The Kentish Hare, Tonbridge

The Kentish countryside, it's not in the least bit controversial to point out, is host to a collection of the most exquisitely beautiful and notable pubs in the country. You've heard me bang on about the Fordwich Arms on these pages before at length, and the Sportsman up on the north coast is an equally important point of foodie pilgrimage, but alongside those big names there are places like the Duck Inn or the Compasses, quietly and confidently brilliant (so I'm reliably told; they're still on my to-do list), each more then worth the rather painful journey from central London.

Because yes, unless you're lucky enough to be a resident of Canterbury or Tunbridge Wells or Faversham, a lot of these destination gastropubs really are that and then some - the Fordwich takes me 2 hours door to door, the Sportsman some fraction less than that but still quite a commitment for a single day - and though I'll happily make the journey (I'd find a way of getting to the Fordwich if it was on an island 200 miles into the North Sea) it is nice occasionally to be picked up at the station by a friend after a very respectable 40 minute train journey, and be driven into the rolling countryside for lunch. And thus I found myself at the Kentish Hare.

At a table in the neat, well-proportioned pub gardens we were given a menu full of things you'd want to eat, at prices that seemed more than reasonable. Of course given my inevitable compulsion to order the most 'extra' items on any given menu, I ended up paying not only a £5 substitute for Devon crab as a starter, but also £10 extra for Alyesbury duck for main. And I have absolutely no regrets at all.

The crab, sweet and fresh, was presented on a bed of densely flavoured salsa verde, the salty vegetal flavours a perfect marriage for the seafood, and with some tastefully chosen sea vegetables, sea purslane I think at least. As an introduction to the way the Kentish Hare go about their business - stylish, intelligent, attractive - you couldn't have asked for more.

Mains kept up similarly high standards. Lamb was fashioned into a kind of single giant faggot, bronzed casing containing moist slow-cooked shoulder meat. Beneath, something I only need to describe as "clotted cream potato" for you to get an idea of how wonderful it was. I think if our lunch had consisted of nothing but a bucket of clotted cream potato each and a spoon, we still would have come away happy. Vibrant broad beans and hispi cabbage, and a dousing of glossy lamb just, completed the picture.

Middlewhite pork came as geometrically exact slabs of belly, flesh bright white and with a delicate, crisp crackling, and a kind of sausage made out of who knows what other parts of the animal. With another glossy jus, and a scattering of morels, it was another almost perfect dish.

Of course, my duck was the best, but then I would say that, wouldn't I? The animal itself had been cooked to pink and yielding, with a delicate thin layer of nicely rendered fat under a golden brown, honey-glazed skin. There was an Asian lean on the vegetable side of things, with some braised pak choi lending a lovely bitter note, and some dense, meaty "maitake" (hen of the woods) mushrooms, always a treat to see in a restaurant. I loved every bit of it.

I honestly can't tell you why we didn't stay for dessert; perhaps the options (sticky toffee pudding, crème brûlée, ice cream and sorbets) weren't particularly inspiring or perhaps we had just eaten our own bodyweight in clotted cream potato (the pork and the duck each came with about half a kilo of the stuff on the side) and thought we'd better quickly remove ourselves to a safe environment before slipping fully into a carb-enduced coma. I'm sure they would have been just as wonderful as the savouries though.

With a bottle of Simpson's sparkling wine (at £36 for a bottle which I'm sure is about £28 retail, so an absolute steal) and a couple of extra bits and pieces (warm chorizo makes a lovely pre-lunch snack) the bill came to just over £50 each with service - service, by the way, which coped incredibly well with the odd operating environment of half-inside half-outside, and deserved every bit of their 12.5%. This is, I'm sure I don't need to point out given the standard of food above, great value for money.

If you aren't lucky enough to have a designated driver picking you up from the station, the 6 minute cab from Tonbridge costs a few quid (in fact you could probably walk it in under an hour if you're that way inclined), and services run direct from London Bridge all day. The point is, there's no excuse not to go to the Kentish Hare at all if you're after a heavenly taste of the Kentish countryside without breaking the bank or spending all day on a train. And if that won't convince you, nothing will.

