In our latest Eat My Words food review, Jeremy Ransome and his wife visit a country pub on Remembrance Sunday…

There are several things my wife and I are on the lookout for when we go out to eat. Good food is obviously at the top of the list, but that’s not enough if the surroundings and atmosphere let it down.

And, however nice the meal is, I’m not going to return if I think it was really expensive, if the portions are tiny or if they don’t have a nice beer or lager on tap. Of course, the service has to be good too.

Now there are a lot of pubs and restaurants closing for good every week at the moment, but in our neck of the woods, there are quite a few running very popular establishments, and they all have the qualities I’ve listed above.

Ones I’ve reviewed this year that fall into this category are The Wheel Inn and The Secret Garden at Wisbech St Mary, The Barn at Terrington St John, The Elm Tree Inn at Elm – they all know what it takes to please customers and they all seem to be doing well as a result.

Now I’m going to add The Wildfowler at Terrington St Clement to the list. Friendly staff serve decent portions of food at reasonable prices, with a well-stocked bar and a great atmosphere.

My wife Josi and I visited on Sunday afternoon after attending the impressive Remembrance event at Lynn’s Tower Gardens and the church service which followed at The Minster.

We travelled back home down the old A17, and having driven past this place so many times without ever going in, thought we’d give it a try.

Straight away, we could see it was busy with both diners and drinkers and a smattering of war heroes, too. After a quick availability check, we were directed to a small table in the bar and given both the roast and ordinary menu.

The roast menu is priced £17.95 for one course, £23.45 for two or £28.95 for three, with soup, prawn cocktail, stilton mushrooms, chicken wings and halloumi fries the starters, beef, lamb, chicken or beetroot wellington the roasts and apple pie, chocolate brownie, trillionaire’s tart, cheesecake or shortbread and posset the desserts.

The other menu was also priced per course but a few pounds cheaper and contained good pub staples such as fish and chips, chilli, burgers and pork chops.

Most places offer vegetarian and vegan options these days, but on Sundays, it is generally a nut roast, so I was quite excited to see the beetroot wellington on offer and chose that, while Josi went for the sirloin of beef.

Both the beef and the Wellington came on top of a generous layer of colcannon mash, which contains shredded cabbage. Neither of us had ever had this before, and it was very tasty and a really nice touch.

Josi said her beef was beautiful, and my Wellington was lovely too, having an almost festive, berry flavour. Our dishes also came with generous portions of roast potatoes, honey parsnips, roast carrots, cauliflower cheese and seasonal greens.

Josi’s was accompanied by a meaty, thick gravy, and mine by a nice vegetarian one. She also paid another £3 for some pigs in blankets, not realising there would be six of them! But she said they were lovely and, along with the Yorkie I couldn’t eat, some green beans and a couple of roasties, the kind staff packed three of them together with some leftover gravy for us to take home to our very appreciative dogs.

For drinks, I had a nice pint of Stella Artois (£5) and Josi two glasses of house white, £6.50 for 250ml and £5.50 for 175ml.

We would have liked a dessert, but the way we felt, that would have been gluttony!

All in all, we enjoyed super, well-priced meals and drinks at a lovely pub with a terrific atmosphere. It’s definitely worth a visit for all you Sunday roast lovers out there.

Ratings out of five:

Food: One of the best roasts we’ve had. ****

Drinks: Great selection and better priced than at many places. ****

Decor: Warm and inviting. A proper country pub. ****

Staff: Friendly and helpful. ****

Value: We both felt £55.95 for two big meals (plus some for the dogs!) and three drinks was pretty good. ****