Ah, Ironbridge, one of my favourite places in the UK. An Eley’s hand-raised pork pie the size of your head and the tastiest in the country, and a museum for every occasion.

I have long enjoyed the Duke of York. It is a pub on the Pantiles with none of the other pretensions of the establishments that surround it, a pub that has a fire going on a winter's day, is never snooty about kids and has a menu that seems as if it was written in the Seventies.

We booked a table here for 8pm last Friday after hearing the upstairs had gone through a big refurbishment. I have always been a big fan of the downstairs bar, and have spent many a work lunch there taking advantage of the unbelievably good value 'poor man's lunch' - £6 for delicious Tom Yum Soup and a plate of mixed meat fried rice.

It was a warm Friday evening when we arrived in Faversham. Traffic wise we had definitely picked the wrong weekend as the Kent Show was starting and there were tailbacks all along Detling Hill, but we managed to arrive in good time for our 8pm table.

With John Burton-Race’s happy smiling face plastered all over the Ivy House website, our hopes were high.

The website also offers “Live On-Line Booking”, unfortunately, a couple of hours before lunch, this Thursday in June, the facility showed it to have no tables for two. Thinking this to be odd, I phoned, yes they had tables spare!

A couple of weekends ago, it was absolutely pelting it down. As we had some swift business to attend to in Groombridge, we decided we would find a nice country pub to shelter from the rain and get all snug in with a nice lunch. There were a few contenders, but, having heard that The Spotted Dog was under new ownership we decided to head there.

Searching the Medina for somewhere to have lunch, we happened on this place. No cool recommendations, it just looked interesting, and we stepped, uncertainly, inside – it didn’t look like a restaurant, more like a private residence. A man in traditional clothes solemnly beckoned us in to the spacious courtyard and gardens, along a tiled corridor and into the main restaurant.

Another jaunt into the villages of the High Weald to see what interesting food fare on offer took us to the Gun and Spitroast in Horsmonden just a short walk away across the green from the Sky Sports banner adorned The Highwayman.

The Royal Stag has had a bit of a mauling over the years for various reasons, but we are pleased to say that the pub came up trumps on our recent visit.