Parade and all will be well.
Sunday evening the 29th August we are having a wine dinner with eight wines and three courses for just £39.95. Wines from France, Italy, Portugal and Spain will accompany some tasty food from Lee and the guys with nuggets of wisdom from Gerry. On a Sunday night? Yes quite, an evening not to be missed!
On Bank Holiday Monday we are open lunch and dinner as usual but with the added bonus of the wood oven fired up from 2pm to 5.30 and some garden fun to boot. Bob Webb will be blowing his own trumpet, or Saxophone, and we are up for some late Summer amusement. £10 per person for food and some fund raising for the Woking Hospice with the Pupitre challenge. Do come and join us.
On Saturday 11th September, we are having a marquee on the village green to join in with the Windlesham and West End Agricultural and Horticultural show. There will be a wine tasting, English fruit demonstration, Farmer Jones from Clanfield with his organic meats and various other things on show. Hope to see you there for a glass of wine and nibble of English cheese.
From September we are enlisting the services of The Silent Customer to get more of your views and opinions on your dining experience here at The Inn. You are of course welcome to use Tripadvisor or the Good Pub Guide too, they are all ways of giving feedback but The Silent Customer will be the best way of helping us improve as well as getting a small reward for your help. Visit silentcustomer.co.uk to see more.
Two forward dates for the diary – Sunday October 17th we are having a Charity Dinner for Woking Hospice. The three course meal will cost £25.00 excluding wine of which £15.00 will go to the hospice. There will be a raffle and auction too and possibly other little bits of fun and we are hoping to get 70 people to join in to raise as much money as possible for a fantastic local service.
On the 21st November, David Williams and I will be hosting Quaff my Bluff, a thinking Dinner for the drinking men and women who we know are too numerous to mention in the locale. Come and learn and laugh about different wines while dining at The Inn. More details nearer the time but please diarize the event!
You will be pleased to hear that we seem to have our fire and wood sorted for the coming winter and we should be a smoke free zone. At least that is my prediction now that Alan and I have fitted gas struts to the log box and sourced some fantastic kiln dried logs. I don’t suppose that I am allowed to say that there could still be a nigger in the woodpile or that someone may still pee on my fire but hey, whoever said I was politically correct.
Finally, I should mention that our fiendish quizmaster, Martin Owton is away in Ireland for the next quiz night on 5th September. However, Derek has agreed to step into the breach and forego the opportunity to win another six bottles of wine in order to ensure the evening goes ahead. With such a star guest this could be a busy one so be here early, or book a table and dine.
Look forward to seeing you over the bank holiday or even sooner,
Best Wishes
Gerry and all the gang
August 2010
Dear Quaffers and Diners
The weather is a little cooler this week and there is good cloud cover. Plenty of people have been enjoying dining in the garden, but we have had a few attacks on Tripadvisor and personally about NOT allowing the garden to be used by children unless dining with adults and well behaved. What is your take on this subject? We feel that we have created an enjoyable adult Pub environment and are not keen to change that - The Half Moon and other places do the children and family thing really well why shouldn't we focus on something different? On the subject of Tripadvisor, I would encourage you to report on your dining experiences here as we seem to have a lot of negativity on their site and yet we know we get lots of good feedback. With your help we might be able to present a more balanced view to the world - or maybe Tripadvisor just isn't that relevant - views on a postcard please!
What are you doing this Thursday evening (August 12th) between 5.30 and 6.30pm? Just for fun we are firing up the wood oven for an open house experiment to try out some roasted meats ahead of our fun day on the Bank Holiday weekend, August 30th. Look forward seeing you for a tapas type nibble and chat after work. No need to book, it's an informal affair, just come on down.
On Saturday 14th August we are having a wine tasting lunch between 12 and 2.30 to try some Alvarino, Godello, Vertente 2007, the new vintage of Muga Rioja Reserva and some sparkling Rosado from Luis Pato. Hope you can make that one, do please call and book.
As you know, we love to cook local food and are very grateful to have met Alan Shanahan who lives in Lightwater and is now supplying us with venison, rabbits, pigeons and the like when he has them. In addition, I am pleased to report that we have been supplied with some fantastic Bisley figs which are better than anything we have tasted from Turkey and the like. We have so many that Lee has had to look up Mrs Beeton, get spiders out of the Kilner and set to work with the preserving pan. They are on the menu too, of course.
Talking of preserving and the like, The Inn will be having a marquee at The West End Agricultural and Horticultual show on the village green on September 11th. From 2pm until about 5pm we will be having a wine and cheese tasting, a local Fruit stall by Cheesemans of Guildford, Richard Jones from Hyden Organic Farm, Smoked meats tasting and other culinary fun. I hope you will come and see us there, and of course all the other exhibits on display. John Medhurst is in charge of the beer tent so there should be some good real ales to taste too.
