 Boat Inn 
Visit For A Posher Eating Experience!
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Recommendation added: 20/05/2007 20:37
By: dewberry (YSUK rating +817)dewberry has been thanked 0 times for this contribution
"One of the pubs we've been visiting quite regularly recently is the Boat Inn in the village of Catherine de Barnes, Solihull. We usually use it as a pub and had never eaten here before, but on our way home from a weekend in London a couple of weeks ago we decided to stop off here for dinner to save cooking or hitting the chippy when we got home. I've always considered the Boat Inn to be a more upmarket watering hole than I'm used to so was looking forward to rounding off a lovely weekend with a fabulous meal.
When you enter the pub the first thing you'll notice is its olde worlde charm which is apparent in the décor, furniture and even the bar area and table ware – there's nothing in this place which looks trendy at all (apart from the ATM!) and this is a lovely refreshing change from other pubs in the local area. The atmosphere in the Boat Inn is calm and relaxing, completely different from the sports bars and rowdy local boozers we usually use when popping out for a few drinks.
As we were intending to eat and run, I grabbed a menu as soon as we sat down and started deciding which of the rather posh sounding meals I fancied. If you're eating at the Boat Inn be aware that in addition to the printed menu you can also choose from a decent range of specials which are written up on a chalk board near the bar; these specials are significantly higher in price to their equivalent meals on the menu but include more exotic ingredients and seem slightly more a'la carte.
The printed menu is extensive and full of gloriously unusual sounding meals, with a brief description of each dish including the ingredients and cooking methods used to create the meal. This came in handy as I'm used to ordering Steak & Chips in the pub, not Somerset Brie Tarte Tatin!
I eventually decided to have a starter, main meal AND pudding (hey, I'm eight months pregnant – why not???) from the printed menu and, blimey, I was so stuffed when I'd finished I was convinced I'd well passed the nine months mark and had the belly of someone who was 18 months pregnant… But that's my greed for you!
For starters I ate Chefs Homemade Soup of the Day, which that day happened to be the basic sounding Spring Vegetable Soup. The soup was actually anything but basic. It was a delicious thin Chinese-style soup with lots of shredded vegetables floating in the liquid. It was definitely homemade as it had a delicious rustic flavour to it, and the veg used was obviously freshly prepared and cooked. This was served with wonderful fresh crusty chunks of bread and butter which really complimented the delicate flavour of the soup perfectly.
For our main meals both Mark and I chose Aromatic Thai King Prawn Curry, and what an excellent choice this was. When ordering I'd asked for my curry to be served as mild as possible and it when it arrived it was fabulous; the chef had toned the spiciness of the curry down as much as he could without compromising the wonderfully authentic Indian flavours of the dish. The king prawns were huge and juicy and there were loads of them mingling in with the rich, coconut flavoured curry sauce. The Thai 'kick' was there, but it was muted to the point of having to search with your taste buds to find the spice – which is ideal for how I'd asked for mine to be served, Mark said his was much spicier than my meal as he simply wanted his as it came with no special request to tone down any of the heat. The curry was served with fluffy boiled rice which was cooked to perfection and worked beautifully with the creaminess of the sauce and juiciness of the seafood. We both thoroughly enjoyed our curry and agreed that it was one of the best pub curries we'd ever had.
For dessert I chose Passion Fruit Brulee which, again, was superb. Brulee is one of those desserts I'll only pick in a place like this as it's a notoriously hard dish to create, I don't think your average local pub would be able to employ a chef capable of cooking this particular pudding to the high quality it should be – after all, bad brulee is simply blamange, and who wants blamange??? Anyway, this one was delicious. A creamy, smooth textured brulee which was flavoured with passion fruit throughout with a lovely crunchy burned sugar topping. Wow, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! This wonderful little dessert was served with a generous dollop of fresh Channel Island double cream which succeeding in making the brulee taste even creamier than it did anyway, who needs chocolate when a chef can make fruit taste this good?!
Mark had Steamed Treacle Sponge with Custard for dessert and this both looked and smelled wonderfully traditional, I could see the treacle literally oozing out of the sponge as he cut into it with his fork and wished I'd ordered this as well as the brulee!
The Boat Inn has a brilliantly well stocked bar which has all your favourite lagers, beers, ciders and spirits as well as a small selection of alcopops and fruit juices. The wine menu is one of the most extensive I've seen in a long time and seems to concentrate more on top of the range fine wines with just a very few 'basic' bottles to choose from. Seriously, in this pub you're hard pushed to find a bottle of wine under the £15 mark and they do rise in price to upwards of £25 for certain vintages – a wine connoisseur would be in his element in this place, but as more of a Baileys girl I decided to stick to what I know! I actually broke the habit of a lifetime during our visit to the Boat Inn and drank coffee from their 'Freshly Ground' menu; the Mocha variety in particular was excellent quality and well brewed which helped me to wash down the copious amounts of food I'd shovelled down my throat!
We stayed in the Boat Inn for around two hours when we visited and this cost us just under £100. At any other time I would have considered this expensive but because we'd just come back from our weekend break I just took it as part of the holiday expenses, however I don't think we could afford to eat here just for the sake of it and will have to keep this place bookmarked as a place to eat when we're celebrating something. Despite how expensive it sounds I still feel we got value for money as the food was without a doubt fantastic, the atmosphere was amazingly relaxed and the staff were friendly and knowledgeable about the food and drink available.
The Boat Inn is accessible to wheelchair users thanks to its wide doorways and open plan set out inside, tables are placed a good distance apart from each other which not only allows for private conversation but also means there is plenty of room to manoeuvre once inside for both disabled and able bodied visitors. Children are welcome in the Boat Inn but to be honest it's a very adult oriented pub restaurant and I'm not sure your average small child would fit in too well with either the breakable décor or the quiet clientele! There's a very large car park with plenty of disabled spaces located near the entrance to the pub and there's also a big beer garden from where you can see a particularly well maintained section of the canal – obviously better suited to the summer months and it was lashing down with rain at the time of our visit and love nor money wouldn't have gotten me back outside!
To find the Boat Inn is fairly easy once you've got yourself into North Birmingham. The best way I can explain is for you to find the main A4040 which runs through Yardley in East Birmingham and turn left onto the A45 Coventry Road heading towards Wells Green. Follow this road and eventually you'll come to a large roundabout where you need to bear left following the signs to Catherine de Barnes village, at the next roundabout take the third exit onto Hampton Lane and follow this until you actually enter Catherine de Barnes. The Boat Inn is then located on your left – look out for the turning because if you blink you'll miss it!
Boat Inn
222 Hampton Lane
Catherine de Barnes
Solihull
West Midlands
B91 2TJ
Tel: 0121 705 0474"
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