A couple of weeks ago, I met my best friend for dinner at The George and Dragon in Hurstbourne Tarrant, a village on the outskirts of Andover, Hampshire. I go past it on my daily commute into work and it looks very nice and welcoming so we decided to give it a go for Friday night dinner and drinks.
The pub has recently been refurbished and looks great, definitely more upmarket then it used to be a couple of years ago. I get really excited going to local eateries as they also tend to have local produce and Hampshire is a county renowned for so many locally sourced delicious foods.
The George and Dragon menu is filled with seasonal produce and pub classics. We decided to go for a nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (pricey, but so worth it as it was delicious!) and get stuck into the menu. The pub offers delicious bread and butter - this is massive brownie points for me, as I love good bread and salted butter, and I think it should be complimentary as you can usually make up your mind about the food from the type of bread and butter they serve. It's my thing! I was very intrigued by an item which was described as Crispy Pigs Head and I'm all up for trying new foods so I ordered my starter, and Louise went for the scallops. Out starters came out at a good time - not too soon which gave us the perfect opportunity to catch up, but not late enough for us to quiz where our food was. Louise's scallops looked delicious and juicy and I had little pastry parcels filled with what is probably pulled pigs cheek and a yummy plum sauce. The portion size was perfect to fill us up but at the same time wanting more.
As for mains, I just had to order the burger as I always have to scope out what a new pubs burgers are like! It's almost like starting Hampshire Pub Burger Wars - I like to rank them and give the pros and cons. My burger was ok. It was tasty, don't get me wrong - but I asked for the meat to be rare and it was definitely more medium/well done. If it is a good cut of meat, I think it's just blasphemy to cook it - slice it up, and chuck it on my plate! So, that for me was sliiiightly disappointing. However, the burger was still delicious and the chips were perfect so I can't really complain!
Lou had a delicious looking salad with confit seasonal veg, smoked Applewood cheese and walnuts - just enough to fill you up, but guess what? We left room for dessert.
I'm not really a dessert person so it takes a special evening for me to get involved in pudding - Lou found the most delicious chocolate and pistachio brownie which was just so incredibly tasty and delicate! I opted for a mix of salted caramel ice cream and watermelon sorbet - weird combination but it actually works if you eat the watermelon first to cleanse your palette and then finish on a sweet and salty note.
I really enjoyed dining at The George and Dragon in Hurstbourne Tarrant, will definitely be back there again. I also have to note that we had our starters taken off the bill because the chefs didn't feel like the scallops that Lou had were big enough so they apologised and removed the starters off our bill. Personally, I didn't think there was anything wrong with them but I guess they know the standard of the food they want to present to their customers so well done for the way they handled this.