Getting back to the Bank Holiday, on the Sunday evening the August 29th we will be having a wine tasting dinner with three courses and eight wines for just £39.95. On the Monday we will be open for lunch and dinner as usual between 12 and 2.30, 6pm amd 9pm. In the middle, between 2pm and 5.30 we will be having a bit of safe Sax courtesy of Bob Webb as well as pizzas and roasted meats from the wood oven. There will be a prize of a bottle of Vilmart Champagne for anyone who can score five out of five on the Vilmart Pupitre Challenge - £1 a go, all proceeds to the Woking Hospice. Tickets for the afternoon to include food are £10 each available in advance.
I am sure there are other things I should be telling you but I have to get back to the wine tasting, solely in the interest of business of course!
Look forward to seeing you next Thursday early doors, or sometime very soon.
Best Wishes
Gerry, Ann and all the Gang at The Inn @ West End
Spring 2010
Dear Diners and Quaffers,
I can’t believe that we have been at The Inn for ten years now. Sometimes it seems no time at all and others for ever! We had a little celebration and raised a glass to the changes here, and generally, of the last ten years and we also had a Raffle which raised £860 for Woking Hospice – fantastic, many thanks to all those involved, especially Fullers for their donation.
Isn’t it great to see the sun again and feel that Winter may soon be behind us? Easter is early this year and, as usual, we will be open lunch and dinner every day. Easter Sunday is the first Sunday of April, which of course means Dr Martin Owton will be here with his fiendish quiz, as always and the not so fiendish food and drink round. Why not book a table and Quiz while you Dine? Do call as it tends to get busy.
On Thursday 22nd April we will be celebrating the feast of St George, albeit a few hours early as St Georges Day is actually on the 23rd. To be English now is to be part of minority Britain, so even more reason to remember our past and tip our hat and glass to the people and events that make England such an interesting and amazing place. Someone once said ‘if you don’t know where you have come from, then you don’t know who you are’. Profound, eh? Anyway, book for our St Georges celebration Dinner on Thursday 22nd April - £29.95 excluding wine.
On Saturday 24th April we are having an Italian wine lunch along the theme of ‘You the Jury’. We will be tasting eight Italian wines chosen for us by Phil Bomber-Harris of Wine Traders, a specialist Italian wine company and you will be voting to help us decide if they should go on the winelist. Just £30.00 for eight wines and two course lunch – please do book.
The following Thursday, April 29th, we are having a Golf Day at Worplesdon Golf Club, one of the fine courses we have in this area. Breakfast, eighteen holes followed by lunch back at The Inn for £90. I have just 24 places of which ten have already gone, so please get you name down and money in as soon as you can. This is a super networking and social day combined and as we will probably be in the middle of the 2010 drought by then with hosepipe bans etc. it should be great for golf!
It has been said that our Christmas singing is not as good as it could be and that we perhaps ought to have a choir to tighten things up a bit. If you would be interested in some singing a couple of times per month, please register your interest to us. We are hoping to get a few people together with a view to starting practice sessions soon.
No-one is absolutely certain but it seems likely that there will be a General Election on Thursday May 6th and we will be having a late Election Night Supper so we can follow the results as they come in. If anyone can bear, or bother, to see who is in and out and what political colour will be guiding us through the next few turbulent years, please book yourselves in. Obviously, the date is dependent on that being the election day.
On Thursday May 13th we are holding a Wine tasting Dinner with eight wines and five courses, exploring wines for Spring and Summer drinking. Some new vintage Rosès, whites and light reds with food to match. 7.30 for 8pm, this little extravaganza will cost £49.50. Please book to be sure of getting a place.
The following Saturday, May 15th we will have Spring Wine tasting Lunch with 6 wines and a two course lunch for £24.95. Not quite as large a selection or as extensive a look into the wines as on the Thursday, but still a jolly good thing to do to a Saturday lunch! Please Book.
Monday May 31st is a Bank Holiday and we hope to be lighting up the Wood Oven for a Bank Holiday Monday Party, subject to the constraints of the weather – watch out for details.
On Wednesday June 2nd we will be having our second Golf Day of the year at Woking Golf Club. Another beautiful course and near to The Inn – same deal as before, Breakfast, eighteen holes and lunch for £90. Taking reservations now!
Finally, Richard Tear and I have bought a Pipe of Niepoort 2007 Vintage Port which has now been bottled and will be shipped in the next couple of months. If you would like to buy any of this we still have some available. 2007 was a great year for Port because the weather was cool and the season long, so the grapes matured beautifully and the Ports made have received rave reviews. The cases we have left are £360 per case in bond, £33.00 per bottle for quantities of less than 12. They are labelled on the bottle and box as The West End Pipe and only a few more cases are available. Please call me on 07767 802241 if you would like to order any of this unique wine.
There are other things on the go but not yet confirmed, like a charity Clay Pigeon Shoot in August and a possible food festival in September, but watch this space for more news. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing you at The Inn for a glass of something interesting or a bite to eat; see you soon!
Best Wishes
Gerry, Ann and All the Gang
January 2010: snow again but we're still open!
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