Lunch at the Felinfach Griffin

 I thought this weekend was going to be uneventful, until a friend invited me out for lunch at the Felinfach Griffin.

It's easy to get to by bus, which is one advantage, so we got there in plenty of time for our booking at 1pm, with the next bus due back to Hay at 16.09, which gave us plenty of time for a leisurely lunch and a short walk around the village afterwards.  Felinfach is not far outside Brecon.

We have both been members of CAMRA over the years, so it was important to find out what real ales were served.  Neither of us had noticed anything on their website, but we found Butty Bach on pump, along with Monty's MPA (a pale ale) and Monty's Navigation, which is apparently the official beer of the Shropshire Union Canal Society!  We tried both the Montys, and preferred the Navigation, which is also pale, but not quite so pale as the MPA.

The wine list looked interesting - one of the titles on it was something like "Wines We Think You Should Know About".

There were also two lunch menus - a main one with starters at around £9.50 and main courses at around £20 (the duck looked interesting), and a Lunch For Less menu with two courses for £20 and three courses for £25, and two choices in each category.

We went for the main course and sweet from the Lunch For Less menu - squash risotto and lemon posset.  Both were delicious, and the lemon posset had ginger crumbs and a raspberry cream and a bit of honeycomb on top as well.

We followed that up with a pot of filter coffee.

The dining room was busier when we arrived!

View of the pub from the bus stop - the bus turns off the main road here, and turns round to go out to the main road again at the bus stop.  This is the old main road which used to carry on up the hill, but was blocked off when the new road was built.

There's also a little veg stall outside the pub - they grow a lot of their own produce.  I got some sprouts.

The pub also sells some of Adele Nozedar's foraging books, from a dresser by the front door.

There were some postcards too, of the other pubs in the group of three that the Griffin belongs to - the other two are both in Cornwall.

We went for a little walk up the hill, past Felinfach's other pub, the Plough and Harrow, until we had a good view of the Black Mountains.

Back at the bus stop, the first bus that pulled in was going to Brecon.  This was followed by a T4 that was going to Builth Wells, and finally the Hay bus arrived.  A red kite flew over quite low while we were waiting.

It was a really lovely afternoon out, and I'm very grateful to my friend for suggesting it!