5) The Royal Oak, Wineham

It was the day after The Elgin, and my spirits were high. To be honest, they needed to be as I was cycling to Brighton... on a fixed gear bike. You know, one of those bikes that you can't stop pedaling on, more at home in the velodrome getting ridden by people with thighs bigger than my waist. This is the bike I choose to ride to work on everyday. It's become my soul mate over the past year and a half, and it's awesome.

So, on Friday night I stayed at my friends' (Lyndon and Chris) house down in Tooting. I got the train from Kings Cross to save my legs and we got on the road about 8:50am on Saturday morning. It was a lovely day, warm for the first time in a while, a light breeze and most importantly, it was sunny and the ride was fantastic. Granted it made me want gears and lycra, but it was still the most fun I've had in ages, and it was about to get alot better...

After my shoddy map reading skills took us off track and down a hill for about 5 miles, which we had to climb back up again and then some, it was nearly lunch time. The country roads were winding, and genuinely beautiful, but not as picturesque as what I was about to experience... The Scotch Egg Ploughmans.

You couldn't miss The Royal Oak. It was a proper pub in the middle of nowhere, but still busy, always a good sign in my book. As soon as I saw someone getting a big old Pork Pie brought out to their table I just knew they would have what I wanted, and I wasn't wrong.



It was a work of art. Damien Hirst, step aside, your diamond encrusted skull ain't got shit on this. This was a breadcrumb encrusted MONSTER. It weighed a ton, and was packed tighter than a cats arse, full of meaty goodness (that sounds so wrong in so many ways, but I'm going to leave it in). A piece of crusty bread more hench than Schwarzenegger, a delightful salad, and some radical chutney that accompanied the Scotch Egg an absolute treat. It barely touched the sides. I also ate a gherkin.

This was a meal from the gods, but lets get down to the nitty gritty... As tightly packed as it was, as ideal as lunchtime meals after 50 miles of cycling go, there was something wrong about this Scotch Egg. It was from Hutchings Butchers according to the menu, which after a quick google search tells me nothing. It was by no means bad in any way, but it had the softest breadcrumb yet, that of a cheap Scotch Egg. This was it's downfall (below).



Not crispy made me slightly unhappy. Also, though tightly packed in, the meat wasn't seasoned as powerfully as I would of liked. The drama of the ride. The excitement of seeing it on the menu. The mouth watering presentation. The average Scotch Egg.

I'm sounding overly harsh here as it was an incredible lunch, buttttt, not an incredible Scotch Egg. But not a bad one. But not as good as The Elgin.