Butchers boys

Cockles and laverbread, deep-fried brie, garlic bread, lamb, steak and pork. Loads of excellent home-cooked Welsh loveliness at The Butchers in Llanddarog.

Pa rum pum pum pum

A chicken curry with half and half for my dining companion, a steak for me at the Ashburnham Hotel in Pembrey. Slightly disappointing this time, to be honest. And for the first hour and a half that we were there, they played Johnny Cash's version of Little Drummer Boy on a loop. When we pointed this out to them, they admitted it had probably been on all day and nobody else had noticed. So a bit of a weird evening. Still, at least the arrangement of the peas and fried tomato on my white plate looked a bit festive.