Postcard from Norfolk - Seeseafood

 The Ship, at Brancaster, is one of my favourite pubs.  The staff are friendly, the parking ample, the beer good and the food great.  They make a great flat white coffee, they have conversations with one another about how to make a great flat white coffee, and at the end of the evening the bar staff get up on the bar.  They aren’t doing a dance or anything, they are holding the credit car machine aloft, trying to get a signal.  Maybe in a county as flat as Norfolk, a couple of feet makes all the difference.

Getting a signal was clearly a problem the day when their ‘phone wasn’t being answered, this resulted in taking a punt on getting lunch.  Bad call, no room at the inn.

No problem, onward to the White Horse at Brancaster, which is reliable, spacious, has a great bar menu and more than ample parking.

The White Horse also has something new on the menu.  The seafood platter.

Oh.  My.  God.

This is what bliss tastes like.  This is the desert island meal.  This is the Death Row meal.  This is so very, very good that you want to accost everyone else in the bar and ask them why they are not eating it, while simultaneously resenting anyone else ordering this because they might tell others about it, and reduce the number of seafood platters in future.

It was better than beer.

That’s right.

It should have been no surprise.  The White Horse does exceptional food.  This is a pub that is on the salt marsh and, when the tide is in, is so close to the water you can just about row up to the bar.  This is a pub that has pools full of mussels just outside its back door.  This is a pub, in short, that does seafood.

Presumably they know a chap who does platters and the chef thought, ‘hey ho!  I’ve got an idea!’.

Let’s be quite clear, I was ready to enjoy lunch at the White Horse as only a man who has been disappointed not finding a table and then found an excellent alternative can be.  I was simply not prepared for just how great that alternative was.

The Ship is still one of my favourite pubs in Norfolk, the reasons now extend to that time they were full and we went to the White Horse instead, and discovered the seafood platter.

Now we don’t need to worry about where to go for lunch for the rest of the holiday.  The only conundrum is how many times during the remainder of the holiday it is seemly to go to the White Horse and order the seafood platter.  I’m thinking ‘as often as possible and far more than is decent’.