We needed to have a map to find the place, however, if you have a sat nav and know the name of the street then its easy to find. Parking though on that street can be a problem.
We arrived shortly after 9 am, and parking was in very short supply.
Food Quality
I am a sucker for the flaky pastry goodness (as mentioned in many of my articles, especially the St. Agnes one HERE. We purchased a Cornish pasty, chilli pork pie and a stand pie (basically a pork pie but on a bigger scale).
I decided to devour the chilli pork pie as soon as we got in the car to set off. The pastry was delicious, and the filling was so full of flavour. There have been so many times that I have bitten into a pork pie and just been overwhelmed with the amount of jelly that is pumped into the pie to compensate for the lack of filling. This was just the opposite; the pie was filled to the brim with spicy pork, not too much chilli but enough to leave a tingle on your lips.
The Cornish pasty and stand pie were saved until we were on the ferry to Amsterdam. The pasty was nice, but I was made using wet pastry and not the flaky shortcrust (although the traditional pasties pastry type has been shrouded in secrecy). The filling was nice, much more mince that you would get in a Ginsters for example.
Then the Stand pie, this pie was so big that Tina bless her struggled to get her mouth around it. I, however, took an enormous bite and instantly regretted doing so. You reach a moment when you think I either swallow this whole and choke to death at sea, try and chew with your mouth wide open for the world to see, or fish in and take some out so you can be a civilised human being. As you can see none of these options held much dignity, but alas I chose as it was just me and Tina present to proceed chewing mouth wide open. The taste was incredible; again the pastry was tasty (which is so often overlooked).
Value for Money
Well, let’s look at how much we paid at St. Agnes. We spent nearly £10.00 for two sausage rolls, a pasty and some cake thing. Here we brought a similar amount of pastry goods, and it came to just £5.20, the stand pie was £3.20, and the Cornish pasty and the smaller pork pie was only a quid each.
Absolute bargain if you ask me, and the quality of the food was only just shy of that down in Cornwall.
Atmosphere
Its a butcher at the end of the day, and you can only dress such as such. The butcher was kind, friendly and even packed everything up for us while I ran over the road and drew some money out the hole in the wall (they do take card payment but for totals over £10.00).