9/10

Golden Pie, Battersea

A few months ago a new pie and mash shop appeared on Lavender Hill. A new pie and mash shop. Somewhere you can knock back plates of jellied eels and liquor, washed down with a cup of builder's tea, the kind of place that hitherto has only existed in obscure parts of Hackney and in Anthony Bourdain travelogues. A new one opened in Battersea. Its arrival was, to say the least, unexpected.

I've been twice now. My first visit was on the way back from work on a Thursday evening, at the time the only day of the week it stayed open after 6pm. I bought a little box to take home with me and it cost £3.50, a bargain even if it had been less than good, but I was quite pleased with it - nice crispy pastry, good flavour in the beef filling (even if there wasn't very much of it) and plenty of salty luminous green parsley sauce.

I didn't go back for months after that because of their wilfully odd operating hours. It opened after the morning commute and closed before the evening commute (in Battersea for God's sake) so your only chance was either to go on a Saturday (and I don't know about you but I have higher hopes for my Saturdays than pie and mash on my own) or, as I eventually did, pop in on a weekday lunchtime whilst working at home waiting for someone to come round and fix the boiler.

This time I ordered a big plate of pie, mash and eels for £7.

"I'll give you a little plate for the eel bones." The lady behind the counter said in a broad East London accent, with just a hint of friendly concern that I hadn't quite understood what I'd just ordered. "Would you like a cup of tea, darling?"

I don't drink tea or coffee, so I ended up half-heartedly choosing a can of Lilt from the cabinet. "It'll just be another couple of minutes for the eels, alright darling?". That was two mentions of the eels within my first five minutes - I think she was expecting the penny to drop any second and for me to realise my mistake. But instead I took a seat and cracked open the Lilt.

As before, the food was pretty good. A large portion of not overly-buttery mash soaked up a good pint of that green liquor, and the handful of eels, though surprisingly gelatinous for the 'stewed' option (I hadn't asked for 'jellied'), still provided a decent 'surf' to the beef pie 'turf'.

Halfway through my lunch an old local boy struggled in with one of those wheeled shopping trolleys and ordered a "single" (presumably a single portion of pie and mash, though I didn't see any mention on the menu of any way of doing a "double"). He and the waitress chatted away happily for a few minutes, then before I had even had a chance to spit out my first eel bone, it was "See you Friday darling" and he was gone.

It was all very… strange. It's odd enough that in 2012 a brand-new pie and mash shop has opened anywhere in London, never mind in comfortable, boring commuter-belt Battersea, but the homely service, the wildly unsuitable opening hours and the nostalgic pricing seemed more suitable for the set of a soap opera than a functioning restaurant. I'm compelled to write it up partly out of curiosity but partly because I have this eerie feeling I will be walking past one day and it will have completely disappeared and been replaced by an estate agents, with neighbours claiming no knowledge of its existence and nothing but the faint smell of pastry to mark it had ever been there at all.

Or perhaps it's an elaborate theme restaurant, a kind of Cockney TGI Fridays. Just like Polpo needs its Aperol Spritzers served by tattoo-ed hipsters and TGIs its slappable "Hi my name's Jerry!" cretins with their braces and fifteen pieces of flair, Golden Pie wouldn't work without walls hung with pictures of the Queen and a motherly Eastender offering a cheery hello and making sure you have enough tea. Perhaps they even hire their own themed customers - I mean Lavender Hill is all estate agents and hairdressers. Where on earth did they find a octogenarian pie-and-mash-loving regular barely six months after opening?

But there it is anyway, and if you ever happen to be wandering around Battersea on a weekday afternoon with £3.50 burning a hole in your pocket then you can certainly do worse. And if you can't find it, I can only promise it was there and I didn't dream it and for a brief moment in 2012 there was a bloody pie and mash shop on Lavender Hill. Because if I hadn't been there myself, I wouldn't believe it either.

6/10