The Open Arms pub in Coventry held a food and drink tasting evening tonight to show off their new menu. We found out about it from their mailing list. It sounded too good to miss so we went along to see what the new food was like.

I'll have to admit that I liked everything I tried. They brought the food out, cut into bite-sized portions, and we were allowed to help ourselves. The first taster was an 'onion ring loaf' which came with a goats cheese dip. We managed to have a few pieces of this, both the onion loaf and the dip were tasty.

Beer-battered mushrooms were next. The batter was slightly peppery and it worked well. The next starter was pate, which was nice but was just a normal pate. The hummous which followed was much better - there were two kinds: spinach and piri-piri. Both were good but the piri-piri hummous was the better of the two.

The main courses were represented by a root vegetable pie, which was nice for vegetarian food, and slow-cooked lamb, which was very tender and fell off the bone very easily. There were also pieces of sausage on sticks, to give a taste of the sausage and mash. The sausages were slightly smokey, probably from the bacon, but they also tastes slightly salty.

The desserts were particularly nice. The carrot cake cheesecake was slightly crunchy and could have done with slightly more defrosting but it tasted great. The chocolate orange truffle tart was very rich and solid. It tasted slightly spicy which worked well and balanced the sweetness.

We don't eat out very often but the new Ember Inns menu looks good. Unfortunately none of their pubs are within easy walking distance which means if we go out, I can't drink with the meal. We'll probably go back again, either for their new menu or their sunday menu which also sounds good.

Oh the irony. This captcha appeared on my website earlier this evening.